BBC to end Formula 1 television contract early

Cosimo · 21 Dec 2015 at 17:50

El_Watcher said:
One question, I don't know if anyone here will know, but does the licence fee cover the maintenance and upgrades to the transmitter equipment used to broadcast terrestrial TV? Or is this paid for by some other tax?

And who actually owns and runs these transmitters?

Public broadcasting assets were privatised in 1997. Arqiva owns and operates them.

It provides the infrastructure that the public service broadcasters and mobile network operators need to meet their national coverage obligations. The group owns 1,154 television broadcast towers and 8,700 active wireless sites, together with two out of the three commercial digital terrestrial television spectrum multiplexes. It also up-links 250 channels to the Sky satellite via five teleports. Arqiva is a private company with shareholders that include infrastructure investors Canada Pension Plan and Macquarie.

this_is_gav · 21 Dec 2015 at 21:13

Mr Jones said:
I hope C4 takes it over and give it a little "Youth" view, draw in younger audience to this modern era of F1, as EJ just annoys the nuts out of me.

Channel 4 made that mistake with the World Athletics Championships and were absolute slated from all angles, such was the resulting disaster. They tried doing what the BBC did with Jake Humphrey in F1 and it was as bad as Humphrey was good. It didn't work to the extent that it was some of the worst TV in a generation.

JoeF1 said:
Sky F1 for life. The subscription is worth it just for Ted.

The subscription is 'worth it' only for Ted. The rest are very meh, even Brundle now.

utajoker · 21 Dec 2015 at 21:34

doesnt bother me, much prefer sky sports coverage. Haven't watched it on the BBC since sky took it on.

muon · 21 Dec 2015 at 21:39

The other thing about Formula 1 is that it takes up a lot of air time. A lot of it can be during prime time as well and the times can drift a lot if it rains.

I can see why they dropped it, as the main group of people that actually watch it are the older male demographic.

Slam62 · 21 Dec 2015 at 21:45

Wow, a pretty bad indictment of F1,

Has it been so low in the last 30 years?

SDK^ · 21 Dec 2015 at 21:47

Spunkey said:
I've been an F1 fan since I was a kid in the early 90s. I've watched every season since then, but honestly it bores the living **** out of me these days.

Pretty much where I am too.

Skeeter · 21 Dec 2015 at 22:13

Slam62 said:
Wow, a pretty bad indictment of F1,

Has it been so low in the last 30 years?

By what measure?

Duke · 21 Dec 2015 at 22:14

I personally enjoyed the processional races of the Schumacher era.

Wait, what.

Merlin5 · 21 Dec 2015 at 22:17

I'm gutted at this news as I love the BBC coverage. I really like what Coulthard has to say and I'm one of the rare people that enjoys EJ. I also used iPlayer a lot to catchup as I wasn't able to watch many races and qualis.

The good thing that might come out of this is if C4 or ITV take it on, is hopefully they'll air all the races live and not just a few through the season.

Skeeter · 21 Dec 2015 at 22:18

Channel 4 have picked up the deal, showing 10 races live and the rest as highlights, so the same arrangement BBC had.

smr · 21 Dec 2015 at 22:39

There was a programming synposis which Channel 4 had released on the Internet a couple of years ago about the way they would do F1 as they were going to buy the rights sooner than this, and it actually looked quite good. Will be interesting to see what they can do with it but they must hire a decent team, and no one will be better than Crofty, Davidson, Hill, Herbert, Brundle and Crofty!

Merlin5 · 21 Dec 2015 at 23:37

Skeeter said:
Channel 4 have picked up the deal, showing 10 races live and the rest as highlights, so the same arrangement BBC had.

Bah, still only 10 races.

"The future of the BBC’s presenting and commentary team of Suzi Perry, Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard is now up in the air, with Channel 4 only saying there will be an announcement about its line-up in due course."

Is there any likelihood Coulthard and EJ or just one of them might get picked up by C4?

Tweaker · 21 Dec 2015 at 23:59

The issue is, if C4 don't see any new interest from viewers, or viewer numbers stay the same, will anyone want to tender for the deal in a few years a part from Sky.

Destination · 22 Dec 2015 at 04:44

Have details been released of how much the bbc has to pay in the punishment clause for getting out of the contract early?

-edit, i hate the thought that little bernie troll is getting a christmas bonus from the licence fee, and we're not getting any f1 in return, and the wee **** will avoid tax on it also, as he always manages.

UTmaniac · 22 Dec 2015 at 05:56

Any confirmed news on who will be presenting/commentating on C4 yet?

deuse · 22 Dec 2015 at 06:25

Tweaker said:
The issue is, if C4 don't see any new interest from viewers, or viewer numbers stay the same, will anyone want to tender for the deal in a few years a part from Sky.

They will get between 2-5 million viewers at each race, that they never had before.

I think sky will be the most worried about this. They've never had a channel showing adverts like they do before.

I'm hoping chan 4 does a great job and maybe buy the whole season in 2019 and beyond

Slam62 · 22 Dec 2015 at 06:59

Skeeter said:
By what measure?

Channel 4 is a TV backwater .

RevBillyG · 22 Dec 2015 at 07:46

Looks like I'll be watching it on either the Dutch channels (complete with adverts and commentators that can't pronounce the drivers names correctly and sound bored) or the German channels that aren't available in HD here

Skeeter · 22 Dec 2015 at 09:31

Tweaker said:
The issue is, if C4 don't see any new interest from viewers, or viewer numbers stay the same, will anyone want to tender for the deal in a few years a part from Sky.

What we are witnessing is F1 being dropped from free to air TV and becoming Pay TV only. Its just happening in slow motion.

If the BBC could have dropped the whole thing in 2012 and let Sky take it all they would have, but Bernie wouldn't let them.

Hikari Kisugi said:
Have details been released of how much the bbc has to pay in the punishment clause for getting out of the contract early?

-edit, i hate the thought that little bernie troll is getting a christmas bonus from the licence fee, and we're not getting any f1 in return, and the wee **** will avoid tax on it also, as he always manages.

I imagine that Channel 4 have just bought out the rest of the contract from the BBC for whatever the rest of it was worth.

deuse · 22 Dec 2015 at 11:00

So channel 4 has already put money in to Whisper Films. So could this be a come back for Jake Humphrey as the main man and DC for the rest?