BBC possibly to drop F1 coverage...

[DBT85]

Orginally sourced from http://twitpic.com/5ditbp

The image with its slightly OTT headline is of the Sunday Times story about the BBC possibly dropping the F1 coverage because it costs so much for such a small audience. There are no sources or quotes though.

Apparently it costs about £1 for every viewer that it gets compared to the average of 7p for the rest of the BBC 1 and BBC 2 content per hour.

I for one would like to say that

a) I would GLADLY pay the Beeb an extra £20 a year JUST for the F1 coverage.
b) Why don't they sell their coverage to other nations to help bring in more revenue. It's almost certainly the best in the world.
C) Also start allowing non UK IP addresses to buy a license for the iPlayer. I think they were talking about it but it hasn't happened yet.

I've just finished a night shift so once I've woken up form my days sleep I shall be emailing the BBC. I couldn't bear the thought of it going back to ITV.

 

[DBT85]

A slightly squewed view there AH2. People have said they would pay JUST for F1, whereas with Sky you get the full package all the time. You would also need some sort of hardware for PPV BBC F1 on TV, something like Top Up TV. Then theres the coverage. You have no idea what Sky would offer, so you cant state it will be worse coverage. And Sky goes a full half of football without adverts (45 minutes) so could in theory go with just a single add break during an average race.

I WOULD pay just for F1. I would also pay JUST for premiership football or ideally just for Man Utd games. I don't want to pay for all the other **** and then have to put up with adverts when I will watch neither.

This is the simple reason why while I have Sky I don't have the Sports package and why if F1 were ever on sky sports I just wouldn't watch it legally. Not that F1 will go to sky as the teams want free to air TV so the point it moot.

Also in reference to those saying that they could cut down on this or that section of the coverage, the crews and presenters are being paid to be there anyway. Not then creating content would be a waste. That's WHY they do so much as they are already paying everyone to be there.

interesting viewpoint a friend of mine has just brought up.
if F1 has to stay on a free to air channel then is it really OK for the BBC to broadcast it due to needing the TV license for BBC usage.

Even if the race was shown on ITV you would still have to pay a license. And if it was on sky. So the point is irrelevant. Its a TV License which you have to pay if you can receive (not if you watch) live broadcasts or record live broadcasts. It is not a BBC license that you have to pay to watch BBC. If the BBC went commercial tomorrow there would still be a TV license, it just wouldn't be as high as it is currently.

 

[DBT85]

From Brundles twitter - This Sunday Times article is badly inaccurate, audiences for Monaco+ Canada 6.2m and 8.3m e.g. F1 is at risk in BBC cuts though

and from Humphreys - The papers/my followers are welcome to report this... "the past 3 F1 races have each had viewing figures at a 10 year high"

 

[DBT85]

Even if there were links to something Bernie said to prove he's commited to FTA, we all know what he's like when it comes to changing his mind, eg. Bahrain.

And all it takes to change Ecclestones mind is a big bucket of money. Which he then has to give half of to his wife.

The teams will make more money if its free to air than if its subscription. Bernie has said many times over the years that FTA is how it needs to be as have the teams. If it was subscription based the likes of Renault would finally end their f1 campaign as would Mercedes probably.

If less people can see it, the sponsors will pay less, if the sponsors will pay less, the teams have less to spend on the cars. Bernie is a money grabbing ******* whore of a goat, but he will make F1 stay FTA.

 

[DBT85]

I have sky but cannot see me spending the extra just for F1. I don't spend it for the football so unless they have a decent deal at the time its going to be BBC only for me.

 

[DBT85]

Will sky show it advert-free?

I would imagine so, They dont interrupt football while the game is on, they just break for halftime. I'd imagine we would see commercials 30 seconds before the race start and 30 seconds after the race ends. Then periodically throughout the coverage.

Whitmarsh seems a little surprised by the deal so hopefully something might happen but i'm not holding my breath.

 

[DBT85]

Just for your information guys.

Sky Sports 1 got just under 1.5 million viewers at the end of may for the Champions League final between Barcalona and Manchester United.

At the start of May they had a game on Super Sunday which got 2.6 million. That was for the Manchester United v Chelsea match. Quite easily one of the biggest games of the season.

BBC got 6.27 on BBC1 for the Canadian GP (no idea for BBC 1 HD)
4.9 for the British GP
5.15 for Monaco
4.75 for Spain


http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weeklyTopProgrammes/?

 

[DBT85]

If all the teams kicked up a fuss about it do you think it would matter?

It usually does. But who knows if they will or not. I'm a little surprised that the deal was announced before the teams were informed about it as they do have rules in the Concorde agreement about broadcast rights.

 

[DBT85]

Still, the Sky services are fantastic so I don't see why people have an issue paying for them.

Because they aren't interested in the sports they show?

If Sky were doing a £10 a race kind of PPV then I MIGHT be ok with it as long as the coverage was good. But I wont be stumping up £20 for a months worth of sports when a) I only actually need it for half the races, b) I don't need it during the off season c) I cant stop paying for the month that they take off mid season or when they have a 3 week gap or when it transpires that the BBC have the only two races that month.

Looking at next seasons calender, I wouldn't want a sub for the whole of August as that's when the summer break is, and I wouldn't want one for December January or February as that is the close season. That's £80 spent for something I don't want and can't cancel for the 12 month contract.

Tht's before we even get to the 3 week gap between India and Spain and whatever races the BBC would be covering.

 

[DBT85]

Im sure Sky will ensure where BBC cover races within a rolling month theyll have an exclusive race to ensure you cant remove the Sky Sports sub for the month...

You couldn't remove it even if you wanted to. As far as I remember when you sign up for sports its for 12 months and you can't drop it. If you do drop it and come back, its another 12 months.

 

[DBT85]

The teams appear happy with it for now. Though honestly how they think it will grow the audience is beyond me. Everyone who has sky already has BBC anyway. How exactly can it reach MORE people?

For me now it will all depend on how good the BBC coverage is and how much of the race we see in the primetime slot. I could accept being able to watch races at 6pm rather than 6 am so long as the coverage is good and complete. Avoiding the result is going to be the only issue but I'm quite adept at that now.

 

[DBT85]

It will be interesting to bookmark this thread though and see how many of the "I'm not getting sky" folks actually do get sky next year. It does have a little deja vu about it, I remember having these same conversations with my friends when Sky first came along regarding the football, today many years later, every one of those particular friends now has Sky and loves it for the football.

Please do, I have sky and won;t be paying the extra for the sports even though I also like football. And football is a different beast entirely, You get usually at least 3 games every weekend plus between 2-4 midweek. If you like ALL football its a great deal.

Since I can watch 10 live races for free, I'd have to pay £20 a month extra just to see 10 more races live. If I wont pay it to watch the football and get so much I sure as hell won't pay it for 10 bloody races.

 

[DBT85]

Will you be able to hear the commentary though, which is just as important as the pictures.

Not being able to hear tidbits from the pitlane would be very annoying for me.

 

[DBT85]

Sunday afternoon shouldnt be too busy. That said, I can barely hear it in the house sometimes when the kids are playing

If there is another screen with the football on you'll not hear much of the F1 I imagine.

 

[DBT85]

Yes, but everyone seems to be acting like just the idea of Sky letting you install your own stuff is ludicrous, when it's hardly out of the realms of possibility for them to do that.

Both sides in this argument appear to be unnecessarily inflexible.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that an end user could install it. It's just their policy that THEY do it. Don't want them to do it? Don't get sky. It's really phenomenally simple.

 

[DBT85]

*facepalm*

Quoted for truth.

 

[DBT85]

Only got virgin boxes. Will wait for Duke to get it all installed and tell us the results.

And whether he can get any football on it to boot

 

[DBT85]

does anyone know of any F1 feeds in 1080p HD?

1080p at the same compression ratio as 720p needs 4 times as much bandwidth. Don't bank on that happening any time soon since they already have issues with not enough bandwidth on many channels.

If you had a facility line to your house you would be able to hook up to Switch 96 or just call Tower direct and get booked across the 1080p world feed that is being sent to broadcasters though. Should only cost a small fortune And you'd need to know what line the world feed is on. And hope that they haven't blocked it like Sky do with big big PPV events.