Next time you're in Asda or Tesco have a walk past the freeview box section and see how many boxes have top up TV. Then see how much they cost compared with a £20 or £25 basic box?
Sky want to drive subscriptions to their service. Doing anything else is just crazy. people already get half the F1 races without needing top up TV, why would anyone think top up TV is financially viable for Sky? AFAIK they'd need to remove an existing channel to give it space on freeview anyway?
so tell me how people are watching F1 in hd without a reasonably top end set top box or new tv (with HD and therefore card reader also built into the tv)
Its impossible currently
Sky wwould still be getting subscriptions, it just wouldnt be £40/month - and as stated there would be MORE than enough more subscribers to the cheaper service to get Sky more income (which is after all what they care about) than what they would get from doing it the way they are curently