IMPORTANT news about watching F1 on sky this season

Skeeter said:
This wont happen for any shows that are on at the same time as the BBC live coverage. There is actually less adverts this year than there were last year. They have clearly learnt that if Sky put an advert on while the BBC are on air viewers switch over and then never switch back.

Adverts in the Sky exclusive races are a real possibility though.
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How soon the bloom comes off the rose. I'm guessing Murdoch has failed to make as much money from F1 as he anticipated. Anyone want to start an over-under on how soon either F1HD is binned or all races end up back on the BBC?
 
JeditOjanen said:
How soon the bloom comes off the rose. I'm guessing Murdoch has failed to make as much money from F1 as he anticipated. Anyone want to start an over-under on how soon either F1HD is binned or all races end up back on the BBC?
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Are you going to fund that, then?

Sky and the BBC have a contract to 2018. For BBC to drop their part of the deal, or Sky to drop theirs will mean either someone buying out the contract, or them faulting on it and Bernie suing them to hell and back.

Sky will outbid everyone. No terrestrial channel has a chance of buying out Sky's contract, they simply can't afford it. However the reverse is entirely possible, Sky could buy out the BBCs part of the contract quite easily.

So for all the races to end up back on the BBC live the BBC need to somehow find the money to buy out Skys current contract, a contract worth a lot more than the one the BBC had between 2009 and 2011. Considering the whole reason Sky have F1 is because the BBC couldn't afford to keep it, this seems highly unlikely.

The way I see it going is either Sky buying BBC's Live rights which will then allow them to put adverts in the race, leaving the BBC with just highlights, or Formula 1 just being absorbed into the current 4 Sky Sports channels which will force those viewers like me who have HD but not Sports to get the Sports pack.

Now that Sky have their claws in F1, I do not see any possible way that it will ever end up back on terrestrial TV. F1 on TV is all about money, and F1 on Sky will always be worth more money to FOM than F1 on any terrestrial channel. Viewing figures are irrelevant.

Edit: Top Gear Maths:

BBC were paying 'around £20m' (cant find an exact figure) annually for exclusive live coverage between 2009 and 2013.
The new deal with Sky meant the above was scrapped and replaced with a deal from 2012 to 2018 where BBC pay £7m and Sky pay £25m annually.

For all races to end up back on the BBC they would need to buy out Sky's contract for at least £25m x years left, so for 2014 onwards thats £125m. The BBC do not have this money.
For Sky to get exclusivity they would need to buy out the BBCs contract so would need to find £7m x years left, so for 2014 onwards thats £35m. Sky can easily find £35m.
For anyone else to take the rights from both BBC and Sky and show it exclusively, they would need to find (£25 + £7m) x years left, so for 2014 onwards that is £160m. No terrestrial channel has this.

Sky are in the driving seat on this.
 
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Yes. Although it doesn't sound like this is a specific change for the F1 channel, but more just one of the changes coming from a break up of the entire HD pack into smaller chunks.

I don't know if there are other channels that exist in isolation in the HD pack that will now be tagged onto others? MissChief might know.
 
If they had a range of Motorsport channels and content, it wouldn't be so bad, but having to pay for the whole sports package is nuts for one small sport.

Happy with sky go atm.
 
Surely this would be a great opportunity for Sky to fill the empty spaces on the F1 channel with more motorsport. This would possibly help justify the cost for some people. For example, it would be nice to see Nascar, Indy, DTM etc.etc all in one place.

It would be nice for the channel to be filled with more content rather than a lot of filler. For many months of the year the channel is empty.
 
I think my coverage runs out next month after my initial 12 months deal. I will be cancelling. If I'd used sky go more than twice or after the intial month got more use from the other channels then I would have continued. Sadly I'm not getting good value out of my package and I much prefer the bbc even if it's delayed.

I always though Brundle was a big part of F1 but I really don't miss him and wouldn't want him back even if by some miracle it went back free to air.
 
NASCAR is on ESPN and MotorsTV. ALMS is on MotorsTV. WTCC is on Eurosport.

They do have IndyCar, I'd forgot that, but that is about it.

deuse said:
Well F1 in the UK lost between 300-500 thou viewers and if it carrys on like that then the companies
that back F1 teams will do something about it.
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The UK market accounts for about 5% of global F1 viewing figures. We are insignificant.
 
deuse said:
Well F1 in the UK lost between 300-500 thou viewers and if it carrys on like that then the companies
that back F1 teams will do something about it.
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According to the Grauniad the viewing figures dropped by rather more than that....

Link.

For the first time, the report did not publish a total figure for the global TV audience, which in 2011 was 515 million. But the 2012 audience is thought to be just over 500 million, when declines in China and other markets is counterbalanced with countries where F1 viewing is growing.

F1's largest market is Brazil where viewing figures accelerated 8.9% year on year to 85.6 million in 2012. There were also improvements in Spain and Italy, where respective increases of 11.5% and 15% compared to 2011 were fuelled by the strong performance of Spanish Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso.

UK coverage was split for the first time between the BBC and pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB in 2012, which led to viewing figures falling by 3.8 million to 28.6 million.

Audiences also dropped in other new markets for F1. In Russia they fell by 12.8% ahead of the first Russian grand prix next year which will take place at Sochi's $50bn Olympic Park. This drop was attributed to the poor form of Russia's only F1 driver, Vitaly Petrov, who failed to score a point in the 2012 championship and has not been signed up this year.

TV audiences even fell in the US, despite the return of its home race after a five-year hiatus. The US grand prix took place in Texas in November to great acclaim within the industry, but viewers of F1 in the US fell by 3% from 10 million to 9.7 million.
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Emphasis is my own.
 
I've a question, I'm about to change my package again since movies have again become stale, so If I change now to add HD I already have ent extra and remove movies, I'll get SkyF1 + ent chans in HD and I'll keep F1 through the change when it goes to a Sky Sports package? want to get my facts right before I ring up :p
 
So you will be getting Entertainment Extra and the HD pack, and nothing more.

That is the same that I have and as I understand it it means you will get SSF1HD and keep it after the 9th April.
 
Skeeter said:
I'm assuming deuse's figures were per race? 3.8m / 20 is 190,000 per race.

28.6m out of a global audience of 500m is still only 5.7%.
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That would make sense :)

And yeah - in the grand scheme of things, UK F1 fans make up a small percentage of the worldwide fanbase. And we probably don't really make much of a blip on the radar of the companies using F1 to advertise themselves any longer. The falling figures in China, Russia, and the non-growth in the US probably caused more of a flutter than the Brits not tuning in.
 
ins0mn1ac said:
I've a question, I'm about to change my package again since movies have again become stale, so If I change now to add HD I already have ent extra and remove movies, I'll get SkyF1 + ent chans in HD and I'll keep F1 through the change when it goes to a Sky Sports package? want to get my facts right before I ring up :p
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Skeeter said:
So you will be getting Entertainment Extra and the HD pack, and nothing more.

That is the same that I have and as I understand it it means you will get SSF1HD and keep it after the 9th April.
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Assuming you have the full price HD subs @£10.25 before April 9th then you will keep the F1.
 
Skeeter said:
or anyone else to take the rights from both BBC and Sky and show it exclusively, they would need to find (£25 + £7m) x years left, so for 2014 onwards that is £160m. No terrestrial channel has this.

Sky are in the driving seat on this.
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Hmmmm NO

"As a result of its activities in 2011/12, BBC Worldwide returned a record £216million of cash to the BBC (2010/11: £182million), equivalent to 6% of licence fee income."


" Underlying sales (excluding sales of Magazines) increased 5.4% to £1,085million and the headline profit (excluding exceptional items) increased to £155million."

"Total content spend by service shows that our spending reduced to £2,356million (2010/11: £2,475million)."

Someone at sky payed a back hander ;)
 
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