http://www.guardian.co.uk/medi ... share-f1-broadcast-rights
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/h ... t/formula_one/9550930.stm

Details: SKY will have all of the coverage of all races LIVE (including practice, qualifying and races) on TV, on mobile and online (with no adverts reportedly) whereas the BBC will show 'key' races (up to half of the season) LIVE with coverage on TV and online for those races.

Thoughts? The death of casual F1? What was needed?

FYI those outside of the UK, the BBC is our licence fee-paid public broadcaster and Sky is a News Corp-owned subscription network.

tbh i always like it on bbc. it has no adverts, brilliant commentators and if the race is delay ( like Canada ) the F1 gets priority over the antiques roadshow. i see no reason or a benefit of Sky taking over.

Whatever happens I hope I can find decent live streams for the ones not on BBC.

Absolute and utter bullcrap!



Screw you Murdoch. You're not seeing a single penny of mine.

I think it's a good thing for the BBC. The licence fee can only be justified for a number of programs and output. So impartial news coverage (well it's attempt to) and documentaries and programs the market usually wouldn't provide (BBC Parliament). I don't like the licence fee but there's a certain level of justification that can be placed on it if it adheres to it's own remit.

It has to be remembered there are plenty of people within the BBC who were unhappy about the F1 deal done a few years ago. They paid an astronomical fee to get F1, and for what justification? F1 is not, and never should be a public service. It's a bunch of billionaires playing toy cars. People are getting very moralistic about the decision but they are so naive. it's as if they think F1 is some moral beacon of enlightenment. Are people that stupid to not know where all the billions comes from to fund F1, really THAT stupid?

The fact is, even people within the BBC didn't want F1 on the BBC, certainly not at the price they were paying.

I think we'll probably see a drop in viewing figures, but maybe that's what is needed. Time for other motorsports to actually be able to compete with F1 on a 'fairer' playing field.

I would also like the term free-to-air banned. The BBC is not free-to-air.

and btw Sky will provide superb coverage. Anything to get one over on the Beeb, especially as they will be going head-to-head.

Not sure why I'm getting a vision of a F1 race broadcasted by Sky with commentators like Chris kamara...
Maybe it's just me

Looks like I will stop watching F1 so obsessively. I'm happy to pay the licence fee towards it, and I'd happy pay more to fund F1. And we pay for F1 via the sponsors anyway (their money comes from the global public ultimately). I see no reason to pay three times to watch it.

Effectively Sky are blackmailing us to watch it - pay up, or don't watch.

I'll choose not watching.

I'm speechless. Only way to watch F1 from next year will be to pirate streams? Possibility of no Martin Brundle? This really really really really sucks. First time ever F1 won't be free-to-air in the UK.

Quote from @MBrundleF1 :

BBC/Sky/F1 2012+. Found out last night, no idea how it will work yet. I'm out of contract, will calmly work through options. Not impressed.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Looks like I will stop watching F1 so obsessively. I'm happy to pay the licence fee towards it, and I'd happy pay more to fund F1. And we pay for F1 via the sponsors anyway (their money comes from the global public ultimately). I see no reason to pay three times to watch it.

Effectively Sky are blackmailing us to watch it - pay up, or don't watch.

I'll choose not watching.

The BBC blackmail everyone who wants to own a TV. You have to pay the BBC or you can't watch anything at ALL - Sky/ITV/babestation/whatever.

Last time I checked it's not Sky who send the heavies round to people's houses (many of whom are on the lower end of the earning spectrum) demanding money and then threatening with legal action if they don't want to access their service. They even send them round to people who don't even own TVs.

Don't want to pay for Sky but want to watch other TV - completely free to do so
Don't want to pay for BBC but want to watch other TV - no freakin' way. See you in court. Constant harassment.
Don't own a TV - Still the BBC licence men come round and send you letters.

So that's a bit of perspective on this 'blackmailing' nonsense claim.

I am not a huge fan of the Murdoch's or Sky, it has to be said. But F1 on SKy? yh, whatever! F1 finally has to stand on it's own two feet and not be mothered by the tax payer.

http://corporate.sky.com/skyvi ... y_sports_hd/f1_sky_sports

Quote :

I’m delighted to say that Sky Sports will be showing every F1TMGrand Prix until 2018. Subscribers are in for a real treat as Sky Sports gets ready to show every second of every race, qualifier and practice session. And, as you might expect, they can look forward to F1TM being given the Sky Sports treatment, with in-depth coverage and cutting edge innovation. In short, it promises to be a commitment to each race never seen before on UK television.

Hopefully the fact that they have used italics in their press release means that the races will not be interrupted by adverts.

If they can show a 3hr movies ad-free then I'm sure they can manage a 2hr race.

I think no adverts is what;s planned. Though we'll have to wait and see.

i have a slight suspicion the Murdoch's want to use this as a loss-leader. They still keep The Times open and that's not profitable for example.

because it's going right up against the Beebs coverage I reckon they are going to invest rather heavily in making in more in-depth and varied. The F1 channel experimented with a few years ago was very good, just completely uncompetitive at the time.

Quote from Intrepid :

The BBC blackmail everyone who wants to own a TV. You have to pay the BBC or you can't watch anything at ALL - Sky/ITV/babestation/whatever.

Last time I checked it's not Sky who send the heavies round to people's houses (many of whom are on the lower end of the earning spectrum) demanding money and then threatening with legal action if they don't want to access their service. They even send them round to people who don't even own TVs.

Don't want to pay for Sky but want to watch other TV - completely free to do so
Don't want to pay for BBC but want to watch other TV - no freakin' way. See you in court. Constant harassment.
Don't own a TV - Still the BBC licence men come round and send you letters.

So that's a bit of perspective on this 'blackmailing' nonsense claim.

I am not a huge fan of the Murdoch's or Sky, it has to be said. But F1 on SKy? yh, whatever! F1 finally has to stand on it's own two feet and not be mothered by the tax payer.

But that point of view is only valid if you have a irrational hatred of the BBC and their funding system. The cost of F1 was something like 0.05p of every licence fee.

Worse, the BBC are happy to pay for pointless one year to go to the Olympics parties, and nobody minds. But as soon as they broadcast the biggest sport in the world people think it's a waste of money?

BBC could have reduced their costs by not taking jake, eddie, martin, david etc. 5 lives radio / red button coverage is far better. not to mention the fact they apparently paid not to coverr the support races, why not cover them on bloody bbc 3 or 4 or even on the red button rather than spend even more money on opting out?

anyway it looks like the teams aren't too happy about it and want more details off bernie, i'd imagine the viewing figure will be vastly smaller than the BBCs and i'd always understood that it was because of this that part of the conditions said the coverage had to be "free to air" (yes i know the arguments intrepid but i'm using the phrase in it's commonly understood meaning)

personally the cost won't be an issue as i already have sky sports but i do not fancy sky covering it unless they actually manage to not show commercials or at least do them P.I.P.

Quote from tristancliffe :

But that point of view is only valid if you have a irrational hatred of the BBC and their funding system. The cost of F1 was something like 0.05p of every licence fee.

Worse, the BBC are happy to pay for pointless one year to go to the Olympics parties, and nobody minds. But as soon as they broadcast the biggest sport in the world people think it's a waste of money?

I don't have a irrational hatred of the BBC. A lot of their output is very good, but their funding model is something I object too especially when the corporation has a political bias. Even in fair tax terms the less wealthy pay a higher proportion of their earnings than the rich. Poll tax anyone?

I keep hearing people saying they'd pay double for the licence. Well if they went subscription there wouldn't be a problem then? Or are people just bullshitting.

In regards to F1 I don't think it should be subsidised by the tax payer. WHy should it receive £45m a year from the British tax payer? Why should it hold such a competitive market advantage? It has a state-supported monopoly of motorsport, that i can't support. F1 is NOT a public service.

The Olympics? Well it perfectly fits the BBCs political ideology.And a lot of people were annoyed at the amount of money they spent on the show.

But the main point is that even those who SUPPORT the BBC have found it hard to justify the spend on F1. This isn't purely anti-BBC

re licence fee, i'd have thought the current murdoch situation is the best argument ever why you should have a non commercial channel funded by the tax payers for news / investigative journalism at least.


having said that the BBC has become stupidly oversized, any major story and you get a national news journalist and a specialist news journalist with their crew, a local news journalist with their crew, national radio journalists with their crew and local radio journalists with a phone and a recorder. also maybe BBC should stop producing all the populist crap like eastenders etc unless they are commercially viable through sales to other channels / merchandising (unfortunatly this probably saves eastenders ), concentrate on news and current affairs and then buy in any other programs according to it's budget

Quote from Intrepid :

=? It has a state-supported monopoly of motorsport, that i can't support.

surprised at you saying that intrepid, i thought that you of all people would realise that the BBC shows hardly any motorsport, all it does is go out of it's way to make people think that F1 is motorsport and that nothing else matters.

to say that the F1 coverage gives it a monopoly is like saying that because it covers wimbledon it has a monopoly on all ball sports and is normally the argument used by those who don't see the need for any coverage of GP2, GP3, NASCAR, indycar, BTCC, WTCC, IRL, WRC, ALMS, ISC, grand am, formula 2, formula 3, superleague, legends racing, fun cup, formula renault, porsche supercup, GT1, brit GT, ma5da mx5's, etc etc etc etc not to mention karting

Quote from tinvek :

surprised at you saying that intrepid, i thought that you of all people would realise that the BBC shows hardly any motorsport, all it does is go out of it's way to make people think that F1 is motorsport and that nothing else matters.

I was referring to F1 which has a state-funded monopoly of motorsport, not the BBC. The BBC, a long with other state institutions, facilitate that monopoly.

Quote from tinvek :

re licence fee, i'd have thought the current murdoch situation is the best argument ever why you should have a non commercial channel funded by the tax payers for news / investigative journalism at least.

The BBC journalism can often be quite flaky, mis-informed and bias. It's no better than the rest of them. However when it gets it wrong nothing can stop it's funding. No one can stop buying it. Yh send in a complaint that gets ignored, so what?

you could say the same for state education, maybe all schools should be commercial only, then parents could choose how much to spend on their education rather than people with no children having to fund it, my son's left primary school, i've no interest in primary education, why should i help fund the state's near monopoly on it?

more topically, why not make universities completely commercially funded, if you want to use them, pay for them, don't force them to be subsidised by tax payers

the BBC has it's faults, look at my earlier post, but compared to how much of our money gets spent on other things we have no choice over it's a drop in the ocean

(just to add i don't believe in the arguments about education, just used them as examples of how you can apply the BBc licence fee argument to other areas)

Quote from tinvek :

you could say the same for state education, maybe all schools should be commercial only, then parents could choose how much to spend on their education rather than people with no children having to fund it, my son's left primary school, i've no interest in primary education, why should i help fund the state's near monopoly on it?

Education of children is rather different than a game of millionaires playing toy cars. We're talking about a business of rich men Vs kids learning to read and write. You know it's very very different. Though state education is often appalling I spent all my life in them and learnt nothing apart from how to blag exams.

agree 100% about BBC and F1, to continue what i said earlier, i'd be happy with a licence fee that was reduced in real terms if the BBC stuck to just making news / current affairs, state occasions etc, anything else it either bought in out of it's (hopefully reduced budget) or if it wanted to make them itself, had to decide if they're commercially viable with sales ( dr who being a good example with it's merchandise, overseas sales, licencing etc, god know how many BBC fails that pays for). torchwood is a role model for this, BBC gave it a small budget and the show never really showed it's true potential in first 2 series, third series they had money from other networks and it became better, now with most of the funding from a commercial channel, it has the budget it needs and the BBC has a better show for less cost.

I think the main issue is people see the BBC as some defence to the evil Murdoch empire. In reality they are both very similar. Both funding models are out of date, and they are both politically bias. It's just one can be ignored and you are free to purchase other rival products, and the other forces you by law to purchase it. News International's bubble will burst by market forces (the internet) anyway, I don't know why people get so panicky. The BBC will just try to impose more and more laws.

Quote from DarkTimes :

I'm speechless. Only way to watch F1 from next year will be to pirate streams? Possibility of no Martin Brundle? This really really really really sucks. First time ever F1 won't be free-to-air in the UK.

Well the only way to watch live Premiership and SPL football is through internet streams, and there's no shortage of them. So I wouldn't worry about being able to watch them live, plus there's also RFM.

Quote from speed1230 :

Not sure why I'm getting a vision of a F1 race broadcasted by Sky with commentators like Chris kamara...
Maybe it's just me

Is that really your best shot at a dig at Sly Sports? Chris Kamara is a brilliant laugh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8gKmQ6Hrro

Quote from Intrepid :

I think the main issue is people see the BBC as some defence to the evil Murdoch empire. ...they are both politically bias. It's just one can be ignored...

Exactly, some people see the evil Murdoch empire yet forget about the other newspaper groups and the BBC, but you can ignore the former and say f off to Mirror/AP/News Int - how does one say f off to the BBC if you want to watch other channels?

Anyway, for me there's some motorsport I'll watch live all the time - F1, BTCC and the support races. Others I'll watch intermittently on the internet, and also see what these races are like (GP2/3, Indy, (A)LMS, etc) and watch them later if they are any good. Ultimately, F1 on Sky will become like that for many.

Well I in no uncertain terms told BBC where to shove their fee, I think I will also send them an invoice for my television, because I no longer have a need for it.

Absolutely disgusting to see this happen, I didn't buy a TV licence to ****ing watch gypo wedding shit on BBC3.

To me the simple suggestion to save a fair amount of money would be to close the shocking BBC3 channel, and some of the terrible Radio stations aimed at different things in the UK...the BBC has become over inflated with mediocre television of late, and even its "flagship" Eastenders seems to be on a steady decline. If the BBC wasn't so set in it's ways over certain programming that simply isn't quality or even needed, they could find many ways to make the cut, while retaining things that they are good at. But heyho, tarrah F1.