Originally Posted by
Colin_London:
“Both my wife and myself are avid F1 fans. But we drew the line at taking out a Sky subscription to continue watching it live. We are perfectly happy with Freeview / Youview for all our other viewing (maybe rent an on-demand film once a month from BT!) and see no justification for paying for all the other dross on Sky to watch the other half of the races live.
So we obviously watch the live races on BBC One HD, and on weekends with highlights we just avoid the news bulletins until the highlights are shown (and they are extended highlights after all).
Did Sky really think that the present arrangement would persuade people like us to fork out for a sub and to have a hunk of metal attached to their wall? I think they got blinded by the glitz.
Don't get me wrong - we could afford it if we were so inclined, but we don't throw money away on things when it's not justified.
Plus I hate the digger and all his organisation stands for
”
I know some people who "increase" the BBC Formula 1 content as it were be recording the qualifying session coverage and then watching that before the race highlights commences so you get a long period of F1 action overall.
(I also agree with your last point on ethical grounds, btw)
Originally Posted by PrinceGaz:
“Obviously audiences would decline significantly in the UK with it being no longer FTA, and equally obviously, the sponsors who provide most of the money to fund the teams would be very unhappy with this because they want lots of viewers.
If you're serious about watching F1, you're going to watch it live one way or another, whether by subscribing to Sky Sports F1 yourself, or via a family-member who does, or using some other online or international satellite feed.
Most people aren't that serious about F1 which is the problem. If the race is on their TV when they switch to that channel, they'll watch it; if not, they won't. In addition for semi-serious viewers who would like to watch but aren't going to go out of their way to do so, only showing half of the races is almost like only showing only half of each football match in terms of the enjoyment of the sport. Not being able to watch half of the races live pretty much kills the deal so you just don't bother at all. So most people who used to watch the races are no longer doing so.
All that matters to BE will be whether the increased money from the deal with Sky in the UK makes up for the likely drop in sponsorship revenue for the teams. The teams won't be happy if they end up worse off because of this Sky deal and could refuse to sign up to another year unless changes are made which makes up for it. In an ideal world that would be all the races back on FTA channels, that's what the sponsors would want, but if BE can get more money out of Sky (and therefore Sky subscribers) to give to the teams that would be the other option.”
We can't be sure but I suspect that Bernie expected (did he see a prediction in some dodgy Sky business plan?) a mass transference of F1 fans to Sky so that none of this would have arisen. That quite clearly hasn't happened because of the very low viewing figures for the Sky F1 channel as reported by BARB.
Perhaps a sponsor or advertiser decided to bend Bernie's ear over the disturbing loss of F1 viewers because something like that could well have provoked Bernie's public outburst which must have embarrassed Sky hence their unwillingness to comment. I still don't think Bernie's proposed remedy is practical though.