Sky LOVE ads and shove them into other sports during such as Boxing where they shove ads on between rounds, when hearing the corners is important, you have to watch some crap for Sky Bet or a Ford ad etc.
So ads in Quali between Q1, Q2 & Q3 etc.
And possibly an ad break in the middle of the race too i wouldn't be surprised!

Sky wreck HBO & Showtime shows on Sky Atlantic so they couldn't care less for the actual integrity of something and leaving it alone. F1 is no different in that respect and i fully expect them to ruin it come exclusivity!

F1 does not often get more than a few words in Sky's financial results, but a litlle more this time in their quarterly results.

I'm really hoping that their contract isn't renewed after that and that it goes back to FTA. Afterall F1 is different to most other sports as it relies so much on sponsorship and I can't imagine sponsors will be happy to spend millions to get in front of an audience of less than half a million people

It relied on the money from tobacco sponsorship before the ban. Big tobacco needed the exposure of free-to-air TV.

Bernie was with his friend Sir Martin Sorrell at an advertising conference recently. Clearly, sticking your content behind a paywall has caused some alarm within the F1 bubble. Bernie's a new convert to the merits of social media for marketing purposes.

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2016/04/2...ce-since-2008/

And yet, when tobacco sponsorship was at its' height, the majority of the races were highlights-only...

Or tape delayed, or even tape delayed and then the race conclusion live. All on free-to-air TV. They still got the exposure.

Sky's coverage is decent but it does need live FTA coverage also and why we can't have something like Germany where its live on both Sky & RTL i don't know...
But comments like 'I hope their contract doesn't get renewed' is frankly just silly.

Of interest to some here no doubt - https://vimeo.com/ondemand/svsb

Indycar fans might want to tune in at 8:30pm tonight on BT ESPN. I'll tell you why for the following reasons:

1. Instead of just the US feed we are getting coverage of tonight's race hosted by Keith Collantine who host's BT's coverage of Formula Renault and 3.5, he will be joined by Tom Gaymor who if you don't know does commentary for Eurosport.

2. Coverage is going to be ad-free! (I will add that it will only be during green flag periods)

According to Nick Kennerley (BT Sport Producer) it's a test run for tonight's race so expect it to be like the 2014 Indy 500 broadcast where BT goes to the studio when the Americans take an ad-break.

Also Suzi Perry has mentioned that she will be involved in the Indy 500 coverage and a WRC round so looks like WRC is getting studio coverage for a round which is great news! Proud to see BT improve their motorsport coverage.

This is brilliant!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...Fformula1&_rdr

Maybe paper, scissors or rock should be the new F1 qualifying format.

They've totally screwed up the audio mix with the US commentators, can barely hear the comms most of the time. FFS.

The UK audio for the ad break is better (...and have just acknowledged there's an issue.)

BT Sport totally screwing up the audio on Indycar. Can barely hear what they are saying at times.

Some proper pre-race would be good too - oh and the video that goes along with the audio in the three minutes of pre-race we do get.

I know it's been like that for years, but it still annoys the hell out of me.

It wasn't BT that screwed up the audio; was the same on every country taking the World Feed. (Sport1US in Germany had the same issue)

Ah right, that's good to know. I hope BT continue with the ad-free coverage - a very pleasant surprise when I saw that was the case: so much more watchable, and I'm more likely to keep my sub now if this is a permanent change.

Pity they couldn't have cut to London as soon as it was clear the US audio was all screwed up, i.e. before the ad-break, but apart from that this coverage was a vast improvement

It would be nice if IndyCar or NBC (or whoever's in charge of producing the international feed) could pay the international feed a bit more attention, maybe give us a modern graphics set (with any US-only bits like the NBC Logo and/or references to adverts/US-only sponsorship taken out, if that's what's causing an older more generic set to be needed).

Also, great research by autosport to use an 18 month old quote from Bernie about social media, rather than using the more recent one where he said he gets it now: http://www.autosport.com/news/report...-digital-media /s

What are you talking about? If you make the effort to read on, it continues to include Bernie's latest thought developments.

LOL, "great research" to not read the whole article...

Unless Sky don't see value in the contract anymore then that'll be it for live F1 on FTA. I can't remember a major sporting contract being lost to FTA when Sky have held the rights previously.

I expect far more ads on Sky when they get exclusivity- perhaps even during safety car periods during the race.

The article's now changed since I made that post. I wonder if Ian Parkes reads this forum?

Even so, Marchionne's viewpoints are a tad out of date IMO. I mean I could understand if he'd said that 2 or 3 years ago, before F1's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & Youtube acounts sprung into life & the website was rebooted, but they have now, so I don't think F1's in a bad position, social-media-wise now tbh.

I agree, The graphics we get on the international feed (During the NBC races anyway) are functional but there 10 years old now & they just look a bit dated now (And miss a few small features) compared to what the domestic coverage has.

ABC/ESPN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DENMxtAi8Uc
NBC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OaohiGtciE


I also don't like how the international feed tends to cut away from some of the stuff from the pre-race leaving us looking at random static shots of the crowd or an empty track rather than seeing whatever features, interviews or whatever that the domestic feed is showing. Its kind of irritating to be able to hear the audio but not be able to see it.

I can understand the fact that it's unlikely that international airings will be split across 2 different networks, like the US coverage is (meaning international viewers need a single unified set of graphics) but still...

And I would imagine that the US feed's stuff is broadcaster-specific. In the same way that F1's world feed doesn't include (rarely) any interviews, or pre-race features. Still, that all depends on what deals the international broadcasters have done with the US broadcasters, for example Canada's F1 coverage this year includes all of Sky UK's features (essentially they're simulcasting Sky F1's entire coverage), rather than taking just the FOM feed with BBC commentary as they did last year.

Might be a bit of the Autosport articles when they first appear are always short, encouraging you to buy the magazine for more and then a few days later the article expands.
Some Ad blockers and the latest integrated browser ad blockers tend to remove the more article button now Ive noticed but still it does not show the full article.
Just look on apple news now for Autosport headlines as it seems to not do that article reduction, but it is hard to setup at first to get the right topics, beta and all that!

No, i'm a subscribed user. I'd get the full article. They really did just update the article 15/20mins after i posted about it on here. It was published for the first time today anyway, this morning.

Not really broadcasting-related but just a few thoughts of some of the motorsport I caught over the weekend. Feel free to tune out now

Formula E: I note there wasn't any chat here about the Paris race (if there was and I missed it, apologies) - I did wonder if that meant the last few folk who were watching have finally stopped, but maybe it just wasn't interesting enough to pass comment on. It was an ok race, another stupid circuit that's good for PR as it's in the city but far too narrow and twisty for much hope of racing on (and looked like a jigsaw piece on the track map) but some drivers still managed a good lunge here or there.

Shame the SC neutralised the last 5 laps, I wanted to see how they would get the cars to the end. Given they finished with less than 10% energy, it surely would have been dicey if the last 5 laps were racing laps? I kind of thought at the time the series dodged a bullet as it looked to me like noone would be able to get the car home, but maybe it would have been fine.

WTCC: Martin Haven was in particularly ranty mode, with everything from the TV coverage ("pitlane schmitlane") and the random FIA penalty generator irking him (and rightly so). I do wish someone would give him a bigger gig than the WTCC, I almost think he's the best thing about it!

It was actually a reasonably interesting WTCC weekend for once, with a couple of wet races in Hungary throwing up some different race orders. Also livened up by Nicky Catsburg (I think it was) describing his car as "absolutely shit" live over Team Radio.

Blancpain Endurance Series: didn't watch all of this, just the first few laps, but is probably the first race ever where I've actually thought the field was too large! 57 cars at Monza meant more than half the field actually had to come to a complete halt and wait for the first chicane to become negotiable. Still, heck of an impressive grid assembled. Didn't realise John Watson still did commentary on this series.

I've still been watching, though largely because FanBoost hasn't really had a huge effect - I still think it's a ridiculous and unsporting gimmick that I'm genuinely surprised is allowed in an FIA championship. I originally intended to boycott the series because of FanBoost.

The racing has been okay, if not spectacularly quick - they've made the best of what they have. But I agree and have tired of the "concrete tunnel" tracks too, which by the time they're constructed could be anywhere in the world and you wouldn't really notice. It looked like the triple-height advertising also robbed many spectators of a good vantage point, especially as there was only one stand that I could see, which presumably negates one of the series' apparent goals of racing in cities to bring the racing closer to people.

Definitely a shame they couldn't clear the crash away for even one last lap of racing.

BTW, kind of disappointed I didn't watch the WTCC now, I'll have to see if it's repeated