According to Autosport: "Only the British Grand Prix will be shown free-to-air, either via one of Sky's free channels such as Pick, or by one of the BBC, ITV or Channel 4."

How on earth's that going to work, they going to invite the other broadcasters to play rock-paper-scissors for it?

Autosport haven't been told about Sky Sports Mix. The free stuff either ends up there or one of the FTA broadcasters sub licences it from Sky. I think the former is more likely at this stage.

I don't understand your point?

That sky sports mix channel was obviously launched to try and get rights holders of traditionally FTA sports like F1 (dare I say Wimbledon eventually ) to dump FTA coverage, the equivalent of BT showcase and the champions leave. The difference being of course, you still have to pay 40 quid a month to get SKy Sports Mix

I had that thought, trouble is I don't think Bernie thinks about that sort of thing.
He's used to dealing with TV companies and has had very little foresight on internet or social media or anything like that.
Hopefully whoever takes over when that eventually happens will be more in touch with the modern world.

I'm not trying to make a point. I simply have a genuine question:

If FOM were to launch a (sensibely priced) in-house streaming service in time for 2019 (similar to what MotoGP and the WEC have done), would that offset the anger caused by F1 not being on Free TV?

Presumably they'll be a highlights and 1 live race package for them. Same deal as Spain who switched to this a month ago.

Be interesting to see how much they have paid for this, in a way i am a little surprised they have gone all out on this.

An Ex-FOM employee has posted this over on F1 Fanatic:

Also James Allen has also heavily implied FOM are gearing up to launch an in-house live streaming service at some point.

Presumably they'll just use Pick TV to show the free stuff. Sky presumably going to play BT's game more and more of having exclusivity whilst giving crumbs of FTA to satisfy the powers that be

Looking at Sky's press release I've got a feeling it's Sky who will be creating the highlights package. Wonder if there's a minimum amount of race coverage they have to committed to broadcast FTA? Otherwise there's nothing stopping it being a heavily cut down race. (I still remember the DTM "highlights" ITV had!)

Inevitable really. To be honest, depending on how it works out, I'm quite happy to drop F1. I've missed the odd race before on purpose. 'tis nought but a trifle.

I ask the question: are casual viewers going to venture out of their way to look at a live streaming service?

bbctv were right to dump F1

Dump Sky TV for Now TV

Get the 'sky sport day pass' now tv for every live sky f1 race

No, but how is that different to them venturing out of their way to look at Sky Sports F1 for the live races they have at the moment?

Casual viewers (who probably think F1's boring) will probably be fine with highlights for all but 1 of the rounds anyway, give that they watch highlights for 50% of the rounds at the moment.

I wonder if Sky will go down the route of unbundeling Sky Sport F1 from the full Sports Pack and let people just subscribe to that channel on top of the basic Sky package.

Still won't help the people without Sky, but maybe they will offer the channel on Freeview/Sat as an add on channel.

A bad day for F1. It'll lead to complacency with Sky due to no competition (I'd argue that their coverage isn't the best at the minute anyway, especially as nothing has really changed in the last 5 years, the pundits have basically always been the same, etc). Viewing figures will tumble. It's all god and well FOM possibly doing a streaming deal but that and the current deal isn't much good for (for arguments sake) the older generation who won't pay Sky and aren't really computer/smartphone savvy.

The difference here with streaming is the fact that people need to have some sort of steaming device. The younger generation are fine, but the older generation are not - I know that is a generalisation and a lot of older people stream content, and there are youngster who do not, but just trying to make a point

Well, in full albeit in amongst FAR too many ad breaks.

The Sky announcement doesn't say that. It says Sky Sports F1 will be the only place to see every race live.

If it was 100% exclusivity, they would be shouting it from the rooftops.

Their press release is titled "Sky Sports to become exclusive home of F1"

I assume they invite the other broadcasters to write them a cheque and then cash the largest one


Boring highlights edits wouldn't exactly help drive subscriptions though?

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet - adverts. Expect to see adverts now in every race bar one?

Nice one Bernie.

2018 will be my last year of watching F1, it will also be my 30th year of watching F1.

Luckily for me, we can't even get a Sky signal due to protected trees blocking the satellite signal.

Don't worry Bernie, i've found another sport to watch on free to air tv instead & also spend money on tickets to go watch it live.

Time to leave the TV Crisis for 1 minute and return to the #QualifyingQrisis