It will be a real pity if it isn't FTA somewhere,, on a channel accessible by all. I have no interest in F1 at all but many people have and should be able to view it, at least as much as the current C4 deal allows.

Interesting to note that Sky's Twitter/website are ignoring the GPDA press release today: http://www.skysports.com/f1

Even if you don't like or agree with the content, it is a major story in F1 terms and should be covered as such.

you would think the F1 advertisers will not be very happy as much viewer people will see all the adds in the sport to?

IIRC Sky Sports Mix won't be FTA, so it will have been behind a paywall anyway. Only Silverstone and highlights will be FIA.

2019, the year the popularity of F1 in the UK drops like a stone.
I for one will not be paying for Sky Sports to watch it, the price is already too high for me to justify just for F1, without the prices rises that will be on their way before it happens...

Don't forget Sky now has Sky Sports Mix, so basically an extra sports channel.

Even so, I think it'll have very little impact. The driver's employers are the teams, and if you're a big team like Mercedes or Ferrari, then you don't want the governance structure to change, as you're the one calling the shots... So when your principles are against those of your own bosses, it'll go nowhere.

I also think that the GPDA were very hypocritical in getting a commercial tie-up with Motorsport.com for their fans survey last year, especially as autosport then launched their own competing one. Talk about splitting the fanbase...


IMO if FOM aren't able to launch their own streaming service at a level Cheaper than Now TV, by 2019, then I will have to think twice about whether I continue to follow the sport. Of course, it's a few years away yet so plenty can change between now & then

Things may get even worse for you, BT are apparently wanting to buy TalkTalk out of Youview, so their TV offerings may disappear.


Same here. Considering this is FOM we are talking about, I never expected 4K to be on the cards for the next 10 years in typical FOM fashion.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1...ttack-obsolet/

£50m a year for sky to pay

Wow! Thats unreal considering the shitstorm that FOM got when they let half the races go behind a paywall in the first place!
I feel for Channel 4 too as they're just into the sport and their original bid declined before!
Im wondering just what C4 knew of this because i can't imagine they were going to come in, sped what they are for 3 years to then be shown the door!!

As for closing the Sky F1 channel - Nope!
Look at the press release, where Brundle makes a point of why he joined Sky Sports - The work on a dedicated F1 channel and the fact is, having the F1 channels makes life easier to find where the coverage is, its not pressed for time because another live event such as a rugby game or football is on next!
And i don't see ads being put into the races either. I think how they have it now is what they'll stick to!
But holy ****!!!!

I imagine Sky pressed them hard or something. I wonder if FOM will produce a seperate 4k world feed, or if they'll have the 4k feed as the 'Master' one, and just downscale it to 1920x1080 for regular HD broadcasters. Apart from SkyQ & BT Sport in the UK, are there any other broadcasters in the world currently broadcasting (or planning to) in 4k?

That seems cheap. I wonder if Sky paid less to FOM, so that FOM could then launch a separate streaming service in the UK?

Sky have far too much going on at race weekends when you factor in programming like GP2/3. It would mean a *lot* of channel hopping if there wasn't a dedicated channel like SSF1.

That's not to say we don't have that situation in other sports, but the constant shuffling would be significantly more pronounced for F1 and its support programme due to the quantity across a weekend.

Speaking of which, does anyone else find there's a lot of aliasing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing) - sharp stepped lines / jagged edges on the world feed in the last few years? It's entirely possible it's just my TV doing it, but there was none of it on the Sky testing coverage for example.

The advertisers won't be happy, which in turn will make the teams unhappy because it will be them that get less money, whilst the Sports' management gets more.

But then this deal, just like all of the other pay TV deals, have never taken into account the affect it will have on sponsorship, and F1 has been declining in popularity with sponsors for a while now because of the cost.

I was hoping for some new legends or Architects over winter time but nope same old same old every night

Another worry with this new deal is Sky having no competition, and no particular incentive to improve.

Unless of course FOM have actually retained the streaming rights, which could get very interesting... is it too much to hope that could be the next gig for the Channel 4 team after 2018?

Would BT really of been interested in the rights had they of come up?

Yes they may of put a offer of some sort in but i doubt they would of gone mad, if anything i think they will go all out to retain the Champion League rights hence its money saved for them which in turn could mean Sky will not themselves go mad on bidding for those rights.

That remains to be seen, because I can't see there being a massive draw for those who do not have Sky Sports to sign up for it.

But then F1 is just the latest sport to be hoovered up by the Sky Sports greed machine.


No. Sky will never do that. Expect this to be heavily used to get people to upgrade to their new, more expensive SkyQ service, especially the 4k part.


People have been saying this for years, and linear is still king, by a large margin.
I don't expect much to change any time soon, a massive overhaul of our woeful network infrastructure would be required to deal with a real demand for streaming.

So like boxing, F1 will slowly become marginalised and most people won't care?

I could see them putting adverts in the quali gaps and also the races if they have no competition, but if they have any common sense, they won't do it.

Closing the channel isn't necessary to make it so you have to have the full Sky Sports package to watch, customers who didn't have the HD pack before the cut off date have to get Sky Sports to watch it.


Brundle is hardly the most reliable person when it comes to his supposed reasoning though, he did claim one of the reasons he went to Sky Sports was because he wanted to commentate on all of the races live, which of course he would have done had he remained with the BBC anyway.
Others may have different opinions, but I don't for one second think Brundle would give up the Sky pay packet.


I can't see the support race coverage lasting if Sky Sports F1 is binned, it makes sense for them to show it on the channel currently, it is essentially filler material on a channel that otherwise would be showing a repeat (of a repeat) or the preview loop.

One interesting thing to watch will be what happens in regards to Sky Germany and Sky Italy, haven't they just linked with Sky UK (following SUK purchasing them), I wonder if they will also get deals similar?

The timing of this is unreal:

Regarding the streaming rights, Was there not something going around last year about FOM having some sort of what was been called a 'nuclear option' when it came to the streaming rights part of the contracts they signed with broadcasters that would allow them to offer a separate service?


For me if FOM were to offer a streaming service that was priced reasonably (I would put reasonable at anything upto around £10-13 a month) & which offered all the live feeds, I'd ditch Sky & go with the FOM service.

I suspect they knew about it. Though quite possibly not- an almost identical deal in Spain was announced recently which may have prompted the statement.