Originally Posted by DEmberton:
“I think people are making too big a deal of it not being live. I want to watch it live, as do most serious fans, but for the casual viewers highlights are probably good enough and the half-live half-highlights deal was always weird and probably confused people anyway. I started off watching F1 when it was Grand Prix with Murray and James for an hour at midnight (if you were lucky). It didn't put me off.
I watched Australia via NowTV; no expensive subscription required. As long as they keep doing that then that's fine by me, or just give me a way of subscribing just to the F1 channel, that'll do too.
The stories I see say this deal is "exclusive" which doesn't sound like there's room for an FOM streaming service. I would have expected it to go the other way: C4 (or someone) with a limited FTA service and for FOM to take over Sky's team to provide a premium streaming service for a fee. I'm surprised with the relatively low audience figures Sky want to do this.”
Well there's 2 things:
1. Sky have paid (what most see as) a surprisingly cheap amount for 6 years of exclusivity.
2. And also James Allen on his website has said that: "No details have been given on the online rights in the deal". and Sky don't mention it either, they only talk about TV.
Personally I believe that if FOM do launch an online portal, they'll probably keep Ben Edwards & David Coulthard doing the commentary (Ben has always done FOM's season reviews & DC has started voicing the circuit guide vids on the app this year), and maybe have someone like Peter Windsor as a pit reporter, similar to what he did with F1 Digital in 2002, if they all still want to do it in 3 years time. I can't see them adding any extra in-vision stuff live - i'd imagine they'd make all pre-race stuff available on demand in the build-up to the race weekend, as they do now on the F1 app. That way it's more convenient for the viewer. A lot of other racing series do/did that, like the WEC App & the Blancpain Endurance series etc.
If I was sky & i'd given FOM my exclusive online rights, I probably wouldn't want to them gift them my own coverage too. Sky would want to keep it distinctive in order to persuade fans to pay more money to watch Sky's coverage, not FOM's own.
A fan has also commented on James's article asking: "does the deal give exclusive rights to online streaming too? I always wondered whether
if F1 would provide a paid for service direct to consumers." and James has replied: "I think it's headed that way."
Personally if FOM were to launch a streaming package, they could offer a "lite" version, that has just any build-up videos and the world feed live for all sessions, and maybe a "pro" version that also lets you watch all the extra feeds live & in sync, plus access to archive stuff? They could make a new, remastered classic race available 2 or 3 times a week for example, with a choice of commentaries & additional video feeds.