Of course in FTA days, the average F1 supporter watching on TV contributed absolutely nothing moneywise, and no doubt the 'TV money' paid to F1 by the Broadcasters reflected this. F1 has moved on, the World has moved on, compare the coverage now on SkyF1 with what was offered 20 years ago, and there is no comparison. F1 themselves however need to get THEIR act sorted out !

Which is different from lower league football how?


Or blame the Government for the cuts the BBC have to make. Or blame Sky and BT for forcing the cost of sports rights up astronomically. Or blame Bernie for taking billions out of the sport by bringing in CVC (and predecessors). Plenty of blame to go round lots of different people.

In 1996 we got all the qualifying live and all the races live, so a pretty good comparison.

Are we getting a better product than we did in 1996? I'm not so sure.

Most sports which have taken the big money and moved to pay-TV can demonstrate that the extra investment has improved the product. Not the case with F1 where all the money raked in from TV and hosting fees is not helping the teams give us a good show.

I got into F1 in the late 1970's where we got 20 Mins highlights and if we were really lucky, some live race coverage if it rained during the Sunday league Cricket. Whatever happens, the coverage is going to be considerably better than that.

Exactly. I do wonder the mean age of those proclaiming a death knell. If you'd offered me live coverage in the mid-80s for a monthly fee I'd have bitten your hand off. I think a little more perspective and a little less entitlement is in order. TV has changed and will continue to change.

I was talking to some family on Monday about NowTV movies & it got me thinking about something.... Right now for the sports they offer Day, Week & Month passes but why not offer a Event Pass where your buying an event rather than the pack?

Instead of having to buy a pass for the whole sports pass why not single out an event & work it like PPV, You want to watch an F1 weekend you buy an F1 event pass where you get access to SSF1 Friday-Sunday for somewhere around maybe £6-8 a race weekend.

The packages they have currently & the prices they are at don't really work for those who just want temporary access to watch a specific event; Be it an F1 weekend or a specific football match etc...


I wonder how many more would consider NowTV if they could buy access only to what they wanted at a more reasonable price without having to buy for days, channels & sports that they don't want?

It sounds like a decent idea in theory. It might work for cricket too e.g. individual test matches or an ODI series. Everything would be fine until it starts cannibalising existing subscriber numbers who see it as better value for money for just those sports / events that they want to watch. At that point prices will start to be jacked-up and it will no longer be reasonable.

I'm in. But they're effectively cutting the price from now: £6-£8 instead of £11 for the same thing (assuming like me you're not interested in anything else Sky Sports do).

Simply by watching, they were contributing.

The viewing figures were absolutely enormous 20 years ago which is why the teams had far less trouble finding sponsors.

Bob Varsha confirmed as commentating on this weekend's FE race. That should be interesting.

https://twitter.com/Jack_Nicholls/st...29406105624576

Exactly - they were contributing by providing an audience for the sponsors, making them more likely to sponsor a team. They were also providing an audience to the broadcaster, who would then be more likely to spend money on the sports rights. All income for FOM and the teams, even from an entirely FTA audience on a channel with no adverts.

There was a long thread on Autosport where someone was saying along the lines of "nothing remains free, motorsports have to go pay to survive." My counterpoint is the BTCC which is flourishing in an FTA environment with a quality TV package from ITV.

Yes, that's what I intended to do.

Football in this country does genuinely go a lot further than just the Premier League. There is motorsport life outside F1 in this country, but you couldn't say it was anything remotely as extensive as football outside of the PL.


As someone else said, lots of motorsport that (in relative terms) nobody watches.


I don't even think you could say F1 is the second most relevant sport to most people, let alone include other categories of motorsport.


People like F1 in part because it's elitist and the pinnacle of motorsport. People liked football before it was elitist and out of touch and for the main part continue to like it despite (some of) it becoming increasingly elitist and out of touch.

Look, I'm not having a go at either F1 or football - just trying to explain why I think F1 will go an entirely different way when it is exclusively live to pay-TV.

Nico Hulkenberg is on this week's Question of Sport, 10:45 tonight (a bit later if you're in Wales or Northern Island) and it's repeated at 7:30 on Friday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0763xg2
(Copied from Official F1 thread.)

Might be worth mentioning that the ratings for C4's first live race could be pretty low on Sunday. Not only because of the football, but also due to England making the final of the Cricket WT20 final which is during the GP. Really frustrating.

I don't think Channel 4 will care that much about the ratings for the first few races- during the summer yes.

I'm intrigued to know if Channel 4 have a get out clause in their contract.

I think C4 will be okay because they will also have that novelty factor in it being their first live race, people will be looking to see what they do and how.
I will be....

I wonder (now he'll be commentating to a global audience) whether he'll stick to the US motorsport commentator's tactic of saying nothing as the cars go into the first few corners...

I really enjoyed it, Marc did a great job, but at the end of it he said Natalie would be back for the next one. oh dear what a shame!
The three guys, including Peter Windsor all made it a good watch.
Why do they do that show in the corridor?

Is it really though? I don't think you ever hear people talking about the BTCC down the pub etc, or how Jason Plato's won another race etc. Whereas you do with F1, even though half of it is on Sky.

F1 usually gets talked about negatively though. BTCC is also a national championship, not an international championship so you'd expect it to be talked about less.

As far as I'm concerned, the BTCC is in better health than F1 in some respects.

Yes F1 has the money, but loads gets taken out of the sport, teams are struggling, viewing figures are falling due to it going increasingly to pay TV around the world, and because so many people are involved in the rule making etc (some of which that shouldn't be, eg the teams) nothing useful ever gets done (witness double points and elimination qualifying, neither of which anyone asked for or wanted).

BTCC on the other hand has capped the number of entries as they have so many people wanting to take part, it's not down to money as to how good you do, they have for example tyre supplier and TV coverage nailed down for another 6 years or so, so there's some stability there, the teams don't all sit around making rules then hoping someone else will say "yes let's do this" or "no let's not" making it look like a joke. There's other things in my head too but I've forgotten them whilst typing this post.

F1 may be bigger, have more money, better drivers etc, but it's hardly in a great place right now is it when you think about things.

The current Next Generation Touring Car (NGTC) specification cars are so much cheaper to run and race compared to the much loved Supertouring. This is the main reason why BTCC grids are full.

No Alonso for the weekend then! Yikes!

He must be one more big crash away from being forced to retire.

But apparently it's not the concussion aspect. If it was, you may be right. Sounds like the chest on this occasion.

Yep, it's a rib fracture keeping him out