The Great (?) BTCC Streaming v TV Debate 2017

[pagey318]

If you are trying to watch BTCC outside of the UK...

Download an app called Tunnel Bear...

You can watch ITV player completely not illegally, you could say its an accident really...

[Peter Mallett]

Moved from Oulton Park thread.

[Greem]

Ta muchly, Peter

[pimmy]

Originally Posted by touring fan01

seriously?! in australia more than half the supercars events are not on free to air and their viewing figures dropped through the floor because free to air viewers can only watch short highlights. supercars fans in australia have been up in arms about the lack of free to air broadcasting as they have to pay heavily to watch the coverage you outlined. even the team owners are saying how the coverage has badly affected the series! the team owners took the money from selling the broadcast deal and now regret it. give me free to view itv any day!

http://www.v8central.com/snitz3403/t...TOPIC_ID=41391

It's still available to watch, regardless of whether it's on pay TV or not. The coverage was similar before the current TV deal wasn't it?

[touring fan01]

Originally Posted by pimmy

It's still available to watch, regardless of whether it's on pay TV or not. The coverage was similar before the current TV deal wasn't it?

no it wasnt. before the current deal all races were same day live on free to view. now the free to view non-live broadcasts are just highlights, sometimes later that night and sometimes the next day depending on the region. but being on pay tv has hugely reduced the number of people watching their races which is very bad for the sport. thats why the team owners want it back on free tv.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Matt K

When it comes to live streaming on the Net I would love to see free BTCC streams abroad. Because living outside the UK it's hard to watch BTCC live

I agree but BTCC doesn't care about public outside UK.

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Where does the official ITV 4 stream work then? Does Ireland get it? Does anywhere else get it?

ITV only has the UK rights. Greenlight owns the rights everywhere else except the Americas (which is PCG). Greenlight and PCG sell rights on to overseas broadcasters on a country by country basis, but outside of Thailand and the USA seem to be doing a pretty terrible job of it.

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by pimmy

The funny thing is, the ITV streaming page did actually have the timing on it a few years ago. No idea why they stopped doing that.

ITV have the capability to show the entire event but they refuse to do so. They have all the cameras ready and set up to show BTCC qualifying on Saturdays (and even then it's not in HD) but we only see the support races if there's the possibility of a title being decided at the final meeting.

Except that's clearly untrue.
They only use about half of the cameras for qualifying, and if you've ever been in the paddock or pits on a Saturday evening, you can see them still setting up and testing things.

My guess is that Saturday is a set-up day, with a skeleton crew, and they interrupt their set-up schedule to film qualifying because they need to make a qualifying report the following day. Being able to put it online is a bonus.

Even on Sundays, the coverage starts and ends with BTCC.

At the end of the day, the BTCC is the big show. That's what people are tuning in for.

Any support races before the BTCC are either not shown or are shown in the form of hacked up, almost incoherent highlights, and supports after the third BTCC race are treated as if they're not even happening. And before anyone says "But you can watch those on Motorsport UK", those programmes are weeks and sometimes months behind.

Or you can watch them in full, online, the following day.

[thetool]

Originally Posted by sceptic

ITV only has the UK rights. Greenlight owns the rights everywhere else except the Americas (which is PCG). Greenlight and PCG sell rights on to overseas broadcasters on a country by country basis, but outside of Thailand and the USA seem to be doing a pretty terrible job of it.

It's mostly because TOCA fundamentally overvalues the media rights of the BTCC. Numerous bone-headed decisions have seen the series unrepresented in video games since 2002!

You can play V8 Supercars, DTM, WTCC, STCC, pretty much any touring car series really readily in a wide variety of games, all except the BTCC.

[ExplodeTheApex]

Originally Posted by thetool

It's mostly because TOCA fundamentally overvalues the media rights of the BTCC. Numerous bone-headed decisions have seen the series unrepresented in video games since 2002!

You can play V8 Supercars, DTM, WTCC, STCC, pretty much any touring car series really readily in a wide variety of games, all except the BTCC.

Do you actually play any video games? Console-wise there have been a few V8 Supercars chucked into a few games recently but otherwise touring cars in general are virtually non-existent.

Interesting interview with Alan Gow over on Motorsport.tvs 'The Flying Lap' this week, one topic of which surrounds pay TV and suchlike: https://motorsport.tv/program/the-flying-lap/25

[thetool]

Originally Posted by ExplodeTheApex

Do you actually play any video games? Console-wise there have been a few V8 Supercars chucked into a few games recently but otherwise touring cars in general are virtually non-existent.

Yes, loads, and evidently more than you.

V8 Supercars: Forza, iRacing
WTCC: RaceRoom Experience
STCC: RaceRoom Experience
DTM: RaceRoom Experience
Italian Superstars: Superstars V8 Next Challenge

[pimmy]

Originally Posted by sceptic

Except that's clearly untrue.
They only use about half of the cameras for qualifying, and if you've ever been in the paddock or pits on a Saturday evening, you can see them still setting up and testing things.

My guess is that Saturday is a set-up day, with a skeleton crew, and they interrupt their set-up schedule to film qualifying because they need to make a qualifying report the following day. Being able to put it online is a bonus.

If that's the case, then it just highlights how poor the situation is. Most remotely high-level series have full coverage on Saturday and Sunday, sometimes Friday as well. There's no reason (other than the coverage being produced on the cheap, I suppose) for the TV equipment being set up that late.

Originally Posted by sceptic

At the end of the day, the BTCC is the big show. That's what people are tuning in for.

Yes it is, but the support series still deserve coverage. There are quite a few events each year where F4 only have one of their three races televised, compared to Germany, Italy and Japan where it's possible to watch every race live. It's appalling, really. No wonder there are hardly any cars in it (yes, I'm aware there are other reasons).

Originally Posted by sceptic

Or you can watch them in full, online, the following day.

OK, I've just checked and you can. Until last year, ITV uploaded the races to their site in the exact format in which they were originally shown on the Sunday broadcast. They should be shown on the TV broadcast anyway, but I suppose repeats of The Sweeney are more important.

[swooshiain]

Originally Posted by thetool

Yes, loads, and evidently more than you.

V8 Supercars: Forza, iRacing
WTCC: RaceRoom Experience
STCC: RaceRoom Experience
DTM: RaceRoom Experience
Italian Superstars: Superstars V8 Next Challenge

There are several BTCC cars in Forza Motorsport 6, including Turkington, Morgan and Ingram's cars.

[ExplodeTheApex]

Originally Posted by thetool

Yes, loads, and evidently more than you.

V8 Supercars: Forza, iRacing
WTCC: RaceRoom Experience
STCC: RaceRoom Experience
DTM: RaceRoom Experience
Italian Superstars: Superstars V8 Next Challenge

Did you miss the bit where I said 'console-wise' or would you like me to highlight that in bold? RaceRoom and iRacing are hardly viable options for the majority of consumers. And as the poster above mentioned, BTCC has more console presence than all of those series bar Supercars, although I would love some sort of modern TOCA-style game.

[thlbtcc]

Originally Posted by Matt K

Honestly I haven't found any reasonable streams for those living outside the UK...

It's not live, sure, but I believe this is not geo-blocked either. http://www.itv.com/btcc/races

[thetool]

Originally Posted by ExplodeTheApex

Did you miss the bit where I said 'console-wise' or would you like me to highlight that in bold? RaceRoom and iRacing are hardly viable options for the majority of consumers. And as the poster above mentioned, BTCC has more console presence than all of those series bar Supercars, although I would love some sort of modern TOCA-style game.

Seriously, give up.

[MissClarrpz]

Originally Posted by thlbtcc

It's not live, sure, but I believe this is not geo-blocked either. http://www.itv.com/btcc/races

Never seen that before. Do they put those up within a week of the races or only after the highlights on Saturday?

[S griffin]

I applaud Gow for not bowing to pay TV, even when he was offered it in the 90s. Otherwise the series would have been in big lumber and all the fans would have been irate. Thankfully it's always been on free to air even in tough times

[thlbtcc]

Originally Posted by MissClarrpz

Never seen that before. Do they put those up within a week of the races or only after the highlights on Saturday?

They are usually online one or two days after the live event and before the Saturday highlights programme. i.e. the Monday or Tuesday after the race event. Also, full races inc. support categories. Happy to help out

The BTCC is online, for free, for anyone in the world. The only downside is that they don't seem to tell anyone!

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by pimmy

If that's the case, then it just highlights how poor the situation is. Most remotely high-level series have full coverage on Saturday and Sunday, sometimes Friday as well. There's no reason (other than the coverage being produced on the cheap, I suppose) for the TV equipment being set up that late.

I'd rather they spent their money on the Sunday, rather than spreading it thinly over three days, when 99% of the audience couldn't care less about what is happening in a Ginetta Junior free practice session.

And let's not pretend that there is anything cheap about it. I reckon ITV is spending around £500,000 per weekend on this coverage.

[ExplodeTheApex]

Does anyone have any idea of how much ITV pay for rights, if any at all?

[Peter Mallett]

Millions! Bloomin' millions. Or something like that anyway.

[mattcanary]

What's so good about watching events live over the internet?

It just crashes and lags half the time especially when lots of people are watching it, (and I don;t live out in the sticks either).

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by mattcanary

What's so good about watching events live over the internet?

It just crashes and lags half the time especially when lots of people are watching it, (and I don;t live out in the sticks either).

Watching online widens the range of devices you can use, and locations you can access from.
Problems with crashes and lags are not related to the number of viewers. The problem could be number of users on your end of the network (contested), or quality of network provision/hardware.
If your connection has enough bandwidth to stream, then there is another issue somewhere on your connection.

A video stream works fine over 4G mobile link with millions watching. If not, Facebook live would fail.

[thlbtcc]

Just a quick check.

• We all agree that the BTCC is available to stream live in the UK for free, either on a mobile, tablet or PC/Mac, yes?
  
• That it's also live on free-to-air TV, including support races, for many hours on a Sunday?
  
• That the races and support races are free to watch without geo-block online within a couple of days after each round?

If yes to the three above, my only wish would be an online replay of qualifying and that I consider BTCC fans very lucky with the amount of content provided.