uk f1 tv coverage - sky, bbc and ch4

[bella]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Watching on C4 catchup was a waste of time. Had to turn off the ad-blocker, and forced to watch all the adverts.

Will have to record on PVR next time.

interesting - adblock works quite happily for me with safari on a mac. sometimes suggests you do otherwise but you just refresh and it goes away. if you're on a windows machine does it do the same in chrome, whatever windows call explorer now and fox?

alternatively it's relatively unpolluted on a mobile device through the app. just the compulsory adverts.

my only beef with the channel 4 live streaming is that you can't start a live programme from the beginning or pause like you can on the bbc iplayer.

[LC2guy]

Exclusive to Sky after 2018

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/sk...eement-681864/

[chunder]

To be expected by most I think, most big time sport is now behind a paywall and exclusive.

I am surprised Bernie has allowed no FTA but I imagine that is a clause raised by SKY.

They will lose a lot of viewers, but casual viewers is not what Bernie has wanted for years, he thinks you should be paying for the privilege, and that is hilarious.

I think we all know the answer, but as I say this is not surprising, sad, ill timed, pathetic yes, but not shocking.

Cricket has done OK, football has thrived, boxing can now charge what it wants for massive fights and cretinous idiots will pay it and WWF now solely exists on PPV.

We are all to blame and cannot complain, well I can as I have never paid a cent for sport and never will!!

[Sodemo]

Boxing started the rot with their pay per view scheme. Just think that if everyone had told them to jog on and no one bought it, we probably wouldn't have boxing behind a paywall now as well. I used to actually really enjoy boxing, however I refuse to pay for it, which is a shame because I do miss it. I have great memories of Nigel Benn, Eubank, Frank Bruno, Holyfield, Tyson etc.

I think F1 won't care a jot about the lost viewership, the sport itself is a vacuum for money in modern motorsport. It sucks up a lot, but gives back little. I watch the FTA stuff at the moment and occasionally watch the Sky stuff if i'm at my Moms or Dads house (as they both are Sky subscribers for very different reasons). My mom subscribes to all the sports channels simply for the Tennis and the Golf, my father just watches the Football. In my mother's case, it seems somewhat ironic that i'd guess 70-80% of her Sky subscription fee goes to the Premiership football rights, however she never watches football, which seems crazy.

Since when did F1 start caring about the fans anyway?

[P38 in workshop]

The same bunch that dreamed up last weekend's qualifying format have got to have an involvement in the move from free to air broadcasting.With any luck it will have the same lifespan.

[chillibowl]

for me the coverage has improved dramatically since the move behind paywalls started as F1 was very slow to adopt both broadcasting in widescreen format and then with HD broadcasts.

that article says that SKY will be moving to UHD by next year...i wonder if that means the races will be filmed with UHD cameras so available to any provider using the world feed or if its just UHD cameras for their own coverage (pitlane walk and studio segments).

if paying equates to a better broadcast quality then im all for it....but then again ive been paying for a sports specialty package since the mid 90's so this is a very normal thing for me.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

for me the coverage has improved dramatically since the move behind paywalls started as F1 was very slow to adopt both broadcasting in widescreen format and then with HD broadcasts.

I don't believe that has much to do with Sky or FTA, I think that's simply just FOM being slow on the uptake of broadcast technology. From what I can recall, the 2005 season was the first broadcast in widescreen and the 2008 or 2009 season was the first in HD (at least in the UK).

Again, the UHD cameras are simply something which FOM has to invest in, although if Sky or any other broadcaster wants UHD for their own pre or post race footage then I'd imagine that's up to them.

[Akrapovic]

BBC pre-Sky was the best coverage of F1 we've had recently. As soon as Sky came onboard they just ripped the best coverage into two and we had the best people over two different channels. Instead of competition improving the coverage we just had half as good coverage on both sides.

Channel 4 was fine. Wasn't great, wasn't terrible. And BBC, Sky and Ch4 are all miles ahead of where ITV were.

The move from free TV to Sky only will mean I go from watching a few races to none. I'm not paying for Sky just to watch F1 try to destroy itself.

Good series are providing coverage for cheap or free online. F1 is going the opposite way. No thanks.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

The same bunch that dreamed up last weekend's qualifying format have got to have an involvement in the move from free to air broadcasting.With any luck it will have the same lifespan.

I wouldn't hold your breath! Some many years ago, one Bernard Charles Ecclestone gave an undertaking that, for as long as he was in charge of appointing who broadcast F1, that it would always be shown live on FTA; guaranteed. He broke that undertaking when he allowed the BBC to back out of their contract to show all the races live. He no longer cares about those who have followed F1 for donkey's years - over 50 years in my case - he is after the big bucks that come from the likes of Sky, which I refuse to pay for. I already pay for cable TV because it gives me a whole range of different programme formats, but I will not pay a further £25 per month to support BCE's little empire.

I regret that others will pay, as much as I regret that the traditional circuits don't join together and tell him where to shove his circus. Maybe, just maybe, those that should be controlling F1 would then wake up, and end CVC's grasp on the purse strings and put BCE out to pasture.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

for me the coverage has improved dramatically since the move behind paywalls started as F1 was very slow to adopt both broadcasting in widescreen format and then with HD broadcasts.

All the filming of the on track filming, and most of the pits coverage, is produce by FOM using their own equipment, but with a local director. Therefore all the important output is controlled by Mr E, and the equipment that is used is supplied by FOM - three articulated trucks worth in Europe and at least one Boeing 747 for the fly-aways.

[bella]

mike, i thought it was only monaco, silverstone and.... suzuka maybe? that were left with local directors, the rest were controlled by fom?

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I don't believe that has much to do with Sky or FTA, I think that's simply just FOM being slow on the uptake of broadcast technology. From what I can recall, the 2005 season was the first broadcast in widescreen and the 2008 or 2009 season was the first in HD (at least in the UK).

true true but i was thinking more in general terms that when customers start paying there is a greater need to satisfy those customers by providing a quality level to which they have become accustomed to from the other sports they follow/pay for.

2005 sounds about right for the first widescreen broadcasts and 08/09 for HD...we get one the UK feed so it must have been the same for us as you guys.

that said, £25 a month for a single specialty channel that has about 2 live races a month is insanely high. im paying CAN$10 a month for a bundle (above my regular cable subscription) for several specialty sports channels that show a wide range of sports including F1. i shouldn't be complaining.

at that UK price point i would just turn to the internet and watch a free stream.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

All the filming of the on track filming, and most of the pits coverage, is produce by FOM using their own equipment, but with a local director. Therefore all the important output is controlled by Mr E, and the equipment that is used is supplied by FOM - three articulated trucks worth in Europe and at least one Boeing 747 for the fly-aways.

is that a relatively new arraignment?...back in the day i used to always comment on how much better the picture quality was during Japanese GPs as the images were coming from Fuji Television presumably using their own cameras.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

is that a relatively new arraignment?...back in the day i used to always comment on how much better the picture quality was during Japanese GPs as the images were coming from Fuji Television presumably using their own cameras.

No, this has been going on for many years. The TV operation was overseen by a guy called Baker, and the outside broadcast area was always referred to as Baker's village. One of the reasons that HD was slow to arrive was because FOM/CVC wouldn't put their hands in their corporate pockets to pay for what BCE considered to be just fancy cameras, and not necessary for the plebs that watched the races on FTA TV. And picture quality shouldn't have been better from Japan as most of the cameras and a lot of the associated equipment that is used by FOM is Japanese anyway.

Bella, you may well be right. I know that they always used to have local directors, but there were many complaints, even from Mr E, about the poor quality of many of the productions, with cameras often following a backmarker which just happened to be driven by a local lad pootling along, and in the meantime missing all the real action.

[wolfhound]

This deal to my mind is not good for F1 and motorsport in general for a number of reasons.
It will cause a major drop in viewing figures in the UK if what happened in France is anything to go by.
Sky only has an average of 17% of the viewers in the UK when compared to the BBC (2015 figures)
http://f1broadcasting.co/category/th...-2016-preview/

Last year sky had an average of 638,000 viewers per GP a drop in the ocean where there is a population of about 60 million.
If a team goes to try to sell space on the side of their car based on those sorts of figures they are not going to get the sort of money they would like.
This in turn will make the teams more dependent on FOM money. I assume FOM will be getting a lot more money from for their exclusive deal. However the teams only get a percentage of this and they have to fight for every last cent. The FOM money is also not equally distributed between the teams and is very lob sided between the haves and have nots.
The sky deal will also mean that a lot of possible motorsport fans will never see a GP as only a small percentage have access to sky's F1 coverage. Sky is connected to about 10 million homes (2014 figures) in the UK but only some of those have access to F1 ( I could not find a figure for the number of homes with access to F1).

The only people who have an interest in F1 who will gain from this deal are FOM/CVC and sky tv.

I will not be one of F1 future viewers on sky as I do not want to do any business with any of Rupert Murdock's organisations.

[Jordan 199]

What an awful deal. That'll be it for me then it seems.

It's a shame as well. I thought C4 was a solid new home for terrestrial F1, as I stopped my Sky subscription last year. I couldn't be arsed with paying out so much money when I could get the same with a couple of cheaper streaming services.

F1 is in so much of an identity crisis now that even if I ever reach a point where I could afford Sky Sports, would it be worth paying out for?

[JABWOA]

The positive from this: the FTA highlight package (providing not shown too late - ie same day not 24hrs later) will remove all the boring bits from the races.

I've enjoyed the V8 supercar races last year in thier highlight package.
However, if BE was to offer a decent online experiance with live feeds, then he'd make a killing. I'd pay $100-300 a year for mobile streaming of all sessions. Not the $1200 I would have to fork out for paytv here (don't need the extra channels.)

[wolfhound]

I am wondering about the sky deal as it has happened very early in the new C4 contract. It's as if sky wanted to get in early before C4 worked out whether to look for an extension or more coverage to their existing arrangement in the long term.
I wonder how the arrangement is going to work for the British GP as my understanding is it has to be free to air by law but can that be via satellite or terrestrial TV?

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by JABWOA

The positive from this: the FTA highlight package (providing not shown too late - ie same day not 24hrs later) will remove all the boring bits from the races.

I've enjoyed the V8 supercar races last year in thier highlight package.
However, if BE was to offer a decent online experiance with live feeds, then he'd make a killing. I'd pay $100-300 a year for mobile streaming of all sessions. Not the $1200 I would have to fork out for paytv here (don't need the extra channels.)

My understanding is there will be no FTA highlights in the UK.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

I wonder how the arrangement is going to work for the British GP as my understanding is it has to be free to air by law but can that be via satellite or terrestrial TV?

Sky own Pick TV on freeview, they have been showing the odd event from Sky's portfolio on it ...they simulcast a few NFL games onto it during the regular season.

Between Pick on freeview, a "free weekend" offer on NowTV and the other platforms, Sky Sports Mix for non sports subscribers to Sky the reach increases significantly.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

I wonder how the arrangement is going to work for the British GP as my understanding is it has to be free to air by law but can that be via satellite or terrestrial TV?

According to the press release linked on previous page the British GP will still be shown FTA by Sky- somehow!

[VIVA GT]

Hmmm. I don't think this is good news, but how will it affect me?
I don't have (and won't have) Sky for financial reasons . (It's not that I can't afford it but I don't watch enough TV of any kind to make it worth-while). Although I am a huge Motor Sport fan (and have been all my life) for family commitment reasons I rarely have the time to watch the races live anyway (unless they're conveniently on early in the morning).
I'll probably just stop watching. I can pick up all of the gossip & find out what's happening/happened by reading this forum (and other places) and I suppose if I'm bothered I could find some means of watching live streaming (illegally?) on the internet?
It is a shame as when this happens I will have tried to see every F1 race broadcast for 55 years but then there is more to life. (If F1 isn't interested in me, whey should I be interested in F1?)

[richy01908]

Hopefully by 2018 there will be other options, maybe FOM will have their own live stream we can subscribe to by then!!

You would think the teams would object to more viewing being moved behind a paywall, as even harder to get sponsors?

I love F1, but do get plenty of motorsport with BTCC on itv4, plenty of superbikes on Eurosport (only about £5 a month subs), Nascar and Aussie V8's on Youtube if I fancy, my favorite at the moment is the Touring Car Masters, also on Youtube.

[richy01908]

Additionally, as a mid-50's male, without SKY (family happy with Netflix etc..) I do not meet the demographics for any of the sponsors anyway?
Even if loaded, would unlikely buy a Rolex, would not buy a Renault if they won every Grand Prix, tried Red Bull 20 years ago, not since.

I have been a fan since about 8 years old, first favorite driver Jochen Rindt, then Ronnie Petersen, James Hunt etc.., loads of school rivalry with Hunt vs Lauda back in 76 - If behind a paywall, where will the next generation of fans be coming from?

Then again, with an 85 year old leader, and investment bankers owning the sport, they do not care where F1 is in 10/20 years time, they will be long gone

[littleman]

As a member of the Human Race, I'm ashamed that Ecclestone and Murdoch belong to the same species as me. I despise both, on almost any level you care to mention, but draw solace from the fact that both are old men and the Reaper will surely be visiting soon enough.

Would I pay to watch F1 on my television? - of course I wouldn't, not only as a matter of principle but because it's simply not a very good product anymore.

If these two pillars of extreme Capitalism, at it's very worst, wish to charge people to access a product, then the least they could do is flog them something worth having.

I'm sure millions of Human's will continue to line the pockets of these two grubby old men.....I won't be one of them and that actually makes me feel pretty good about myself!