uk f1 tv coverage - sky, bbc and ch4

[chillibowl]

well 10% of Germany stopped watching apparently because they dont like to be reminded of their dominance

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by Peter Mallett

Nothing to do with DRS or Tyres then.

A drop from 27 million to 10 million viewers in France after a change to pay TV doubt DRS or tyres had much to do with that.

[chillibowl]

usually when people refuse to pay for something the normal conclusion is that they dont think its worth paying for and not that they simply object to paying for things.

surely they arent burning their money rather they are just spending it on things they like more.

[JamesH]

Doesn't bother me if Vettel or ANOther is dominating, or there is DRS, or KERS or dodgy tyres. The reason I didn't watch half the races last year was because they were on Sky, and I refuse to pay for it.

I simply don't believe the large reduction is down to dominance, or any of the engineering issues. It's having to pay to watch. F1 in any form simply isn't worth money to most casual viewers.

[Tucky]

It's not just the fact you have to pay for it, but the ridiculous cost they charge. There is no way I can afford or am willing to pay £40 a month, and i'm more interested in F1 than the casual viewers

[chunder]

To be honest in a country where they have no drivers and no GP, 10 million paying is pretty good

I would say whoever made that decision is very hapy, even if they are only paying a tenner its still a hatful!

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by chunder

To be honest in a country where they have no drivers and no GP, 10 million paying is pretty good

I would say whoever made that decision is very hapy, even if they are only paying a tenner its still a hatful!

I assume you are talking about France home of Grosjean, Bianchi, Pic and Renault.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by Tucky

It's not just the fact you have to pay for it, but the ridiculous cost they charge. There is no way I can afford or am willing to pay £40 a month, and i'm more interested in F1 than the casual viewers

So what do they offer for £40.00 per month ? In the USA we have always had to pay to watch F1.....

[bjohnsonsmith]

Unlike the Schumacher years, the Vettel domination hasn't put me off watching F1 and that's due to Vettel's domination not lasting as long as Schumacher's, though give it another year and that could change things. What's changed are my viewing habbits are the ppotential expense of paying Murdoch for the privilege, so I've either had to watch at a friends, sought an alternate means and sometimes missed a race.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Doesn't bother me if Vettel or ANOther is dominating, or there is DRS, or KERS or dodgy tyres. The reason I didn't watch half the races last year was because they were on Sky, and I refuse to pay for it.

I simply don't believe the large reduction is down to dominance, or any of the engineering issues. It's having to pay to watch. F1 in any form simply isn't worth money to most casual viewers.

Man after my own heart!

No arguments here! (The dodgy tyres etc. don't exactly help though!)

How to turn a popular successful international sport into a secondary sport, hide it behind a pay wall!
F1's success is due to its easy accessibility on free to air TV. End!

[JeremySmith]

I have to pay to watch F1, and some don't think they should, although they are first to say "I have followed F1 for thirty years"

So then is it not time you guys paid to watch it then ??

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

I have to pay to watch F1, and some don't think they should, although they are first to say "I have followed F1 for thirty years"

So then is it not time you guys paid to watch it then ??

My first F1 race was the Daily Express Trophy, Silver Jubilee at Silverstone in 1973 and I was hooked. The Thing is, practically every major sport shown over here on TV is now in the hands of Murdoch. There are exceptions, like Wimbledon and the 6 Nations and recently the Superbowl, otherwise it's all on Sky. I don't watch alot of TV either but still have to pay the TV licence, so in order to watch an F1 race not on the Beeb I'd have to pay Murdoch on top of that, when for years F1 was free; I think that's where the gripe is.

[JeremySmith]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

My first F1 race was the Daily Express Trophy, Silver Jubilee at Silverstone in 1973 and I was hooked. The Thing is, practically every major sport shown over here on TV is now in the hands of Murdoch. There are exceptions, like Wimbledon and the 6 Nations and recently the Superbowl, otherwise it's all on Sky. I don't watch alot of TV either but still have to pay the TV licence, so in order to watch an F1 race not on the Beeb I'd have to pay Murdoch on top of that, when for years F1 was free; I think that's where the gripe is.

Thank's I understand now...Murdoch and Bernie Ecclestone must be related..

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

Thank's I understand now...Murdoch and Bernie Ecclestone must be related..

The UK TV licence is £145.50 a year which is $237.60.

[Paradise City]

It probably is down to Vettel, alot of it. Alot of people get deterred by his kind of domination and if they do then best of luck to them. I don't see a problem.

Now I don't like Vettel as has been, eh, amply recorded on this forum but the fact that a driver dominates doesn't faze me in the slightest.

I don't personal care how popular this sport is in fact I've also gone on record to say that this sport could do with being far less popular than it is.

The only problem with that are the sports' bosses who are restless and instead of magnanimously accepting that the sports popularity will ebb and flow as people's tastes naturally change, seem to go insane over a dip in popularity and start crowbarring into the sport these ridiculous gimmicks.

[Teretonga]

When Bernie and Max ran the show it ran itself (with their supervision) but when Max gave Bernie the 100yr rights and later when Max left the boardroom, Bernie thought he 'owned' it and decided to realise the value contained in having those rights. So began the 'selling' of F1 and like all professional sport it has an inflated view of its value because we have an audience of abc so we are worth 'xyz' million (or billion) dollars
F1 was worth 2 billion dollars less than a decade ago, now its being touted as 'worth'
$9 billion in some quarters....
The problem is the generation following F1 isn't the purchasing one any more and the majority of that generation is not interested in passive sport as entertainment and certainly not parting with $400+ a year for something they don't see as value for money...

Its just a group of aging men fleecing the world to watch what is essentially an old boys club playing its game with a handful of large industrial companies... and its not even good competition (racing)...
There's more actual racing in Indycar believe it or not, and that organisation can't even get a viewer blip on its national audience......

The world has changed but most of the owners / managers haven't. They still live and think as though the world was like it was in 1990-95.
That's why so many of the changes to the rules and silly ideas haven't worked. they need a radical re-think about what the values and ideals that are going to keep the present audience and more important, create a new group of followers in future generations.

[Armco Bender]

F1 races start at midnight on Sunday night(local time) here,I enjoy watching the GP3 and GP2 races that come on earlier,mainly because they actually race.I go to bed before the F1 comes on and generally watch the highlight package through the week,if there are any highlights worth watching.
Yes I like overtaking and yes I like the odd crash,but the last few years F1 is just plain dull.

I also image a lot of the lost 50million just watch it on the interweb for free,theres loads of free feeds to pick from.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Armco Bender

F1 races start at midnight on Sunday night(local time) here,I enjoy watching the GP3 and GP2 races that come on earlier,mainly because they actually race.I go to bed before the F1 comes on and generally watch the highlight package through the week,if there are any highlights worth watching.
Yes I like overtaking and yes I like the odd crash,but the last few years F1 is just plain dull.

I also image a lot of the lost 50million just watch it on the interweb for free,theres loads of free feeds to pick from.

Free feeds are the alternative to paying Murdoch, on top of your TV licence fee of £145.50. It would behoove Bernie and Murdoch to look at the pay-to-view pricing structure, with regards to TV audience figures but whether either thinks that's important, regarding their empires is another thing.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

I have to pay to watch F1, and some don't think they should, although they are first to say "I have followed F1 for thirty years"

So then is it not time you guys paid to watch it then ??

The real point is not whether or not one of us would pay for it; very grudgingly; the point is no casual follower of F1 would pay extortionate fees to watch! Hence the audience figures for F1 fall dramatically and the mass marketing appeal of F1 to its sponsors and promoters falls right alongside the audience drop off initiating a downward spiral!
How to make a big spending popular sport niche and irrelevant?

[Armco Bender]

TV licence fee of £145.50.

We had TV licenses here too.In the '80s we simply refused to pay(be ripped off) and the goverment of the day realised to prosecute everyone would tie up the court system for a 1000 years so they abolished the TV license overnight.
F1 was on free to air tv for years until pay tv outbid them.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

usually when people refuse to pay for something the normal conclusion is that they dont think its worth paying for and not that they simply object to paying for things.

surely they arent burning their money rather they are just spending it on things they like more.

That is true to an extent, but the true price of pay TV puts people off regardless of what is going on at the race track. I couldn't justify £43 a month just for half an F1 season on satellite. There are many fans also in my position and if Hamilton was winning every other race and being challenged right the the end in a nail bitingly exciting season, I still couldn't justify such an expense. Its alienating fans in the extreme and people like me find alternative ways to watch. That might not be popular to fans paying for it (especially here), but money is tight for some of us and there is no way I am missing the only sport I bother to watch.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Doesn't bother me if Vettel or ANOther is dominating, or there is DRS, or KERS or dodgy tyres. The reason I didn't watch half the races last year was because they were on Sky, and I refuse to pay for it.

I simply don't believe the large reduction is down to dominance, or any of the engineering issues. It's having to pay to watch. F1 in any form simply isn't worth money to most casual viewers.

Absolutely spot on.
Bernie is finding a scapegoat with his comments about dominance reducing the audience because he simply won't admit moving F1 onto Sky and all the other pay channels across the world is damaging in the long term.

Instead of introducing tighter cost cutting methods within the sport, they've chased the broadcasting money and its slashing the amount of people watching. They need to face facts that FTA broadcasting is what has kept F1 popular for so long. We are watching a decline here and sooner or later it will have to be tackled.

[henners88]

They offer half the F1 season exclusively live. A little steep for £43 a month IMO if you consider in many of the months of the year you can watch the other half on the BBC which is no additional cost to the license fee.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by JeremySmith

I have to pay to watch F1, and some don't think they should, although they are first to say "I have followed F1 for thirty years"

So then is it not time you guys paid to watch it then ??

Unlike most other sports, the participants in Formula One need a mass audience in order to be able to convince businesses to sponsor them. If that audience is constrained or compromised, the sponsorship model won't work.

That wouldn't be a problem if the TV money the teams are paid becomes a substitute for sponsorship and fully funds them. But what level of increased pay per view charge would it take to do that [while Bernie continues to pocket 50%] ? And if hard core fans are not prepared to pay the current level of charge... can we imagine how the casual viewer would react to £100/month or more to watch F1 ?

The reason this PPV situation came about is because the free to air audience was in decline while Bernie continued to ratchet up the price he charged telecasters. It's not surprising that one by one they opted out. PPV won't work for F1 as we know it and if he persists in this direction it will kill it. We can already see the effects right now. Most of the grid are no longer able to run their operations from sponsorship and need drivers to fund them.

... but then would you entrust the future of anything to an 83 year old billionaire ?

[wolfhound]

If F1 goes behind a paywall in all its major markets where are the new fans going to come from. If you take the example of France where F1 viewing has dropped by about 60% when it switched.

The odds are those who pay for F1 have an income. Most of those under 20 years old don't have their own income. If they do its at the lower end of the pay scales. How are future fans to see what F1 is about especially when FOM spends its time removing clips from You Tube etc.