Delayed/Revised Session and Start Times

[Peter Mallett]

Surprised nobody has picked up on this yet.

https://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2018/02/...rt-times-2018/

It seems that the timing of a race start has an impact on the audience. The excuse being that some broadcasters only switch to coverage at the start, thereby missing all that interesting race build up stuff. This is true but what makes anyone think these broadcasters will do anything but delay going over to the coverage or indeed that they start 10mins late then miss the end because it doesn't fit with the following programmes?

Finally, why aren't these people doing something about the show (proper cars with proper engines) rather than manipulating things that are out of their control?

[Mike Harte]

This was discussed briefly on another thread, and which I likened to re-arranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship whilst the orchestra carried on playing in the background.

[midgetman]

This, the grid girls, the faux excitement over "launch" dates, it's all drummed up to get us talking about F1 I'm the closed season.

Notice no-one is saying "Were gonna have some great racing on some great tracks with some great cars as Seb, Danny, Max et al try to unseat Lewis."

That's the real excitement, but none of us really believe it'll happen do we?

You're right Mike, deckchairs on the Titanic.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

[VIVA GT]

I think this can all be filed under Being seen to be doing useful things as opposed to Just doing something useful...

[S griffin]

Well that’s gonna change the TV schedules

[BSchneiderFan]

If it helps the broadcasters, then fine. I have no problem with it. Maybe once in a while we could have a little bit of faith that Libertyknow what they’re doing, instead of reaching for the harrumph gun as our first response?

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

If it helps the broadcasters, then fine. I have no problem with it. Maybe once in a while we could have a little bit of faith that Libertyknow what they’re doing, instead of reaching for the harrumph gun as our first response?

Harrumph!

[AdrianM]

Reality is that Liberty can do little else but tinker around the edges until the contracts are up for renewal. We'll see the big changes then but the "want it now" generations expect everything to be fixed in five minutes.

[chillibowl]

i record the races so its not really an issue for me.

although by changing the start time of the program to the top of the hour (with the race then starting 5-10 min past the hour) setting my digital recorder will now be fractionally easier.

the program starting at 5 min to the hour required some additional fiddling with the recording start time settings as it sometimes overlapped with other set recordings i have.

sometimes its the small things.

[Akrapovic]

Works in the US. Means that broadcasters can start with a normal TV schedule, and have a short build up if needed.

It makes absolutely zero difference to fans, but may make TV scheduling easier - which should have a positive effect overall. I see no issue with it.

[loon]

If Mercedes produce a fantastic car and Hamilton is world champion by august then the start time will be a non-issue as nobody will be watching

[ScotsBrutesFan]

For those countries where they have home based presenter and then take coverage and commentary from the 5 minute world feed "sting". The top of the hour programme starts makes a lot of sense. If anything 15 minutes after the hour may have been better than 10 minutes for the race starts as that would allow advertising upto the programme start and then fit in a full size commercial break in before the sting.

For countries where a comprehensive pre-race show is available, they will have to adjust their timings of commercials leading into the 5 minute sting.

I haven't had a chance to check other world events, but why is France out of sync with the other European races?

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

It makes absolutely zero difference to fans, but may make TV scheduling easier - which should have a positive effect overall. I see no issue with it.

Maybe for the few Americans that watch F1 live, but for us in Australia (and worse for those in New Zealand) it means Euro/UK races will now not finish until well after 2.00am (4am in NZ)on the Monday morning.... nice when you have an 8am start at work.

I for one will for the first time in as long as I can remember (30 years+) not be staying up to watch GPs live anymore. I will just record them and watch them Monday night. If I know the result by then I wont even bother with that.

The current show is so poor that all I needed was a good excuse to not bother watching. This is it. Many other Aussie F1 fans I know will now also be cancelling their pay TV subs. I cant see their wish for a few extra US viewers coming close to those they will lose in Australasia and the Far East.

[Akrapovic]

I misunderstood the change and missed the 1 hour movement, my bad E.B.

I see the issue now. It's not the 10 minute offset, it's the hour movement.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by E.B

I for one will for the first time in as long as I can remember (30 years+) not be staying up to watch GPs live anymore. I will just record them and watch them Monday night. If I know the result by then I wont even bother with that.

I do that for NFL, it works quite well.

[Peter Mallett]

Going back to my original post, and I do understand that perhaps the current Concorde Agreement causes problems for any change, I just think this is moving things away from what the sport traditionally set out to be.

The traditional start times were for sporting reasons not TV, yet up to around ten years ago there was no issue; and I would posit that this was because the cars and the whole "show" (for want of a better word) was much more user friendly and indeed maintained that element of "glamour" (read the real definition) in its truest sense. Tradition means a lot to an historic sport like Formula One. Fans and drivers like to follow in footsteps trodden by the greats.

Now, as the rules for car design have evolved and the associated penalties for not being "green" enough to be able to run minimal engines in a season have been implemented, the entire package is just not attractive to racers anymore. Hence the loss of TV audience.

I'd also be interested to see (from a UK perspective) how many copies of Autocourse are sold annually and if the sales have become less over a similar period.