GilesGuthrie
Staff Emeritus
- 11,038
- Edinburgh, UK
- CMDRTheDarkLord
In a move which had been predicted for a while now, Bernie Ecclestone has axed his Pay-Per-View F1Digital service. The service has not had the take-up that Bernie had been expected, principally due to slow adoption by cable and satellite providers. It is envisaged that the experiment had costs running in excess of $70m, but that Bernie had got companies in Germany and France to offset a lot of this.
Now he plans to use the existing infrastructure to improve the show for free-to-air viewers, meaning that we will be able to enjoy the equivalent of the "Super" channel (mixed race footage, akin to normal coverage, but with enhanced graphics and use of more cameras including on-board units). This was previewed at this year's US GP where no American broadcaster was willing to take on the responsibility and cost of performing a host broadcaster service. It was universally welcomed by F1 fans worldwide. An additional benefit of this is the impartiality of the direction of these broadcasts. Too often in the past, the free-to-air signal has been hijacked by an inexperienced director, or by a director that wishes to follow his own countrymen to the exclusion of all others.
Personally, I have to say that I'm very pleased with this. I think it will hugely enhance the coverage, and while it will still be ad-interrupted, Bernie's crowd know what they're doing, and we'll have a consistently high standard of coverage from now on.
This seems like a win-win situation, with the public getting better viewing, the broadcasters not needing to invest in their own production, and Bernie being able to sell his superior product on a commercially-viable basis. Finally, I think that this will be the last nail in the coffin of the threatened breakaway series, a large part of the impetus for which was fragmented audiences split between a superior pay-per-view product and an inferior free-to-air product. It is almost as if common sense has won, truly a rare event in F1.
Now he plans to use the existing infrastructure to improve the show for free-to-air viewers, meaning that we will be able to enjoy the equivalent of the "Super" channel (mixed race footage, akin to normal coverage, but with enhanced graphics and use of more cameras including on-board units). This was previewed at this year's US GP where no American broadcaster was willing to take on the responsibility and cost of performing a host broadcaster service. It was universally welcomed by F1 fans worldwide. An additional benefit of this is the impartiality of the direction of these broadcasts. Too often in the past, the free-to-air signal has been hijacked by an inexperienced director, or by a director that wishes to follow his own countrymen to the exclusion of all others.
Personally, I have to say that I'm very pleased with this. I think it will hugely enhance the coverage, and while it will still be ad-interrupted, Bernie's crowd know what they're doing, and we'll have a consistently high standard of coverage from now on.
This seems like a win-win situation, with the public getting better viewing, the broadcasters not needing to invest in their own production, and Bernie being able to sell his superior product on a commercially-viable basis. Finally, I think that this will be the last nail in the coffin of the threatened breakaway series, a large part of the impetus for which was fragmented audiences split between a superior pay-per-view product and an inferior free-to-air product. It is almost as if common sense has won, truly a rare event in F1.
