F1 TV coverage threadFormula 1 

IforceV8
One of my all time favorite things they used to do on ESPN was tape a race then show who won the race you are watching on the bottom line.
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NBCSN has done this before for the replay.

I'm not surprised, nor am I too disappointed at NBC. I just don't feel like they cared as much about F1 as say, Speed did. The biggest shame is that it's pretty much the end of the line for Hobbs, Matchett, Diffy and Buxton. It was disappointing enough seeing Bob Varsha stay with fox and break up the team.

Hopefully ESPN don't cram their coverage with ads, or put it on some channel not in my package, or region, though I shouldn't expect much better considering the customs of US television.
 
Will Buxton being more of a reporter I feel will be able to get a contract with whoever is showing F1. He's a huge personality in the pits (since he actually goes to all the races) and everyone there knows him. It's not just us. It would be a shame for him to disappear.
 
Peter.
NBCSN has done this before for the replay.

I'm not surprised, nor am I too disappointed at NBC. I just don't feel like they cared as much about F1 as say, Speed did. The biggest shame is that it's pretty much the end of the line for Hobbs, Matchett, Diffy and Buxton. It was disappointing enough seeing Bob Varsha stay with fox and break up the team.

Hopefully ESPN don't cram their coverage with ads, or put it on some channel not in my package, or region, though I shouldn't expect much better considering the customs of US television.
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I disagree that NBCSN didnt care about F1. They sent the guys to the track at COTA and Monaco, gave each race a extended pre-race and post-race show. Of course they didnt cover the sport like Sky does but the cost of doing that was cost prohibitive. Was their coverage perfect, no, but it wasnt terrible either. The product that ESPN will offer in 2018 will likely be nothing more than showing the Sky feed that starts 5 min before the race and ends 5 minutes after.
 
IforceV8
One of my all time favorite things they used to do on ESPN was tape a race then show who won the race you are watching on the bottom line.
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So thats where Fox Sports got their scumbag habit of doing that. Shouldn't be surprised considering they tried to copy everything else (including the influx of ESPN personnel).
 
An update on F1 TV coverage
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/42816877

Italy 2018
Four races will be shown live on Sky Italia's free-to-air channel TV8. The other 17 will be behind a pay wall on Sky.

Rai has shown F1 free to air since 1953 in Italy and last year they were reduced to 9 races, now nothing. Sky Italia audience is nothing like Rai.

UK 2019
Shown exclusively on Sky. New Sky free to air channel will show highlights and the British GP
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35889736
Old news but I honestly put it to the back on my mind, we're one year away now.

Germany
New 3 year deal with RTL despite a huge offer from Sky.

France
4 races will get shown for free on TF1, the rest is sub based on Canal Plus. First time in 6 years a race has been free according to the article on BBC.

Spain
No free races. All on Pay channel Movistar.

European viewer numbers will be decimated.

Will be interesting to see if the Channel 4 viewers will seek out this new free to air channel for highlights next year. I think more will drop off and will end up just looking at the results on the BBC website and watching clips on social media or something.

Sky viewing figures still average around 600k. I used to post them a while back along with C4 and before that some BBC ones. Absolutely awful viewing figures still on Sky.
 
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shoemaker
I was really hoping that Liberty would just buy sky uk out of that contract. They cant use the new streaming service in the uk until 2024. By which time there wouldn’t really be any F1 fans left in the uk. That sky contract is suicidal for the sport. Thanks Bernie !
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It wouldn't be so bad, but Sky's actual availability to watch stuff is awful. Mobile app is horrible and the hoops you have to jump through to watch it on a PC are silly.

I see vast number of people using proxy services to watch F1 via the Liberty online offering, not just in the UK but all over Europe where Sky has infested and gated off the sport from the actual fans.
 
I'm assuming when they say 'free-to-air' they mean that a highlights bundle (like Match of the Day) will be sold to a terrestrial channel (e.g. BBC/ITV etc.) or a dedicated Sky channel will be made available on Freeview (like Sky Sports News used to be).

Either way, the lack of access to the live races will eventually lead to F1's demise in Europe, which given that Europe is the home of most classic circuits, teams, car and engine manufacturers, may well spell the end of F1 in the long run.
 
baldgye
It wouldn't be so bad, but Sky's actual availability to watch stuff is awful. Mobile app is horrible
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I genuinely believe that Sky Go is deliberately broken - it used to be OK but now it is actually painful to watch... I have BT Sport as well and, in contrast, their mobile app is great. Sky Go never works as well as BT Sport - hanging, frequent loss of picture definition (to the point of being scarcely able to recognise which sport you're watching) and glitchy sound every time. BT Sport, on the other hand, is virtually flawless. Do you ever get the feeling Sky don't like people (like me) who rely on Sky Go to access content?
 
Touring Mars
I genuinely believe that Sky Go is deliberately broken - it used to be OK but now it is actually painful to watch... I have BT Sport as well and, in contrast, their mobile app is great. Sky Go never works as well as BT Sport - hanging, frequent loss of picture definition (to the point of being scarcely able to recognise which sport you're watching) and glitchy sound every time. BT Sport, on the other hand, is virtually flawless. Do you ever get the feeling Sky don't like people (like me) who rely on Sky Go to access content?
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I think they do it on purpose for sure.
I can't watch most of the pre-race build up because they cant/wont sync live video and audio. I imagine they want to stop people from sharing other peoples Sky acc's and get their own.

Audience figured for F1 have been on the decline in the UK and it being hidden away from most people by Sky will only make that worse.


My only hope is that there are good enough proxies to watch live races via the new Liberty service
 
It makes you wonder if Sky will actually ever make money from their F1 coverage buy-out. Excluding all the other countries they broadcast to and just using the UK figures. If they have 625,000 views for each race as they did last year, and every single one of them pays the £18 a month Sky charges for the channel (Those figures differ due to the different packages people already subscribe to, and some of those viewers will no doubt live in the same household, but subscription figures are not something Sky publish to my knowledge) Sky must make a maximum of £140m from the UK, and probably much less. But they pay Liberty £200m a year to broadcast? And although that doesn't account for Sky's income from the other European countries it broadcasts to it also doesn't take into account Sky's production casts either.
 
It may be a loss leader though for Sky. The total Sky Sports package is something like £36 a month (it certainly used to be when we had it!), so its possible there are people debating that amount of money for their Sports viewing. £36 might be too much to justify if they only have Premier League football, or if they only show F1, but if you watch both you suddenly double your viewing for the same price. It therefore stands to reason that they may make more money from the Sky Sports package as a whole, but a closer review of the Sky Sports F1 channel itself shows a loss.

My old company was in the same situation - we lost money selling most of our products, but the company as a whole benefitted later from servicing and training contracts.
 
The new owners of F1 have said they don't like the UK Sky deal that they inherited and can't do anything, Bernie signed it off. Sean Bratches (part of the new F1 group) sees a 30/70 ratio and free to air is important for fans and sponsors.

Perhaps they can put pressure on Sky to keep highlights on either BBC/ITV/C4 but Sky can do whatever they feel like. I can see a channel like BT showcase where they can advertise the F1 subscription while you watch the highlights.

Just reading about France, F1 on Canal Plus is around 750k average, that's with six years behind a pay wall so perhaps a clue to Sky UK that you won't see a decent jump once the free races on Channel 4 disappear.

The new deal in France where 4 races will get shown on TF1 reflects what Sean Bratches said previously about the 30/70 ratio and free to air TV is still important. France like the UK used to get 4-5 million viewers.

The ramifications won't be known for a while. When League Soccer in the UK went to Sky completely in 1992, the sport grew incredibly but it's also a very different sport with hundreds of games and it's a very grass roots national sport. F1 could see a lot of damage like Cricket has said have by going full Sky. Highlights need to be on the one of the 4 main channels in the UK like Match of the Day is for football (soccer).
 
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chromatic9
The new owners of F1 have said they don't like the UK Sky deal that they inherited and can't do anything, Bernie signed it off. Sean Bratches (part of the new F1 group) sees a 30/70 ratio and free to air is important for fans and sponsors.

Perhaps they can put pressure on Sky to keep highlights on either BBC/ITV/C4 but Sky can do whatever they feel like. I can see a channel like BT showcase where they can advertise the F1 subscription while you watch the highlights.

Just reading about France, F1 on Canal Plus is around 750k average, that's with six years behind a pay wall so perhaps a clue to Sky UK that you won't see a decent jump once the free races on Channel 4 disappear.

The new deal in France where 4 races will get shown on TF1 reflects what Sean Bratches said previously about the 30/70 ratio and free to air TV is still important. France like the UK used to get 4-5 million viewers.

The ramifications won't be known for a while. When League Soccer in the UK went to Sky completely in 1992, the sport grew incredibly but it's also a very different sport with hundreds of games and it's a very grass roots national sport. F1 could see a lot of damage like Cricket has said have by going full Sky. Highlights need to be on the one of the 4 main channels in the UK like Match of the Day is for football (soccer).
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F1 doesn't work with pay TV like Football, because with football you will get 100s of games in a year, so your going to get your moneys worth, with F1 your waiting weeks for a race, they surely must of known why this is a problem.
 
The way I see it (cliche time I know), yes it is very bad thing for free-to-air TV and TV in general that Sky can throw any amount of money at a sport and know they have the rights or can renew the rights to show live coverage of any sport in the bag within the day and know as an extra incentive to take the Sky bid, Sky can at will, unlike channels like Channel 4 or the BBC, start any number of new channels so Rugby, Cricket, Football or whatever know in Sky they will have no problem getting air-time as Sky will give them a whole channel to themselves and won't have to make do with a 15 minute highlight show on Channel 4 at 10 pm.

BUT F1 is NOT the most exciting motorsport. More emphasis seems to be put on aerodynamics or fancy colour scheme than how to actually get them to pass each other. I thing most other forms of racing like GT, Sportscars and Rallycross pack more close racing and excitement into the race than F1 does over the two dreary hours or whatever each race lasts. And Sky does NOT have the rights to show something like the Blancpain or WEC. Channels like motorsport.tv does. Sky are missing a trick I think. To me Sky are just around to clear up for free-to-air-TV and online coverage stuff most of us are bored to tears with.
 
Diehardracer
Sky can at will, unlike channels like Channel 4 or the BBC, start any number of new channels so Rugby, Cricket, Football or whatever know in Sky they will have no problem getting air-time as Sky will give them a whole channel to themselves and won't have to make do with a 15 minute highlight show on Channel 4 at 10 pm.
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The problem for the sport is that the ratings die. Apart from my parents (who are golf/cricket addicts due to a presumed oxygen starvation early in life) I don't know anybody who actually has Sky - do you? Ratings for their F1 coverage are down to about 400,000 per race on Sky compared to millions on the 2017 C4 coverage.
 
I have Sky :D We nearly got rid of it halfway through last year though when it was Sky Sports or nothing. As you say above, you need to be watching other sports as well to validate the high cost. We now only have the basic Sky package with Sky Sports F1, so it is a lot cheaper than it used to be. Sky itself is quite poor most of the year with lots of repeats of the same shows, and then Game Of Thrones reappears and there is no way we could live without it for 6 weeks :D

What annoys me above all else with Sky Sports F1 though is that it doesn't show anything during the day. Currently it is active for a few hours at night to show the same documentaries again, with a race rerun. It should change again this week, but I don't understand why they couldn't put some classic races on during the day, or even just keep those race reruns going all day...
 
Its only because i love boxing aswell that i have sky. If F1 official streaming was available then I probably would have gone for that. Problems with sky are When people are paying full price for sky there’s no value for money. I wouldn’t have sky if i had to pay full price. Complete bundle for £24.50 per month means i am happy to pay it. Cancel and haggle when they want you back. Most dont do this and get charged a fortune. The low viewing figures are also down to the recent predictably of races and many are boring races. Must admit iam not exactly excited for the new season. Skys build up coverage is bland compared to channel 4.
 
I have Sky but wouldn't pay extra just for the F1. I've watched it for free* for four and a half decades and i'm not prepared to start paying for it now. I know they try and justify the cost by showing the race, qualifying, the three free practise sessions and all the pre and post race/qualifying stuff, but it's all filling. I just don't have the free time or interest levels to justify watching anything other than the race and if time, qualifying on the Saturday. I imagine that a majority of viewers feel the same.


*apart from the TV licence costs.
 
TheCracker
I know they try and justify the cost by showing the race, qualifying, the three free practise sessions and all the pre and post race/qualifying stuff, but it's all filling. I just don't have the free time or interest levels to justify watching anything other than the race and if time, qualifying on the Saturday. I imagine that a majority of viewers feel the same.
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To a large extent I agree. I think the main basis behind their "justification" is simply that everything is live and not on delay or highlights. I also skip all of the build up, but I make sure I watch qualifying as well. If I'm able to, I will watch some of the free practice sessions but I definitely don't make a habit of it.

One of the thing that keeps me onboard is that all of the F2 and GP3 races are also shown live when they support the F1 (and even the one race a season they host separate from the F1), so you get up to 5 races to watch over some weekends...
 
Lee x sensai
Question is sky only providers in Europe ? Other providers to broke to afford it ?
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Each country negotiates in own deals - or rather its various broadcasters bid for the coverage. The UK loses free-to-air coverage in 2019. France hasn't had free-to-air since 2012, but will get 4 live races this year. Spain doesn't have any free-to-air either. RTL will start broadcasting FTA on all races in Germany this year and Italy will lose almost all FTA races from this season as well.

Sky's deal in the UK costs them £200m a season. FTA broadcasters could never get that back from advertising revenue, so that's unfortunately the way things are heading. Even if the viewing figures are plummeting as a consequence.
 
TheCracker
Each country negotiates in own deals - or rather its various broadcasters bid for the coverage. The UK loses free-to-air coverage in 2019. France hasn't had free-to-air since 2012, but will get 4 live races this year. Spain doesn't have any free-to-air either. RTL will start broadcasting FTA on all races in Germany this year and Italy will lose almost all FTA races from this season as well.

Sky's deal in the UK costs them £200m a season. FTA broadcasters could never get that back from advertising revenue, so that's unfortunately the way things are heading. Even if the viewing figures are plummeting as a consequence.
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Dam
 

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