Afternoon. I picked up my daily newspaper this morning and whilst I was reading the sports pages, something caught my eye. I'm not sure if this has been picked up on already and I apologise if it has. To me, it seems that people who cannot afford Sky Sports, like me, are losing more and more coverage of the sport and that will lose many fans in my opinion. So for a fan like me, I can see 10 races a season and I won't be able to watch the other 10 races in full because I don't have Sky Sports. It's a kick in the teeth to the fans of F1. Your thoughts?
Make no mistake: this is the thin end of the wedge. And once you've subscribed like a lemming, you'll find no guarantee of the price not going up! The whole deal is a disgrace and anyone who puts their faith in it must be plain bonkers.
I don't think how much of the non-live races they show is the issue, it is how many years will the BBC continue to show at least some races. Because when they stop completely and sky have full control then F1 fans like me will not be watching F1 any more which will be a shame.
Yes. This is the long-term view which many seem to be overlooking. The only possibility - in spite of it not being good odds - of this not happening is for the wholesale rejection of Sky (Murdoch et al). If everyone avoids becoming a new subscriber, Murdoch's plans for F1 fall flat on their face. - But he's not stupid: he just thinks enough other people are… DON'T BE ONE OF THE LEMMINGS!
All of you must come to Australia! We get free coverage and commentary by MB and DC. The only problem with our coverage is stupidly annoying adbreaks at the worst times.
Yes, I saw this quote too. I wonder though whether this one is really Bernie's call. Anyway, according to the muthas at the BBC: "We haven't finalised the contract yet as to what type of highlights package will be available but those announcements are normally released first on our press office website." 2manylotuses, don't you get your coverage from the BBC over in Aus? I was reading an Australian article a few weeks back where they were moaning about this deal and where your coverage may come from in the future as, presumably, you won't be able to get more BBC coverage there than we do here.
Well in the Hungarian qualifying pre-show a while back, one of our British correspondants (I think it was James Allen), said that this deal with Sky sports doesn't actually affect us in any way and that we'll continue to recieve the same coverage we've always had here. So we get our usual pre-show with our hosts (so not Jake Humphery or Eddie Jordan), a few reports with one or two of our correspondents and then get stuck into the race with MB, DC and TK. Our adbreaks are out of sync with yours (I don't even know if you get adbreaks) and then we end with a post-race show from our hosts again. We get the races on channels 'OneHD' and 'Channel Ten' both of which are free and the only real difference between them is that Channel Ten will show the race about an hour later, while OneHD is live. So pretty much the only coverage we get from the BBC is the commentary, and as long as I get their commentary for each race don't have to pay for it, I'm stoked. None of our guys are worried on this end because the coverage we've always gotten will continue. I don't know what the BBC coverage is like so I don't know what the differences are between yours and ours.
Right. That article I read was in the immediate aftermath of the announcement when everyone was wondering what would happen. Glad to hear that it's sorted out over your way at least. It's still an infuriating mystery over here!
2Lotus: Two birds with one stone: The biggest differences is that our present coverage has no "adbreaks" at all. No BBC broadcast has ever contained commercial breaks of any kind - ever! This is because the BBC is not supported commercially, and is directly funded by the TV Licence fee. In this sense, every licence fee payer is funding the whole BBC operation: everything they do from wild-life documentaries to 'soaps'; and which of course has been providing full coverage of F1. This is why F1 fans here are so angry: in a sense they are being asked to pay twice in order to get the coverage they've been led to expect. Worse still, the 'second' payment they will soon need to find is in the order of 3.5 times more than the Licence fee - which of course they will still need to pay! The result is that if someone only uses a TV to watch F1, they will soon be paying about £700 per year (in some cases even more) instead of £145. - Quite a hike…
One must ask, just what the hell 'are' the BBC going to show and is the BBC value for money, its all very well the government freezing the license fee but if they cant afford to put on what we want to watch, whats the point of the BBC.
Like I said on another forum Bernie and Murdoch can go **** themselves with a walnut whip, the slimy little ****s. I bet they rent hotel rooms together, drink champaign and suck each others dicks while being spanked by Nazi prostitutes, with Max Mosley watching on, pleasuring himself in a dark corner.
Having completely overlooked the fact that from January I will be paying £1200 per month in childcare for my daughter I am now revising my plan to subscribe to Sky, and feel that only being able to watch half the sport is actually worse than watching non of it.
