F1 goes to Sky sports

[henners88]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Wether the BBC overpaid it's managers is irrelevent. The money is given to the by the government, if that government then decides that the BBC are having £60 million less then that is that, there is nothing that the BBC can do about it.

And the fact the BBC approached Sky directly over the deal instead of allowing other FTA broadcasters to bid for the coverage was correct in your opinion?

[Marbot]

That would be the deal breaker or maker for quite a few.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by Marbot

That would be the deal breaker or maker for quite a few.

Its also the difference between viewing what is best for the fans, or what is best for business. I thought by paying a TV licence, and paying tax in this country we at least had a right to have a say in such a deal before it is decided. At the end of the day Bernie doesn't care if 3 million fans in Britain watch the race, or 900,000, as long as he gets a larger cut from the broadcaster. the only people who feel hard done by here are the British fans and possibly the sponsors who pay big money for their brand to been seen by as many as possible. Banks like Santander who are attempting to become the UK's leading bank (not going quite to plan) and use TV as a lucrative marketing tool.

[strider]

I'll post this again since no-one seems to have noticed it first time around and I've put it in bold for good measure!

Originally Posted by strider

Here's something of a shock, for me at least. Brundle and Croft thought to be going to Sky.

PS Twitter from Brundle: "Telegraph was wrong, I didn't sign £1m Sky contract today. Calmly working through it, will end up doing what satisfies me most professionally."

[henners88]

Originally Posted by strider

I'll post this again since no-one seems to have noticed it first time around and I've put it in bold for good measure!PS Twitter from Brundle: "Telegraph was wrong, I didn't sign £1m Sky contract today. Calmly working through it, will end up doing what satisfies me most professionally."

I know he's had alot of pressure from fans on twitter over this. If he decides he wants the money and goes to Sky I hope a deal can be reached where commentators are shared. Hopefully however I hope he stays with the Beeb as Sky would struggle to get a more well informed member of their team.

[strider]

Originally Posted by henners88

I know he's had a lot of pressure from fans on twitter over this. If he decides he wants the money and goes to Sky I hope a deal can be reached where commentators are shared. Hopefully however I hope he stays with the Beeb as Sky would struggle to get a more well informed member of their team.

I think he will stay with the Beeb, particularly if Croft is going to Sky because then he'd lose the lead commentator's role. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Beeb's team remain pretty much intact, although Lee Mack has worked for Sky before in A1GP. Hope Ant Davidson stays, too, although he might go with Croft. The ball seems to be in Brundle's court.

[Marbot]

"Telegraph was wrong,I didn't sign £1m Sky contract today. Calmly working through it, will end up doing what satisfies me most professionally". Said Brundle, about 5 hours ago.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by henners88

And the fact the BBC approached Sky directly over the deal instead of allowing other FTA broadcasters to bid for the coverage was correct in your opinion?

Well, yes to be honest, but then i pay for Sky and i want the best value for my money

And as i posted elsewhere in this thread, i'd rather pay to watch Sky with no ad breaks than not pay to watch CH4 or 5 with ad breaks.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Well, yes to be honest, but then i pay for Sky and i want the best value for my money

And as i posted elsewhere in this thread, i'd rather pay to watch Sky with no ad breaks than not pay to watch CH4 or 5 with ad breaks.

You're very lucky to be in that position.

Do you understand or can you appreciate how the people who cannot afford Sky feel about this? You admit you have Sky so this deal or this debate has absolutely no impact on you at all, other than the worry of who is going to be presenting the programme, which IMO is pretty minor. People like myself from next season will have no choice but to avoid a races results all day and look forward to a stripped down highlights show at 6pm on a Sunday. You are going to have the priviledge of watching all the races live for goodness sake!

The other impact of all this is how quiet the forums will be around the time of the races as a large chunk of posters will be avoiding them until they have seen the race. Its going to be annoying when a discussion is underway and a poster comes in and makes all the same points again, asks the same questions, only with the threads to fill up with people saying, "we've already said that" lol. "Well I've only just seen the race so tough!" I enjoy going on the live F1 chat during races as people discuss things as they happen and things are spotted that others have missed. Will these be set up for delayed viewers to use I wonder? Live timing is also something which is useful to view when watching a race as it puts into context how well drivers are doing rather than the odd glimpse you see on screen. Will a delayed live timing be supplied? I doubt it as the highlights will have laps missing and the hour build up with all the information leading into the race will be shortened too.

You've got to understand that this is pretty rubbish if you can't afford Sky and for some of the diehard fans who have followed the sport for so long, it will take alot of the excitement out of the whole experience.

[strider]

Originally Posted by Marbot

"Telegraph was wrong,I didn't sign £1m Sky contract today. Calmly working through it, will end up doing what satisfies me most professionally". Said Brundle, about 5 hours ago.

As mentioned in the postcript to post #829. It seems my posts are invisible!

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by henners88

You're very lucky to be in that position.

Do you understand or can you appreciate how the people who cannot afford Sky feel about this? You admit you have Sky so this deal or this debate has absolutely no impact on you at all, other than the worry of who is going to be presenting the programme, which IMO is pretty minor. People like myself from next season will have no choice but to avoid a races results all day and look forward to a stripped down highlights show at 6pm on a Sunday. You are going to have the priviledge of watching all the races live for goodness sake!

You've got to understand that this is pretty rubbish if you can't afford Sky and for some of the diehard fans who have followed the sport for so long, it will take alot of the excitement out of the whole experience.

Well said, my thoughts exactly as I am another who is not in a position to be able to afford Sky. Bernie has so much money he's forgotten what it's like in the real world, where people are really feeling the squeeze at the moment. I cannot justify £40 a month to watch 10 races a year and there will be some that I am not able to watch so even worse value for money. Even if I could it's still poor value for money. Having said that Bernie doesn't give a toss he just wants to make more and more money.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I cannot justify £40 a month to watch 10 races a year

And that seems to be the crux of the matter to many that do not already subscribe to Sky Sports (let alone those that do no have Sky at all!), whether or not they can afford to pay that amount of money.

£480 to watch 10 races, is not a good deal by any stretch of the imagination.

I've also heard many say something along the lines of: "Well, if I'm going to get Sky Sports, I'm also going to start watching soccer again, rather than spoiling a Saturday night out by watching Match of the day (soccer highlights show, on at around 10.30 PM, Saturday night). So there'll be no chance of watching the early morning races anyway *laughter*".

Either way, I'm sure that Murdoch/Ecclestone won't be losing too much sleep about that.

[morningview66]

Sorry if this topic has already been brought up but i havent read all 51 pages of whats been going on, but what races do people think the BBC will be covering next year?

I heard they will be covering half the races so 10 is this correct?

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by morningview66

I heard they will be covering half the races so 10 is this correct?

That's what most understand to be the case. Which races those will be remains to be seen.

Welcome.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by henners88

You're very lucky to be in that position.

Do you understand or can you appreciate how the people who cannot afford Sky feel about this?

Yes i do appreciate your position, is it unfair? Yes, probably, but i'm also a realist and that's the way the world is going, you pay for what you get nowadays and if you can't afford it you lose out, i want a Ferrari, but i can't afford it, but do i have people feeling sorry for me?

Fwiw, i offered my sympathies to those who couldn't afford it at the beginning of this thread and Garcon kindly told me what i could do with them, so i won't be doing that again

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Yes, probably, but i'm also a realist and that's the way the world is going, you pay for what you get nowadays and if you can't afford it you lose out, i want a Ferrari, but i can't afford it, but do i have people feeling sorry for me?

I once drove a brand new Ferrari for a while, which was good, but I couldn't help but also feel slightly embarrassed about it. I guess that you also have to be at ease with the fact that you may be perceived as having too much money.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Yes i do appreciate your position, is it unfair? Yes, probably, but i'm also a realist and that's the way the world is going, you pay for what you get nowadays and if you can't afford it you lose out, i want a Ferrari, but i can't afford it, but do i have people feeling sorry for me?

I don't quite see the relation between something that you've never owned or likely to own and something which has been free for 30 odd years and now isn't? I'm not asking for pity in any of this. I also feel sorry for viewers who will have Sky inpart because they are going to be faced with coverage which will be nowhere near as good as the BBC have produced the past 3 years. Having occasionally watched football on Sky and seen how poor that is, with a few minutes of pundits discussing the game and 4 ad breaks in any 25 minute slot, its not great news anyway. Read an interesting article on the Guardian site just after this news was announced that stated a Man Utd vs Chelsea game gets on average around 1.4 million viewers. Bear in mind that football is hugely popular in the UK and thats one of the biggest games of the season, its a poor stat IMO. F1 on the BBC gets anything from 3 to 4 million viewers in total over the race weekend, and thats not something Sky have the capacity to match. Its one thing having fans unhappy with such a deal but I expect the sponsors to ad pressure to this too.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by henners88

I don't quite see the relation between something that you've never owned or likely to own and something which has been free for 30 odd years and now isn't?

but has it been free or has it been subsidized by the countless millions of your neighbours who also pay the license fee but who have no interest in F1?

about the F1 Live Timing...it is possible to get it on delay through various mobile phone apps. some free but obviously the better ones cost money. additionally every race (and timing data) is available out there on the interwebs somewhere through live feeds others through downloads.

at the end of the day if you are prepared to find something and willing to accept a lower quality then you wont have to pay for anything.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by henners88

I also feel sorry for viewers who will have Sky inpart because they are going to be faced with coverage which will be nowhere near as good as the BBC have produced the past 3 years.

How do you know that the Sky coverage is going to be nowhere near as good? Or is this what you hope? Although i don't suppose your likely to find out!

[b1ackcr0w]

Originally Posted by Mr V

How do you know that the Sky coverage is going to be nowhere near as good? Or is this what you hope? Although i don't suppose your likely to find out!

While I'd like to be surprised by Sky's efforts, It will be a big surprise if it's anywhere near as good as the current BBC coverage.

The first rabbit to pull out of the hat will be to find a commentating team that's anywhere near as good as the BBC's (and it took the BBC & ITV decades to get it right).

The second is how are they going to resist the News Corp habit of Dumbing down and tabloidising everything they touch?

I grant you, I don't think I have a very open mind about this. And indeed there is some truth that I'm hoping they make a dreadful hash of it and fold up their tents and leave it to the BBC. But I don't think that position is baseless.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

but has it been free or has it been subsidized by the countless millions of your neighbours who also pay the license fee but who have no interest in F1?

about the F1 Live Timing...it is possible to get it on delay through various mobile phone apps. some free but obviously the better ones cost money. additionally every race (and timing data) is available out there on the interwebs somewhere through live feeds others through downloads.

at the end of the day if you are prepared to find something and willing to accept a lower quality then you wont have to pay for anything.

I am hoping the F1 fan community will share sources of where to watch the races for free nearer the time, and if it happens to be a rip off stream of the Sky feed then great. If it happens to be a foreign feed I'll settle for that too as long as the coverage is live.

Originally Posted by Mr V

How do you know that the Sky coverage is going to be nowhere near as good? Or is this what you hope? Although i don't suppose your likely to find out!

Any programme with adverts included in the schedule is poor in comparison. Unless Sky have a two hour build up so they can offer the same indepth analysis the BBC provide with their need for adverts aswell, I seriously doubt it'll be as good. The fact they have idiots rumoured or confirmed in Jardine, and Allen is enough to worry any British fan I would imagine. James Allen getting all creepy over Hamilton throughout the race is a massive turn off for me and I'm a Hamilton supporter. Even Brundle couldn't even that out with his input IMO.

[Adam43]

Well their rugby coverage is good. I doubt it will be quite as good as the beeb, which is great, but I suspect it will be decent. Their minority sport coverage is only adequate, but they still deliver a result there as they are showing a sport that no one else would. The evil sods.

[strider]

You'd better be right because it's getting bloody hot down here.

[henners88]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

but has it been free or has it been subsidized by the countless millions of your neighbours who also pay the license fee but who have no interest in F1?

That could be said about any programme that is put on the BBC couldn't it? I hate period drama's, reality programmes like 'Strictly Come Boring', and Eastenders, but they have to provide programmes for everyones tastes, and those combined cost millions to produce.

I could also use that arguement if I wanted to purchase Sky Sports. Why should I pay £40-50 p/m for a channel that only shows 10 races a season and is full of football, rugby, and cricket which the latter three I wouldn't have any interest in watching? Its about supplying coverage for a wide demographic of people IMO.

The fact that Sky Sports would only be needed by myself to watch 10 F1 races a year, means its a massive waste of money even if I could afford it. To put it into perspective £48 a race?? No thanks.

[Casper]

Oh the joys of watching the poms have a good whinge, I love it, get over the whole thing and join the modern world. The series isn't that exciting that missing out on half of it would make any difference anyway. BE has emasculated the whole thing to make it so rule entwined it is a bit like Formula Vee, a pity it is not as exciting to watch. Keep going I am enjoying you lot wring your hands and crying in your soup.