When will Digital F1 TV come to the UK?

[Sodemo]

Hi, I love in-car cameras, unfortunatly Bernie has decided that terrestrial viewers cannot have in-car shots for more than a few seconds (which i think is distgusting) anyway when is Digital F1 coming to UK?

PS whats the point of limiting the incar footage if we can't buy digital?

[Billy_Hunt]

The only real infromation I have ever seen was from a digital information site which just stated that Sky were deep in talks for the rights of digital F1 coverage nothing more I'm afraid
I've just done a quick search and come up with this from a digital forum doesnt look too good


There's a great digital Formula 1 channel available in Europe. I've seen it at the British Grand Prix and it blows ITV's service away when it comes to cameras and access to the teams.
Set up by Bernie Ecclestone, I think it's free in Europe - but are there any plans to bring it to the UK?
Formula 1 is the only thing making me impatient about getting ITV through Sky (ITV reception in my area is poor)... but if this new channel crosses from the mainland, ONdigital can keep it.

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It's Pay per View in most of Europe (Germany and German speaking countries you have to pay an annual subscription for it).
The rights for the digital F1 service have not yet been bought by any UK broadcaster...Sky are interested but Bernie doesn't like Rupert and won't sell them to him. That leaves U>Direct, ONdigital or NTL (or a combination of them). ONdigital and NTL are both rumoured to be "in talks".
...or a new company.
The main problem is likely to be cost - Bernie expects 5% takeup among people who already watch F1. The average GP gets less than 4million viewers in the UK, so that's only 200,000 people. Assuming that each person either pays for about 2/3 races or buys the whole season at a reduced price and that there are 1.6 F1 fans in each household, that means the most revenue you are going to get from the service is £12-15million a year.
Bernie is likely to want substantially more money than that (ITV are paying £73million for their current 3 year deal), so whoever gets the rights is going to lose around £100million over five years.

[badoer fan]

I read that in the new bidding that ITV may bid for terrestrial cverage, with ONDigital bidding for the digital in company with iTV. This would be really useless as about 24 people in Britain have ONDigital.
I read that Sky may also bid, but I don't know if this is for normal coverage on Sky Sports, or for pay per view (they do have a special channel for sports events, ie boxing, so there is somewhere thay could put it.)

[Maximum F1]

I hear that the BBC are now thinking of biding for F1 which would get rid of all those ad breaks at least!