Media platform akin to WWE Network/Netflix/Amazon/etc?

[matherto]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the FIA/Bernie/F1 Group/whoever the new American guys are own the commercial/media rights to every race past, present and future.

These rights are then auctioned off to the highest bidder in each country to air them live or as highlights. In the UK obviously Sky have their own F1 channel and Channel 4 get some live races and then highlights for all of them.

Sky also have seemingly unlimited access to the vault of past races and air them periodically under the 'Classic F1' banner. The BBC used to have full old races available on iPlayer if I remember correctly when they had the rights a few years back.

The problem with Sky though is that they don't give you a choice of what old race you get to watch and very often they air the same one over and over again. It's also pretty infrequent when the classic races are broadcast and very often never unless there's a race that weekend.

It got me thinking about it when I was looking at watching some old races on the web. There's a fair few full races on Youtube in English but the FIA/rights holders seem to have a good handle on shutting them down fairly quickly. You can find Japanese or German commentary full races quite easily but obviously they're not ideal if you don't speak the language fluently.

Dailymotion and other lesser known streaming sites have them in parts usually but it's quite hard if you want to watch a full season over the course of a few days unless you've got the originals recorded and stored somewhere.

Then it got me thinking about the WWE Network. I'd wager there aren't many on here that are 'wrestling' fans but I grew up as a kid in the 90's so wrestling was pretty big back then. Having access to entire year's worth of their episodic shows back all the way to 1993 (RAW), 1999 (Smackdown) and also all the older PPV's plus their rival brands from the time because they own the rights and all for only £9.99 a month is a fantastic deal when you consider it. It's also full of original content added weekly too. I'm not a wrestling fan (beyond watching Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble each year) any longer but I pay the fee so I can watch the stuff I used to love as a kid in full and relive it now.

Without trying to sound like I'm doing an advert for WWE, why couldn't the rights holders for F1 do the same thing with all their old races? Sky after all show WWE live on a Monday and Tuesday and have highlights packages for that during the week so even though they have the rights to show live F1 events, surely the classic races would be available to be put into an app/network service for all of us historical F1 fans?

I know F1 are a bit behind the times when it comes to modern media and the new American owners are supposedly going to look into increasing the exposure it gets outside the race broadcasts so maybe this is something they could do?

I'd happily pay £9.99 a month for the chance to watch full race weekends from years gone by. I'm currently trying to get through the 1994 season as best I can and it'd be so much easier on one central platform.

They could then add in similar things to Ted's notebook and all the driver interviews pre and post race and do extra things to increase knowledge and viewership. Original content in F1 would be a gold mine surely?

[chunder]

The thing is with subscriptions like that, once you have exhausted your interest what do you do then.

I think a sub system would only work if you varied the prices for one and off season. So perhaps an off season pass for 6 quid a month, to encourage users to register in the off season for testing and old races, and obviously a bit more for the season. MotoGP site did it years ago, but then ramped up the price the year after so I didn't bother again.

I watch Supercross in the off season, and it is only on Fox in the USA, they are offering a pass at the moment for 100 quid which is a fiver per race! And when you consider the whole event lasts maybe 3 hours, that is quite steep for a series that is usually done and dusted after a few rounds and often is dominated by one rider.

But if enough people take the bait it will be claimed a success and pave the way for more and more sub services.

I reject them out of principle due to the precedent they will set in the future. But I do think a solus service when you are not basically paying for other sports aswell is the likely future.

[NaBUru38]

F1 does have a big footage archive. But they don't produce enough new content to attract enough customers willing to pay a premium.

Now, FIA could package all their World Championships int a single video service. That would be more attractive than a F1-only service.

[Richard C]

Build a system (maybe exists today) to deliver current content (the real value) and then provide older content as a sweetener. If it is priced right it would work. They already own the content. You have companies like Netflix that make it work and yet they still have to pay for the content (which F1 wouldn't have to do).

Richard

[Greem]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Build a system (maybe exists today) to deliver current content (the real value) and then provide older content as a sweetener.

(my emphasis)

YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and to a lesser extent some of the smaller players already exist, have the web scale technology to deliver mass market live streaming to (tens/hundreds of?) millions of eyeballs, and have the connectivity and peering agreements with ISPs the world over to make it happen without killing things. Piggyback the older content on one of them. Sorted.

Trust me on this one: FOM could not in a year of Sundays deliver that a platform that wouldn't fall over due to demand. And why should they, when they can partner with companies whose raison d'etre is moving packets to end users?

[HDTVKSS]

This has merit and is something I have thought of for a while. WEC has their app which can be effectively used for the same purpose showing highlights etc with subscriptions to be purchased for live viewing should you wish to do so.

Just logging onto Apple TV, there are tiles for NFL, NHL, NBA, WWE, UFC etc. Im not a huge fan of the current Fox / Sky model as i watch very little TV and dont feel its worth it. This however i would pay for happily - especially if there is access to past races, interviews and other value add.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Greem

YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and to a lesser extent some of the smaller players already exist, have the web scale technology to deliver mass market live streaming to (tens/hundreds of?) millions of eyeballs, and have the connectivity and peering agreements with ISPs the world over to make it happen without killing things. Piggyback the older content on one of them. Sorted.

Trust me on this one: FOM could not in a year of Sundays deliver that a platform that wouldn't fall over due to demand. And why should they, when they can partner with companies whose raison d'etre is moving packets to end users?

Going with an established player could work as you say for older content and would be easy.

Regarding a platform they would control... They absolutely shouldn't build one from the ground up even if the technology to do so exists. It's just not an easy task. However I seem to think there are already companies in this space that specialize in exactly this scenario (you provide content, we provide infrastructure and related services). They should just pick a capable vendor and contract it out to them. And if they go that route, they could do both old and new content. Handling the load for live races across the entire globe is the hard part.

Richard

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Greem

(my emphasis)

YouTube, Amazon, Netflix and to a lesser extent some of the smaller players already exist, have the web scale technology to deliver mass market live streaming to (tens/hundreds of?) millions of eyeballs, and have the connectivity and peering agreements with ISPs the world over to make it happen without killing things. Piggyback the older content on one of them. Sorted.

Trust me on this one: FOM could not in a year of Sundays deliver that a platform that wouldn't fall over due to demand. And why should they, when they can partner with companies whose raison d'etre is moving packets to end users?

if memory serves this is what Tata Communications is helping FOM with.

i believe next year, Tata is provide SKY UHD/4K output so that SKY can then broadcast/stream that feed and over the past few years, Tata have been hosting a number of competitions aimed at finding solutions to distributing virtual and/or augmented reality streams.

so yeah i would agree, FOM isnt looking to build its own system but rather looking to offer a better package to traditional broadcast partners who will then be able to offer their subscribers content in more innovative (and expensive) ways.

FOM might have missed the trick the first time around on interwebs but it sounds like they a working on a much more ambitious plan that could potentially put them ahead of what other sports are currently providing their fans.

mind you, this, i am assuming, has nothing to do with making older content available.

[S griffin]

There are already some vintage clips on the official F1 YouTube channel, but still a long way to go for it to compete with the best media platforms of modern times. But then Bernie wouldn't know what modern is if it jumped in front of him and did cartwheels

[matherto]

I think it's mainly the fact that obviously F1 Group and the current owners/runners of the seasons are the rights holders so they clamp down so hard on any races uploaded on Youtube or other streaming sites by independent people but then don't provide their own versions for people to watch.

I just want to be able to decide 'hey, I want to watch 1997 again', go to a website or an app, click the 1997 Australian Grand Prix and then watch practice, qualifying and race at my own leisure and go through the season from there. I'd gladly pay for a service like that and I bet I wouldn't be the only one.

I was born in 1990 so obviously I've only ever seen archival highlights of older seasons (before 93ish, 94 was the first season I definitely remember watching each race, even if I didn't take it all in as a child) but to be able to watch older full race weekends would be wonderful too.

It doesn't bother me to watch whichever current race live on the proposed service because you have the existing broadcast contracts in place to watch it on TV. With WWE they broadcast the PPV's live on the Network but the episodic shows are over a month behind the latest show, that's entirely fine by me because I only want to watch the older stuff anyway.

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by matherto

I think it's mainly the fact that obviously F1 Group and the current owners/runners of the seasons are the rights holders so they clamp down so hard on any races uploaded on Youtube or other streaming sites by independent people but then don't provide their own versions for people to watch.

I just want to be able to decide 'hey, I want to watch 1997 again', go to a website or an app, click the 1997 Australian Grand Prix and then watch practice, qualifying and race at my own leisure and go through the season from there. I'd gladly pay for a service like that and I bet I wouldn't be the only one.

I was born in 1990 so obviously I've only ever seen archival highlights of older seasons (before 93ish, 94 was the first season I definitely remember watching each race, even if I didn't take it all in as a child) but to be able to watch older full race weekends would be wonderful too.

It doesn't bother me to watch whichever current race live on the proposed service because you have the existing broadcast contracts in place to watch it on TV. With WWE they broadcast the PPV's live on the Network but the episodic shows are over a month behind the latest show, that's entirely fine by me because I only want to watch the older stuff anyway.

I'm the same age and it's same here, the fact I would love to see old broadcasts of races from my childhood and before as well, it's a shame we aren't getting enough of it and it's slowly disappearing. Just would love to watch the old BBC/ITV broadcasts from back in the day