Formula 1 shared rights with Sky

[technodup]

I'm not sure why so many people blame Ecclestone, he's in business to make money. The most money he can. That's how it works. He's not there to do favours to the BBC, although he is stretching the limits of the CA.

I forget which politician said they would "do less, better" but the BBC should adopt that strategy. Why they need four channels and even more radio stations is anyone's guess, particularly when there's so much crap and repeats filling them up.

Scrap BBC3 & 4, put the best of BBC4 on BBC2. Scrap half the radio channels at the same time. Sort out their biased "CUTS! CUTS! CUTS!" news coverage and then they might have a chance of a licence fee from me again.

I'll not hold my breath. 3 years and counting.

 

[renaldo]

The Concorde Agreement ends before this will be implemented, so I guess thats the get out for that. Bernie has said he doesn't think they'll need a new one, which will be interesting given some of the spats of late.
It also sounds as if all races will be shown in full on the BBC, just not live, but don't think thats confirmed or how long they will be delayed by.
Aside from not wanting to have to subscribe to Sky Sports just for the F1, I'd really miss Martin Brundle and DC's commentary, assuming they don't go over. I thought the beeb was doing a really good job, and I've not liked motorsport on Sky in the past, e.g. A1 GP.
Bernie also reckons this will increase F1's ratings, basd on how many people have Sky, which I don't really follow as there cannot be more households with Sky than those with a TV license.
Some of the teams are saying the money is needed to support the cost of putting on the show, although in reality a big chunk of all teams budget will be spent in the windtunnel making cars that don't race very well.

 

[rosstheboss]

Bloody sky......grrrrrr, I have sky and love it but object to paying extra for things that personally should be free - England rugby games and (warm ups and autumn internationals), Rugby premiership and cricket for a start. A lot of the sports that Sky have exclusive rights for are becoming marginalised as people can't afford to watch them, so interest wanes.

When the BBC showed rugby games that were live on Sky, they generally started an hour after the game finished, although this rule went tits up when they applied it to cricket, the game over ran and channel 5 couldn't show the highlights!!!! Which is doubly bollocks as most cricket fans listen to test match special during the day and the highlights at night, so there is little benefit of not knowing the result.....

Perhaps the BBC could invest in mountain biking instead? I'm constantly amazed at how little (i.e.sweet f.a.!!!)coverage mountain biking gets from the bbc, whilst seemingly following every other discipline of cycling like a bloodhound!!! We've had numerous world champions over the last few years but not a mention on the bbc.... bloody ridiculous

Back OT though, F1 on sky...... it'll be crap - what's going to happen when the F1 clashes with one of Sky Sports Super Sundays will they interrupt an afternoon of wall to wall twatball for three hours of F1?????? Can't see it myself.....

 

[highlandsflyer]

145/yr. for 5 channels, then you have to pay for cable on top of that?!?!? :shock: Insane.

A freeview box can be as little as £10, I reckon the license fee is excellent value for the BBC channels alone.

Without this system we would never have had all the ground-breaking series we have enjoyed.

The BBC is more than just some TV company.

They are one of the most pioneering social influences in the history of mankind.

At £3 a week, that spells bargain to me.

 

[T'boo Ted]

ah... now I am starting to understand why down here they advertise the crap out of "freeview"... freeview, freeview, freeview... its free... well der of course its free and we're watching this ad because we have freeview, we always have had it, just now its 16 channels instead of 5. I don't even know anyone with pay tv, but I realise that pay or cable is big in the US, but I didn't realise you guys in the UK had such a crappy deal!
Here the locals go mental (myself included) if the locals guys do a bit of comentary comming back from a break before crossing back to the BBC guys, or if the signal goes down for 5 seconds.
I think pay tv is like 10% uptake or something, the rest jsut have free tv.

 

[Kentphil]

I'm absolutely disgusted with the whole situation. An utter disgrace!

 

[Harryburgundy]

Beggers belief....here is a friends blog on the subject.

http://t.co/ynDehM1

 

[Drencrom]

Good blog, but the issue is value for money - £80m a year for up to 9m viewers isn't viable at the moment.

It's an expensive sport in all aspects.

 

[FMJ]

At £3 a week, that spells bargain to me.

Perhaps that's because you don't know any better.

I'm paying slightly more that you. (about 5 pounds/week). I'm watching the BBC quali feed right now on TSN HD 1. 1&2 are nation wide multi sport networks. The feed on SPEED TV HD (24 hr motorsports channel from the States) is blacked out, as Canadian programming trumps a US feed, and I don't like the announcers on it, anyway. Today after quali I will flip over to the Golf Channel HD (24 hr. golf programming, duh) to watch live coverage of the Irish Open. The X Games will be on TSN HD 2 later this afternoon , and I believe there's coverage of Crankworks on OLN (Outdoor Life Network), but I'm going riding.

You may be happy with what you have. Sounds like the Stone Age to me.

 

[Drencrom]

At £3 a week, that spells bargain to me.

Perhaps that's because you don't know any better...

You may be happy with what you have. Sounds like the Stone Age to me.

It's not just £145 for 2 free to air channels though, we also get a huge amount of radio and web content from that, along with the iPlayer. The BBC has proven to be a service that is vital across the world, not just here or in 'developed' countries.

Have a look at some of what we get for our money:

TV: http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/
Radio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

And this is without obvious commercial input - so no breaks/ads. The BBC News channel is well worth a mention, and although we sometimes have to read between the lines, it's nowhere near as bad as a commercial news organisation.