uk f1 tv coverage - sky, bbc and ch4

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by S griffin

thanks to Sky's selfish monopoly

Why should Sky spend money on obtaining the broadcast rights, be forces to not make money from subscriptions?

It's how their business works - so probably a bit harsh to call it selfish or a monopoly. Every other broadcaster is able to bid for the contract.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It was so good to watch a race live on the telly. Channel 4 did an excellent job as usual. Agreed the interaction with Vowles added to the event and nice to have doing it. Just a shame their contract which runs till the end of 2026 is still only showing highlights of every other race, with only the British GP live, thanks to Sky's selfish monopoly

Sorry, but why is it selfish? SKY tendered for the contract and offered more than any other broadcaster in a normal commercial process. It is then up to any other broadcaster to agree a contract with SKY to obtain secondary rights to show SKY's produce, and in this case, the government at that time mandated that the British GP should be shown live and that is what has happened.

Obviously, the management at Channel 4 have felt that they couldn't justify the cost of showing every race live, so the UK's viewers are left with the choice of edited highlights shown at a later time, or pay for a subscription to SKY.

I would suggest that your vitriol should be directed at Mr Ecclestone who is the one who sold the broadcasting rights to SKY in the first place. I know I did and told him so but I am a mere nothing in comparison to the money that he and the teams have received from the deals for the TV rights. And I will be very surprised if SKY doesn't keep the rights at the time of the next renewal because they nearly are always prepared more to have the rights than any other broadcaster in the UK, Europe and even down Australasia way. That's the commercial reality which is what F1 is all about; racing is secondary to that!

[Derwent]

It all depends on how the teams and their sponsors see it. If you can only watch if you can afford (or justify) £200 a year, then the number of views is going to be less than if it was free to view. The sponsors will want the maximum number of viewers as will all the trackside advertisers.
I would never pay Sky for anything.

[VIVA GT]

Since the SKY 'takeover' of Grand Prix coverage I have learned to accept that what Channel 4 can provide for me for free is good enough for me. I also proved to myself last weekend that although I class myself as an enthusiast, and I watches as much of the 'full coverage' as possible, I couldn't spare myself the time to watch all of it, and that was just for one event, I certainly couldn't do it for the whole calendar.

[Aysedasi]

Likewise. Although I really enjoyed the live coverage of everything last weekend, there's no way I'd shell out for that for every GP nor would I want to make the time available to watch every session every time. It would be nice to watch the races themselves live but that's not enough of an incentive for me to pay for the privilege.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Derwent

It all depends on how the teams and their sponsors see it. If you can only watch if you can afford (or justify) £200 a year, then the number of views is going to be less than if it was free to view. The sponsors will want the maximum number of viewers as will all the trackside advertisers.

As you open with - it depends on how sponsors see it.

One view is that the maximum exposure is the best for their aims - but another is that they prefer to target an audience with more disposable income.

When you look at the sponsors attached to F1 at the moment, a lot of them are premium brands (Ray Ban, Richard Mille, Bang & Olufsen, IWC Schaffhausen etc). Their target audience (as justification for their F1 sponsorship) are those who are willing to spend to indulge in their hobbies and interests.

[peebee2]

Virtually no sponsor activation comes from the TV coverage of the races. It’s pretty much irrelevant.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Virtually no sponsor activation comes from the TV coverage of the races. It’s pretty much irrelevant.

And in many cases, the same applies to spectators.

Quite a few years ago, my son's firm of solicitors were the primary sponsor for one of the drivers and his car in British GT when they were part of the BTCC package; they didn't sponsor his co-driver, though. The firm concerned only conducted commercial law worldwide and would never undertake personal law cases even for members of staff let alone anyone from their commercial clients.

The only reason for the sponsorship was so that they could entertain clients at events, whether that was at a motor race, a game of cricket, rugby or football. The fact that the firms name was splashed across the car and their name was part of the entrant's name, was purely incidental and of no real benefit except their clients could tell which was the particular car.

[crmalcolm]

Just for a little bit of fun - and to demonstrate how the tv coverage of F1 has no relation to the marketing of an F1 sponsor - this is the retail space of one current F1 sponsor.

Care to guess who it is?

And I'm sure from looking at this 'shop', you can see that there is no interest in the typical armchair fan being part of their customer base.

[Mike Harte]

Is it Mr Porter, purveyor of exclusive fashion stuff?

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Is it Mr Porter, purveyor of exclusive fashion stuff?

It is not.

To avoid derailing this thread, I'll post it in the Motorsport Quiz thread here - https://tentenths.com/forum/showthre...157580&page=39

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by peebee2

To be fair to them, you can always get a full season Sky Sports package for £200, which includes every session and F2 and F3.

Good value if you watch a lot.

Plus the £159 for the TV license. I think one might need to watch a lot of TV for it to become good value.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Plus the £159 for the TV license. I think one might need to watch a lot of TV for it to become good value.

A genuine question but is the Sky Spots package at £200 a stand-alone thing, or is this the charge to add Sky Sports to your existing Sky package? If so, for someone like me without anything Sky, the costs would be significantly higher. (I do realise that it would also open far more possibilities for me with things to watch, but I don't have enough 'spare' time to watch everything that's currently available to me anyway!)

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

A genuine question but is the Sky Spots package at £200 a stand-alone thing, or is this the charge to add Sky Sports to your existing Sky package? If so, for someone like me without anything Sky, the costs would be significantly higher. (I do realise that it would also open far more possibilities for me with things to watch, but I don't have enough 'spare' time to watch everything that's currently available to me anyway!)

It’s on the Sky-owned NOW platform.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Plus the £159 for the TV license. I think one might need to watch a lot of TV for it to become good value.

Doh, are you sure about that for streaming???

You do need the TV licence to watch Channel 4. There’s no free TV coverage of F1 in the UK.

[chillibowl]

it really is an overwhelming amount of content they create.

while our cable subscriptions/syndication deals work differently on this side of the pond i think the bigger benefit of being on this side is the time zone factor.

being able to watch the majority of events live, the pre race, the race, and some of the post race coverage, and being done by about 10-1030am CST leaving me free to enjoy the rest of my day makes the spend and time commitment more than justifiable.

if i had to pay a premium (15-20 beans a month) with the knowledge that i would be sacrificing half my sundays a year (many in the summer at that) i doubt i would be watching much more than the highlights myself.

of course i could record and watch later but that poses its own problems and implies a level of control over the remote which i just dont have.

bit of a side thought...but maybe my biggest issue with more US/western hemisphere races is that it places an increasing number of events squarely in the middle of my sunday afternoons thus making those races, ironically enough, the harder GPs to follow live and in their entirety.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Doh, are you sure about that for streaming???

You do need the TV licence to watch Channel 4. There’s no free TV coverage of F1 in the UK.

You don't need a TV Licence if you only ever watch catch-up (or on demand).

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ8

[Derwent]

I am sure many of us could afford the £200 fee but choose not to. Like many have said, time is a factor. I have other things to do like going to motoring events. Also with so many events out of the Euro time zone you can't see them live anyway.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Doh, are you sure about that for streaming???

You do need the TV licence to watch Channel 4. There’s no free TV coverage of F1 in the UK.

I am well aware there's no free TV coverage of F1 in the UK.

Regarding streaming, it says here, https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one#,

''If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.''

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Plus the £159 for the TV license. I think one might need to watch a lot of TV for it to become good value.

Exactly. With the cost of living crisis, it's getting harder to justify paying for all that content

[Greem]

Be careful what you wish for. If (when?) the BBC's funding model is changed then an awful lot of really high quality content will get the chop.

I'm not necessarily talking about the big ticket celebrity things; local radio has just had a raft of changes to cut costs and those changes have caused considerably anger and distress - you can look up why if you're interested.

The licence fee covers far, far more than is perceived.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Derwent

I am sure many of us could afford the £200 fee but choose not to. Like many have said, time is a factor. I have other things to do like going to motoring events. Also with so many events out of the Euro time zone you can't see them live anyway.

I understand. I'm not Sky but I know you can also pay for each race (day/week) with no issue.

My post was more about the "selfish" drivel that was previously posted up.

[S griffin]

It just doesn't seem right to have the monopoly of live coverage behind the paywall. Just because it makes good business sense doesn't mean it makes good actual sense. That I feel is a well reasoned view on why I feel it's selfish, even if others don't agree. I don't feel it's 'drivel' to think that

[Derwent]

With the increasing number of GPs inside a nine month period, and some every week, they surely lose their impact.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It just doesn't seem right to have the monopoly of live coverage behind the paywall. Just because it makes good business sense doesn't mean it makes good actual sense. That I feel is a well reasoned view on why I feel it's selfish, even if others don't agree. I don't feel it's 'drivel' to think that

It's business, pure and simple. It doesn't make 'sense' to me because I can't watch GPs live for free any more. But money talks....