Formula One - 2015 Season

[Sidewaysbob]

WRC suffered from piss poor TV rights management. The company promoting it gave up then europsport took it on and sold it to some chap called doorknobs. He was a particularly shady chap to say the least. So eventually the FIA took it back and well it's not F1 so they didn't give a shit either.

So no rallying is a second rate event, badly promoted if at all. The Wales rally GB passed with ner a whisper. It was on TV but you had to hunt around to find it.

[T Pot]

BBC Cutting F1 confirmed - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35149963

Bloody shame. I think the cheapest legal option now will be a £7.99 NowTV pass for every race. Which means less than HD quality & no subtitles for deaf viewers like my other half.

[T Pot]

Channel 4 have picked up the rights! 10 live races, highlights for the others: http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/channel-4-becomes-terrestrial-home-of-formula-1?hootPostID=dde274dfb372ab4d0ede906f68a35e34

EDIT:

Channel 4 and Formula One™ agree new three-year deal for 2016-2018

Channel 4 to broadcast 10 races per season live – with highlights of all 21 races

Live races to be broadcast without advertising breaks

wahoo!

Still not all live, but at least we have a similar setup to this year.

[curium]

F1 is dying a death anyway.

It's good that C4 will allow free-to-view F1 to be available but I think it's only postponing the inevitable.

[T Pot]

F1 is dying a death anyway.

It's good that C4 will allow free-to-view F1 to be available but I think it's only postponing the inevitable.

It's only dying a death due to it getting more and more behind paywalls. The BBC races this year were still pulling an average of 3.1 million viewers per race, with it topping out at about 5million. Sure, these averages are lowest since 2009 (by only a few percent), but when you only have half the races, and the last two years are dominated by 2 drivers, which followed 4 years being dominated by one driver, some folks will lose interest.

Look at SKY, their average viewers are about 500 thousand per race. Putting F1 behind a paywall is killing it for viewership.

[Dudley]

What "no adverts thing"? Sky don't show adverts during football or anything else similar. ITV Will.

ITV will definitely have adverts during races otherwise they won't make any money out of it. Sky do not need to put adverts during races since F1 drives their existing subscription packages.

[Dudley]

Look at SKY, their average viewers are about 500 thousand per race. Putting F1 behind a paywall is killing it for viewership.

It doesn't help of course that it's now impossible to get F1 from Sky without spending £700 a year to watch football.

£80 a race is unsurprisingly not considered the best value.

[mexos]

Costs going up. Paywalls forcing viewership down. Teams like Mclaren refusing to lower the ratecard. Can we see a potential problem here?

The talk of F1 dying is premature, we've been through plenty of bigger crisis before. But it still amazes me that they get themselves in a fix like this again and again.

[McCoy]

C4 not ITV but told you.

Fair play, although C4 are a somewhat different proposition to ITV. I still maintain if the races had gone to ITV we'd have had advert breaks. We also do not know yet if there will be picture in picture adverts on C4.

[Halo]

Glad the BBC won't be paying for what was effectively a glorified advert for Sky. The revised contact was always an awful deal, and it's apt that it will now be airing next to horse racing, another sport that exists solely because of subsidies elsewhere.

[Baring]

For those with a tablet I think you can pay £5 per month for sky F1. Or its £10 for all sports.

[mexos]

So then, will DC go to Sky or C4?

[mexos]

I just realised that is the last of Suzy Perry presenting F1.

Every cloud & all that.

[T Pot]

For those with a tablet I think you can pay £5 per month for sky F1. Or its £10 for all sports.

Can you still do that? Since it is now £6.99 for a 24 hour, £10.99 for a week, or £30 for a month sky sports pack on NowTV I thought that was the cheapest option.

[mexos]

Masterplan:

Eject Hill & Herbert (Sorry Johnny), install DC, wait a year till Button is available, install Button, eject Lazenby, tempt Jake back*

* Never going to happen I know but one can dream

[mexos]

Well I say never going to happen, a quick search on twitter produces:

Jake Kanter ‏@Jake_Kanter 30m30 minutes ago

C4 yet to sign production partner for F1, but worth noting it took a stake in an indie owned by Jake Humphrey and David Coulthard this year

Also:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/11799033/Channel-4-backs-sport-producer-owned-by-Jake-Humphrey-and-David-Coulthard.html

And lastly:

Gerard O'Hagan ‏@Chuckleses Jul 13

@therealdcf1 our stray cat jake Humphrey gave birth to a kitten last month and we've named him David Coulthard

[Sidewaysbob]

By the by the sky HD give you the F1 channel. so you don't have to have the sports package ..

[ryodi]

Channel 4 was also the last place the WRC highlights were show on terrestrial tv before they vanished onto Motors TV and BT Sport.

I'll be interested to see what they do, their coverage of the Paralympics was great. If they have any sense they'll put Lee McKenzie in the hosting role.

[mexos]

Channel 4 was also the last place the WRC highlights were show on terrestrial tv before they vanished onto Motors TV and BT Sport.

I'll be interested to see what they do, their coverage of the Paralympics was great. If they have any sense they'll put Lee McKenzie in the hosting role.

Please god no. She's no anchor. A valiant effort when she stepped in to do it but, yeah but no thanks.

[Froettmaning]

By the by the sky HD give you the F1 channel. so you don't have to have the sports package ..

Pretty sure they don't offer that anymore, unfortunately.

[T Pot]

By the by the sky HD give you the F1 channel. so you don't have to have the sports package ..

Not anymore. If you don't already have it from an old package you have to sign up for all of sports. They stopped at least 2 years ago, as I couldn't get Sky F1 with my Sky HD sub without getting all of sports in 2013.

[Jonny5]

Does the C4 catchup app let you download content for offline viewing? I watched most of this season as highlights on the train to work on a Monday morning, if I can continue to do that I'll be happy.

[Sidewaysbob]

I didn't realise about the Sky HD not working anymore.. as you were ..

*wanders off whistling to self*

[Baring]

Can you still do that? Since it is now £6.99 for a 24 hour, £10.99 for a week, or £30 for a month sky sports pack on NowTV I thought that was the cheapest option.

I already have sports for.free on my phone n tablet using someone's password but a quick Google shows a 4.99 in app purchase of sky sports.

Can someone download the app and verify this?

[whizzo]

Dudley I stand by my comments! If it was ITV they would show ads.

Channel four I would have been unsure

[T Pot]

I already have sports for.free on my phone n tablet using someone's password but a quick Google shows a 4.99 in app purchase of sky sports.

Can someone download the app and verify this?

http://www.skysports.com/mobile/apps/9653846/sky-sports-mobile-tv

£9.99 a month. Not too bad. Still has the problem of no subtitles, and you are limited to watching on your phone or tablet if you don't have anything to hook it up to the TV.

[davadvice1]

You can't hook up the TV as the app prevents it. The app is pretty shit,there is something with the sound it's very tinny and the video stream is clunky due to the nature of the show it's not as smooth as it should be.

Ohh if you do use the app and also use the f1 app for timing it's about 1-3 min delay.

I personal can't justify paying the money for sky sports all that's on it now is cricket and some very poor choice football games as BT has all the premium games.

I hope c4 get rid of Jordan he's a total arsehole.

[Dudley]

Costs going up. Paywalls forcing viewership down. Teams like Mclaren refusing to lower the ratecard. Can we see a potential problem here?

The talk of F1 dying is premature, we've been through plenty of bigger crisis before. But it still amazes me that they get themselves in a fix like this again and again.

Ultimately there could be a readjustment and that might not be the worst thing.

Think Indycar without the protectionism. A bunch more independent teams rather than manufacturer funded powerhouses.

[wev]

But as we all know, there wont be any favourable changes until Bernie pops his clogs or is placed in jail for being as corrupt as Blatter, neither of which is ever likely to happen, I imagine theres a facility that creates Bernie clones that havew a 2 year life span somewhere so "he" can keep going forever.

[merman]

I Believe that picture in picture adds is if not illegal in the UK extremely frowned upon. So ITV will cut to adds at least once or twice during the race.

Given how dull the racing was this year, I don't it'll be too much of a problem. But it have Sky so ... it won't really affect me.

Sky had to negotiate with advertisers and Ofcom over Soccer Saturday - this does picture in picture for the ad breaks, keeping the teleprinter and latest scores visible. Channel 4 could do something similar.