BBC to axe F1 from 2013? Confirmed - F1 will be on Sky from 2012

[RickD]

Waste of time.

The deals have already been made and the BBC have made it clear they're not prepared to spend £50m a year on F1.

It is only a waste of time if you have already given up. Think about it this way, even with a contract, the drivers can generally get out of them. This is Bernie we are talking about here. Do you really think he would have a contract without snake oil type get out clauses all through it? If it all starts going agsainst him and he loses loads of his audience, or it looks likely he will, he will turn around in a second.

 

[Brogan]

This is Bernie we are talking about here. Do you really think he would have a contract without snake oil type get out clauses all through it?

For himself, undoubtedly.

 

[RickD]

Exactly, so expect it to be fully on FTA if enough people kick up the kind of fuss that site is suggesting..

 

[Porceliamone]

I'm still ranting!! Can't help myself

On the BBC's Blog:

Nearly 7000 comments and I've yet to find one supporting this absolute shocker of a decision. SEVEN THOUSAND complaints and that's not even taking into account the 'moderated' comments. If you take this as a sample of those registered on this site in total I'm betting that were the figures transposed to 'national scale' you'd almost have a mini-revolution on your hands.
I'm appalled that there was barely a mention of any of this during the coverage this weekend. The presenters were gagged no doubt and the only voice I heard utter a word on this debacle at all was Mark Webber when interviewed on the grid!
Do you think we're stupid enough to roll over and not demand some kind of debate on this rather than the hush hush we're seeing right now?
This should be TOP of the Formula One news feed alongside the results and action from the weekend. A debate should be carried out on the F1 programme itself rather than forcing us to sit through the frankly insulting and nauseating, "isn't the BBC coverage wonderful", self appeciating guff that was extricating itself from almost every presenters mouth repeatedly this weekend.
Like another poster stated - Points of View should be interesting. Though I doubt this will even be mentioned, right?

 

[cider_and_toast]

What I find bizarre given that anything to do with News Corp or Murdoch related media has been causing mass hysteria in every form of news / broadcast media for months and yet this happens and.... nothing.

I read a few papers this weekend and there was hardly a mention, of course as we know, the BBC have virtually gone to ground on the issue and are hoping the whole thing goes away, Autosport on its website have given nothing short of full backing to the new deal including a free article from their normally pay to view area by a Sky journalist on how great it is.

Keep in mind all that's gone on in the last few weeks and according to our government the man who owns almost 1/3rd of BSkyB being judged not fit and proper to take full ownership of the company and this situation gets more and more bizarre.

The only people that seem to be vocal about the whole shoddy deal are the fans themselves. Where is the support in the media? Most right wing papers, The Telegraph and The Mail for example just love a bit of BBC bashing but nope, nothing from them either. What's going on here?

 

[Porceliamone]

Agreed. It's absolutely bizarre. I've never heard of such an outcry being so scantily reported on before. So...'hush hush'. I'm thoroughly perplexed to be honest. Like I said - nearly 7 thousand, yes THOUSAND comments comments on one BBC blog (that's been conveniently buried) alone.

I also note that some information relating to the BBC's charter (posted on the blog by another person) on this kind of thing has also 'gone missing'.

This has a fouler odour emanating from it by the day...

 

[Porceliamone]

I've just read Jake Humphrey's blog and that's a load of corporate spun crap as well.

Jake, I know you have your job to do but how many times did you have to run that past the PR before getting it signed off?

I fucking despair.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Well this may answer one of the questions about the support of Autosport magazine. I may be putting two and two together and making five but I doubt it.

Taken from Wiki:

Haymarket Exhibitions

The company's first foray in exhibitions occurred in 1990[6] on the back of the popular Autosport weekly magazine, produced by Haymarket Consumer Media. The consumer exhibitions division is now a market leader in the UK, with an increasing portfolio and audited attendance of over half a million paid visitors.

The Exhibitions division operates in consumer and business-to-business sectors, whilst running a successful joint venture with BBC Worldwide and various other partners.

Haymarket Exhibitions' shows are known for their quality of content and are registered with the Association of Event Organisers.[7]

Its main portfolio and diary for 2011 currently includes:

* Autosport International
* Cereals - The UK's largest exhibition by space
* BBC Gardener's World Live
* BBC Summer Good Food Show
* Fruit Focus - The Fruit Industries Premier Event
* BBC Good Food Shows[8] taking place in Birmingham, London & Scotland
* Clothes Show Live
* The Dance Show

Guess that's why there's no boat rocking against the BBC then?

 

[cider_and_toast]

And finally the last link in the chain from the Haymarket website itself:

F1 Racing is hugely successful, now published globally in 20 languages and 29 editions, while Autosport magazine and Autosport.com offer complete and definitive international coverage of just about every type of motorsport. Racer magazine is the ultimate guide to the American motorsport scene.

Alongside motorsport, we play a major role in football publishing. FourFourTwo is the UK's best-selling magazine dedicated to the Beautiful Game. Packed with intelligence, humour, superb photography and cultural insights, the magazine sets the standard worldwide for football journalism.

Staying with football, we publish the official Manchester United magazine, Inside United, on behalf of the club, along with its website and match day programme. We also publish Champions magazine on behalf of UEFA.

We publish the world's largest-circulation sports magazine in the guise of SkySports , produced for BSkyB.

Well that's that then.

 

[Andyoak]

Thanks CaT...
so no chance of unbiased reporting and investigative journalism then.

Surprisingly enough no comment at all from Brundle in the Sunday Times either.
You'd have thought he wouldn't care seeing as the Murdoch's can't be expected to know what their employees are doing

 

[no-FIAt-please]

At least I recieved a reply from the BBC about my complaint email, that's something. It generally just says that they have acknowledged and registered my complaint but their priority is to save money and that having half the races and extended highlights of F1 is better than no F1. They also mentioned that the radio coverage of F1 is unchanged and that they feel they still offer good value for money for licence payers.

 

[Jru]

If any one is interested, this is the response to a complaint lodged with the bbc. I'm guessing it is a stock reply given the volume of complaints they likely received.

Thanks for contacting us regarding the BBC's rights to broadcast future seasons of 'Formula One'.

We understand you are unhappy that the BBC won't be showing all races in future seasons due to the sharing of broadcast rights with Sky.

We know that Formula 1 has an extremely passionate following in the UK and that some fans will be disappointed that not all races will be available exclusively live on the BBC from next season.

We are operating in a very tough financial climate and in common with all areas of the BBC, BBC Sport is having to make significant cost savings over the next few years in order to operate within the constraints of the licence fee settlement, therefore we have to make some difficult choices.

We believe this deal represents good value for money for licence fee payers. We retain live coverage of half of the race weekends and we will have extended highlights of the remaining races so we are pleased that all of the action from Formula 1 for the next seven seasons will remain on BBC television. Online coverage of the race weekends that we broadcast will remain the same, and we will carry all the news and reports from the rest of the season. Radio coverage will not change whilst the most popular races - the British Grand Prix, the Monaco Grand Prix and the final race of the season will continue to be broadcast live on BBC One.

We would like to assure you that we’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is the internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily for all programme makers and commissioning executives within the BBC, and also their senior management. It ensures that your points, and all other comments we receive, are made available across the BBC.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your concerns.

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

NB This is sent from an outgoing account only which is not monitored. You cannot reply to this email address but if necessary please contact us via our webform quoting any case number we provided.
Kind Regards
BBC Audience Services

However, my complaint also was around how they came out and said they were delighted with the deal and I said that they could at least have some chuffing humility/honesty (in lesser terms) given that the fans will be so affected ... and so my complaint is not addressed by the response.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Yes I recieved the same email.

 

[cider_and_toast]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/record-profits-for-bbc-worldwide-2312469.html

Don't worry everyone, at least BBC Worldwide, their commercial arm, has shown record profits this year. World wide sales of over 1 billion pounds.

 

[cider_and_toast]

The BBC’s processes for the management of sports rights
The performance of individual rights is more mixed:
• Formula 1 has been a significant success in 2009/10, exceeding all of its reach, average audience and cost
per viewer hour targets
• In contrast, Euro 2008 was the least successful of those reviewed, missing its CPVH target by a significant
margin (largely driven by no home nation making it into the European Championship)
• Whilst the other key rights reviewed all hit their cost per hour targets, performance against cost per viewer
hour targets was more mixed (five of nine targets hit).

And the lastest bombshell from my research. This has been taken from an independant report signed off by the BBC in Febuary this year called "The BBC's process for the management of sports rights".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/vfm/sports_rights.pdf

Read, laugh and enjoy.

(oh and keep in mind that this report was published 4 months AFTER the licence fee freeze was announced - i.e. no recommendation can be found in the report to reduce costs by taking F1 out of free to air)

 

[mjo]

I think (and hope) that after a couple of years, the govt. will put f1 on it's "Free to air" (cat. A) list, i.e. has to be shown free-to-air in full, and the sky deal will collapse as Bernie and the BBC realise that they have made a massive mistake, due to loss of viewers - loss of sponsors - potential loss of teams.

 

[Brogan]

Even if it is put on the free to air list in the future, which channel is going to stump up the £60+ million per season for it?

 

[Brogan]

BBC will do the races with the best ratings - that's what the sponsors will demand and you know what they say about money walking... (I do still wonder if the sponsors will ask for half their money back, but that is for another thread)

I heard that the BBC get to choose the first 3 races, Sky the next 3, then they take it in turns.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

You are joking right? If your favourite reds, Tony and Gordon hadn't nearly bankrupted the country, we wouldn't have needed to cut budgets. As it is they did, but the BBC could stilll easily afford F1, it is just the fact that they have massively overspent on the Olympics and have lost even more of their budget and talent by moving up north. Do you really think if you worked in London for the BBC and were fairly high up, you would bother moving to Manchester?!? Bugger that, you'd go and work for a competitor, especially if you have a family..

Favourite reds? Quite speculative there Ricky. I said I don't like Cameron. I didn't say I liked Tony and Gordon. The only politics being discussed in this thread are those with regards to F1. There's really no need to make any assumptions about my political allegiances. You have countered my simple on-topic statement with a load of personal off-topic Speculation.

Back to the sky deal, the BBC didn't have a choice. Thier hand was decided by the current government. If they had been allowed to keep it, they would have. If they had foresight rather than looking for a quick dirty buck, we'd all still be watching on BBC this year.

 

[jez101]

I heard that the BBC get to choose the first 3 races, Sky the next 3, then they take it in turns.

I wonder what Vodafone and Santander are making of all of this...?