F1 TV coverage

[The Artist.....]

RasputinLives - the problem with the BBC's kick the ball contract is that it was made in a period when the BBC was trying to cut down on coverage.

The BBC's F1 contract was of the order of 40-50 million per season, plus £10 million of production costs.

That covered 21 weekends, with 3.5 hours devoted to the race, 2 hours for qualifying, and 4 hours of live practice - so approximately 210 hours of coverage - at a cost of £300,000 per hour of tv (This is relatively cheap for broadcast TV).

If you compare that to kick-the-ball.

The season lasts 40 weeks, with a 1 hour highlight programme on a Saturday, and a 45 minute highlight programme on a Sunday. and a 45 minute "Football Focus" on a Saturday lunchtime (which should probably not be included in the calculation).

The deal alone (ignoring the wages of Gary "Wallets" Lineker or Alan "Moneybags" Shearer) works out at £700,000 per hour of broadcast television... - plus the ratings for the Live F1 was actually comparable to the Kick-the-ball ratings.

 

[vintly]

Steady on RasputinLives it's no more than 94% boring

 

[RasputinLives]

Sorry vintly I rounded up.

 

[F1Brits_90]

PS. The BBC currently pays 70 million per season for the rights to show highlights of the Kick-the-ball competition each weekend... If the BBC had carried on with its exclusive contract for F1, and dropped MOTD, then:

1. The cost per hour of TV would be much lower
2. The BBC would actually have held on to rights for live sport (not just highlights)
3. Kick-the-ball would have been picked up by another broadcaster (say C4) - paying so much for a highlights package is, frankly, a commercial decision, rather than one in the remit of the BBC.

this smells of I dont like it so it must be crap. I have to defend Match of the day, its been going 50+ years & is 1 of the most popular shows in England, its still get 5m viewers on a late Saturday night & like it or not. football is the nations sport which makes it in nations interest & remit of the BBC, F1 is probally behind Rugby Cricket Boxing. as RasputinLives says this decade (bar 2012) hasn't been the greatest advert for F1, the record uk viewing figures for an F1 race is 8.1m, we averaged 777,000 on sky & 2.3m on channel 4. compared to fa cup final which get 9m & England at world cup was getting 20m+ & the 3 knockout games had tv shares of 80%

if your looking at where the money went its another talent show the voice at 20m a year, was probally where your looking at. because did we really need it considering we have Britain got talent & x factor (which I do watch) on ITV

 

[The Artist.....]

F1Brits_90 - it's not a case of "I don't like it, so it must be crap", it's probably more of a "£70 million per year for highlights only" - somwehere along the line, the value in football has been lost.

It is not true that regular Match of the Day regularly gets more than 5 million viewers (it never appears in the top 30 programmes for the BBC) - the only exception for MotD is when there is live Football (such as

I have much more of an issue relating to Sky more generally; the Sky virus is what has caused this massive over-inflation of sports rights. Premier League football is not worth the prices that are paid; the people who end up actually paying are the consumers; my BT broadband price was £50 per month - not because of the cost of providing broadband, but because of the cross-subsidy to BT sport for showing live football. (I didn't have BT TV).

If you are looking at the trade-off between showing live sport, or showing highlights of sport, then even with lower viewing figures, the live sport should win through, based on the public-service remit.

 

[F1Brits_90]

gary lineker is always tweeting about the viewing figures. its how i know. football prices has gone ludicrous admittedly 5.1 & 4.2 billion is over the top but its sky anxiety & its rivalry with BT & Netflix that cause that. although if sheff utd go up next few months my opinion, may change kerching

football is different match of the day works highlights are better because live is so impractical. because unlike motorsport in general its 1 thing at 1 time. you can have 7 matches a day bar 2 of them they will be all on at 3pm. so even if you could watch which you cant because of the blackout rule that forbids any live football on uk tv between 2.45pm & 5.15pm on a saturday afternoon which is whole different argument entirely (but 1 which i agree with). if you are at home its impossible to watch & most your not interested in full game. ill watch 8 min highlights of Huddersfield v Burnley but no interest in full 90 mins

then cant forget there are 92 league clubs & hundreds more in non league. so vast majority of fans like me are either at a football ground or travelling to or back from it when all these games are on. for me a home game is 1pm - 5:30pm

 

[Greenlantern101]

Have you read this? The restrictions on CH4 are crippling.

Formula 1 2019: A new era for the sport on television as well as on track

 

[F1Brits_90]

i think i will start that i believe sky sports jumped into this deal. because BT sport with Jake Humphrey was sniffing around. if you F1 would be a minority sport on sky sports. then BT Sport would make it more niche. they managed to downgrade maybe footballs highest profile club competition champions league losing 2/3rds of the sky audience so F1 on BT wouldve been a disaster. yes I would rather F1 on exclusive BBC ITV or Channel 4, but sky is lesser of 2 evils

but this is worrying for F1 because i think we are about head into the same mistakes that cricket headed into over a decade ago. they suffered in the same ways that he discussed that F1 could suffer by moving to solely pay tv declining audience. it purely short termism & 6 nations had the right idea taking a lower bid from BBC & ITV to keep in media conscious. publicity is worth more than money in the long term. who said it about F1 that never has a sport owed so much to a sunday dinner than F1 has. because most british fans is how they got into it, with it happening at 1pm

but this was worrying quote for F1 ever being back on free to air tv, considering how valuable they are to liberty media, explains the stage they have in paddock, how they are no longer walking down the paddock any more & got that platform that no-one has even F1 just has podium

 

[Greenlantern101]

Sky has imposed a series of restrictions on C4 in the contract for the highlights races, which will affect both the race coverage itself, and what happens around it.

For example, only 50% of the total running time of C4's programme can now be taken up by the on-track coverage - down from between 60-70% last year. They are not allowed to do interviews in what is known as the 'pen' - where all the drivers are taken to do a round-robin of broadcasters after qualifying and race - or in the pit lane. Any 'pen' interviews they use will have to come from Sky. The amount of interviews C4 can do in the paddock is restricted. And they have been forbidden from doing a 'grid walk'.

None of these restrictions apply to the live British Grand Prix.

In addition, the highlights programmes can now not start until a minimum of three hours after the race, although this could be a blessing in disguise as it pushes them into evening prime time, when audiences are potentially bigger.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Has everyone noticed that the first three races this season are being shown on Sky One as well as their sports channels. Obviously, even Sky know that shoving a sport behind their paywall effects the viewing figures and are therefore trying to tempt as many viewers as possible to start watching this season before shunting it on to the Sports Subscription channels.

 

[RasputinLives]

It's called the drug pusher approach. First few hits are free but then you need to start paying....

 

[gethinceri]

You're not from the South Wales Valleys, are you?

 

[Angel]

Channel 4 won't be showing the Bahrain highlights until 9-11pm on Sunday. That means I will need to record it and watch it Monday or else fall asleep during the race no doubt. At least if I do that I can put one click of fast forward on if it's a bit dull.

Trying to avoid the result for that long is going to be a slap and a tickle though.

 

[220]

Better than the free to air coverage in Aus ours is a 1hr highlights package at 10.30pm Monday night.
We get the Aus GP live and everything else is a highlight package if we are lucky.

 

[Angel]

We get the British gp live so in that respect we're the same. Your highlights are worse than ours by the sound of it, I didn't think that was possible so you have my sympathy.

 

[Greenlantern101]

I bought the Now TV entertainment pass £20 for 4 months to watch Game of thrones. Just occurred to me the F1 has been on Sky 1 the last 3 races which I will get on the entertainment pass. Does anyone know if any more F1 races will be on sky 1 in the next 4 months?

 

[gethinceri]

Formula 1 in 2019: How to follow with Sky Sports

 

[cider_and_toast]

Greenlantern101 Only the first 3 races were live on Sky 1 as well as Sky Sports.

 

[RasputinLives]

As was said earlier its a drug pusher tactic. Unfortunately the last pill they pushed us was a dud which means many won't bite.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Here is a review of the UK overnight viewing figures for the Chinese GP.

F1 1,000 fails to lift UK television audience

The site is cautious in their predictions going forward because of the effect of the Sky 1 broadcast on viewing figures. They seem to think that those viewers who will be unable to watch on Sky 1 in Baku will turn to Channel 4's F1 highlights program. I'm not so sure this will be the case as most people will check on the results and see if its worth watching before tuning in to the highlights.