formula 1 Sky secures exclusive F1 broadcast agreement

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Quote

Sky secures exclusive F1 broadcast agreement

 

Live Formula 1 races will be taken off free-to-air television in the United Kingdom from 2019, after Sky agreed a new exclusive broadcast agreement with the sport's chiefs.

 

As part of the deal that runs until 2024, Sky will be the only channel to broadcast live F1 races on its subscription channel – although it will show the British GP on a 'free-to-air' basis.

 

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone said: "I am delighted that we will continue to work together.

 

"Sky's commitment to the Sport and standard of coverage is second to none."

 

As part of its arrangement, Sky has also agreed to show highlights of races and qualifying free of charge.

 

Further, it says that two other 'prime time' live races each season will be offered on the soon-to-be launched Sky Sports Mix

 

Sky currently has a shared broadcast deal with Channel 4, which allows the terrestrial channel to show 10 races live per season and highlights of each event.

 

The new deal from 2019 means that for the first time in its history, F1 will not be shown at all on a free channel.

 

UHD coverage

 

Sky has also promised to take its F1 coverage to the next level, with the channel planned UHD coverage of races from 2017.

 

Sky commentator Martin Brundle said: "I joined Sky Sports because I wanted to be part of a dedicated F1 channel with a total and long term commitment to the sport.

 

"And we have certainly delivered on that. In a fast changing media landscape, our coverage will get even better for F1 fans."

Source: Motorsport.com

[Zoom7000]

This is a real shame, but with Bernie at the helm, we all knew it was coming. The fans on dedicated forums are in uproar as expected, but no doubt, millions will end up subscribing to watch their beloved sport. F1 will inevitably lose viewers, but with companies like Sky and maybe even BT in the future willing to shell out astronomical fees for exclusive rights, I'm pretty sure the fat cats at the top won't really care where F1 is shown, so long as they get to line their pockets with endless lines of cash.

 

Who cares about fans? If they wanna watch it, they'll pay!

 

Ultimately, it can be argued that the same model has worked for football, but then again football is considered the national sport. F1 isn't. But F1 isn't looking for new talent from the streets of middle England, it's only for people who have copious amounts of cash in the first place!

[Sparky Marky]

On 29/03/2016 at 9:59 AM, Zoom7000 said:

Ultimately, it can be argued that the same model has worked for football, but then again football is considered the national sport. F1 isn't. But F1 isn't looking for new talent from the streets of middle England, it's only for people who have copious amounts of cash in the first place!

F1 has 21 races, with qualifying and the race, 42 events

Football, A single team plays the other teams twice, so 38 games per team, or 760 events (for the premiership alone)

If you watch football, its much more value for money

[Zoom7000]

48 minutes ago, Sparky Marky said:

F1 has 21 races, with qualifying and the race, 42 events

Football, A single team plays the other teams twice, so 38 games per team, or 760 events (for the premiership alone)

If you watch football, its much more value for money

I was just playing devil's advocate, I don't agree with pay to view TV at all. However, there is a flaw with your argument. Not all 760 events are televised. A mid-table Premier League team might get 10-15 matches per season, if that. In fact, if you support a lower division team, you won't get any view of your team on television at all!

 

Even Football isn't value for money. You now need to have 2 separate subscriptions, Sky Sports and BT Sport and then you only really get to watch Football on 3 or 4 days of the week for maybe 3 hours in total or 6 hours on the "Super Sunday". If you look at the Sky Sports schedule, it's usually filled with endless amounts of junk and repeats outside of event times that make it pretty pointless in terms of value for money.

 

In the UK at least, you have to pay for an annual TV license, then to get Football or Formula 1, you have to pay for a monthly Sky Subscription (with one-off installation fee), then you gotta pay for Sky Sports on top and then BT Sport on top of that and then another fee on top of that if you wanna watch any of it in HD! My brother has a Virgin Media subscription and managed to get the whole lot rolled in for £80/Month and even that was a retention deal to keep him from leaving, which in my eyes is still astronomical! That's £960/year. Nearly £1000/year for the odd sporting event here and there! Personally, I'll stick to BBC Radio 5 Live and Match of the Day!

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

36 minutes ago, Zoom7000 said:

I was just playing devil's advocate, I don't agree with pay to view TV at all. However, there is a flaw with your argument. Not all 760 events are televised. A mid-table Premier League team might get 10-15 matches per season, if that. In fact, if you support a lower division team, you won't get any view of your team on television at all!

 

Even Football isn't value for money. You now need to have 2 separate subscriptions, Sky Sports and BT Sport and then you only really get to watch Football on 3 or 4 days of the week for maybe 3 hours in total or 6 hours on the "Super Sunday". If you look at the Sky Sports schedule, it's usually filled with endless amounts of junk and repeats outside of event times that make it pretty pointless in terms of value for money.

 

In the UK at least, you have to pay for an annual TV license, then to get Football or Formula 1, you have to pay for a monthly Sky Subscription (with one-off installation fee), then you gotta pay for Sky Sports on top and then BT Sport on top of that and then another fee on top of that if you wanna watch any of it in HD! My brother has a Virgin Media subscription and managed to get the whole lot rolled in for £80/Month and even that was a retention deal to keep him from leaving, which in my eyes is still astronomical! That's £960/year. Nearly £1000/year for the odd sporting event here and there! Personally, I'll stick to BBC Radio 5 Live and Match of the Day!

I think the point that was being made is that regardless of which team you support, if you're a fan there's more content available for your money. Don't forget the football on Sky Sports isn't limited to just the Premier League, there's also the FA Cup, Carling Cup and Champions League. Whichever way you look at you get more. 

 

I was saying in the F1 topic that I'm finding that I'm watching it less and less because I'm missing races that are shown on Sky only. The thing that bugs me, is that I'd be happy to subscribe to something like Sky Sports if I was able to get only Sky Sports, without having to pay for the basic package. That's £240 worth of TV that I would never (or very rarely) watch. 

 

Come 2019, pirate streams of F1 is going to get a huge rise!

 

I know people like your brother who pay £50+ a month for TV/broadband etc and don't bat an eyelid. I pay £30 a month with VM for just my broadband and even that's higher than I'd like to pay. I think about 1/3 of that is for a phone line that I never use. 

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Pretty sad as this will make F1 inaccessible to a lot of people. My Dad's not really a sports person however loves to watch the F1 on a Sunday afternoon. He couldn't justify £47.50 a month to watch 2 hours of F1 every couple of weeks. Even the sports package on NowTV is £32 a month or £7 a day.

[anthdci]

1 hour ago, Sparky Marky said:

F1 has 21 races, with qualifying and the race, 42 events

Football, A single team plays the other teams twice, so 38 games per team, or 760 events (for the premiership alone)

If you watch football, its much more value for money

Not really, they don't show all 760 events. Given though they usually should a midweek game and 3 or 4 at a weekend. So about 9 a week. 38 weeks so (very) roughly 342. Still a lot more than F1's 42. However I follow Sunderland (for some unknown reason) and they have been aired less than 10 times this season. So quite a bit less than F1's 42. I couldn't care less about Norwich vs West Ham for example.

 

Back to topic though, I think the deal in 2012 was always just going to be the start of the migrated to Sky. The BBC simply couldn't afford the prices Bernie was putting on broadcasting it. Sky have vastly improved the coverage though, but I suspect with this deal come 2019 Sky Sports F1 will cease to exist and it will be put on Sky Sports 2 or something like that

Edited March 31, 2016 by anthdci

[Cnónna]

Sky don't have the Champions league, UEFA cup or FA cup, those rights are held by BT sports. BT also has a hell of a lot more football than sky. most of the major european leagues. I watch the SPL and BT's coverage of it is far and above better than sky's BT al least talk up the SPL where as sky are always looking to put a negative spin on it IMO. BT costs from free up to £20+ a month depending on your package with BT broadband. really hope BT gets exclusive SPL rights next time round. and BT's champions league Coverage is the best I've ever seen especially if you watch it through the app, which you can cast to chromecast or apple TV. instant replays of any moment of any match, rewind to any point instantly it's quite a bit of kit BT's app.

 

I haven't had sky sports since BT stated and I don't miss sky sports one bit.

22 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

I think the point that was being made is that regardless of which team you support, if you're a fan there's more content available for your money. Don't forget the football on Sky Sports isn't limited to just the Premier League, there's also the FA Cup, Carling Cup and Champions League. Whichever way you look at you get more. 

 

I was saying in the F1 topic that I'm finding that I'm watching it less and less because I'm missing races that are shown on Sky only. The thing that bugs me, is that I'd be happy to subscribe to something like Sky Sports if I was able to get only Sky Sports, without having to pay for the basic package. That's £240 worth of TV that I would never (or very rarely) watch. 

 

Come 2019, pirate streams of F1 is going to get a huge rise!

 

I know people like your brother who pay £50+ a month for TV/broadband etc and don't bat an eyelid. I pay £30 a month with VM for just my broadband and even that's higher than I'd like to pay. I think about 1/3 of that is for a phone line that I never use. 

 

[Zoom7000]

16 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

I think the point that was being made is that regardless of which team you support, if you're a fan there's more content available for your money. Don't forget the football on Sky Sports isn't limited to just the Premier League, there's also the FA Cup, Carling Cup and Champions League. Whichever way you look at you get more. 

 

I was saying in the F1 topic that I'm finding that I'm watching it less and less because I'm missing races that are shown on Sky only. The thing that bugs me, is that I'd be happy to subscribe to something like Sky Sports if I was able to get only Sky Sports, without having to pay for the basic package. That's £240 worth of TV that I would never (or very rarely) watch. 

 

Come 2019, pirate streams of F1 is going to get a huge rise!

 

I know people like your brother who pay £50+ a month for TV/broadband etc and don't bat an eyelid. I pay £30 a month with VM for just my broadband and even that's higher than I'd like to pay. I think about 1/3 of that is for a phone line that I never use. 

Indeed, the problem is that the demand is out there for paying these prices, which is why the big corps get away with it and teams can afford to pay people like Wayne Rooney £300,000/week for kicking a ball around and not all that well, judging from this season! Unfortunately, demand is never gonna decrease and prices will just get higher and higher. I too am paying VM in excess of £30/Month for broadband and phone line, on which I have never made a phone call just because stupidly, it's cheaper to get the broadband with the phone line! Due to technical issues in my area, I'm having to endure speeds of up to 1Mbps (yes, 1Mbps!) due to high utilisation in my area, but that's another story!

 

The problem with piracy is that Sky and the like will only go about fighting it and not addressing the issue that the unaffordability of the service is what drives people there in the first place. Yes, I know there are loads of people who will only ever pirate even if Sky only charged £1/Month for the whole package, but there are an awful lot of people who want to watch in good quality! I just bought a 40" 4K TV and was actually looking forward to enjoying F1 in HD for the first time ever, but it looks like this will only be until 2019

 

 

3 minutes ago, Cnónna said:

Sky don't have the Champions league or FA cup those rights are held by BT sports. BT also has a hell of a lot more football than sky. all from free up to £20+ a month depending on your package with BT broadband.

 

Not everyone has broadband with BT... So, it's still a cost on top.

[Cnónna]

1 minute ago, Zoom7000 said:

 

Not everyone has broadband with BT... So, it's still a cost on top.

I know, but I did say it was from free up to £20+. not arguing there. just for me BT offers a better deal to anyone who prefers to watch any Soccer game.

[Zoom7000]

2 minutes ago, Cnónna said:

I know, but I did say it was from free up to £20+. not arguing there. just for me BT offers a better deal to anyone who prefers to watch any Soccer game.

In reality, BT only really shows one Premier League game per week. Saturday early kick off. Sure, they seemed to have a lot of games over the Christmas holidays which were by chance very entertaining, but for the Premier League, Sky is still the place where you will get more games. BT does have the advantage of the Champions League, but European football might not interest others as much as domestic.

 

Interestingly enough, James Allen was quoted to say that Sky paid nearly £1bn for the rights to F1 to avoid BT coming in and swooping up the rights for themselves.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

4 minutes ago, Zoom7000 said:

The problem with piracy is that Sky and the like will only go about fighting it and not addressing the issue that the unaffordability of the service is what drives people there in the first place. Yes, I know there are loads of people who will only ever pirate even if Sky only charged £1/Month for the whole package, but there are an awful lot of people who want to watch in good quality! I just bought a 40" 4K TV and was actually looking forward to enjoying F1 in HD for the first time ever, but it looks like this will only be until 2019

 

Hit the nail on head. 

 

2 minutes ago, Cnónna said:

I know, but I did say it was from free up to £20+. not arguing there. just for me BT offers a better deal to anyone who prefers to watch any Soccer game.

Woah, you didn't just do that...it's football dude

[Cnónna]

4 minutes ago, Zoom7000 said:

In reality, BT only really shows one Premier League game per week. Saturday early kick off. Sure, they seemed to have a lot of games over the Christmas holidays which were by chance very entertaining, but for the Premier League, Sky is still the place where you will get more games. BT does have the advantage of the Champions League, but European football might not interest others as much as domestic.

 

Interestingly enough, James Allen was quoted to say that Sky paid nearly £1bn for the rights to F1 to avoid BT coming in and swooping up the rights for themselves.

I don't really watch the EPL. so I don't care. about sky's 100+games. over BT's 30+ games that cover the EPL.

4 minutes ago, dipsylalapo said:

Hit the nail on head. 

 

Woah, you didn't just do that...it's football dude

not in Ireland it's not, football over here is Gaelic football, you might have noticed sky attempt to cover it.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

2 hours ago, Zoom7000 said:

I too am paying VM in excess of £30/Month for broadband and phone line, on which I have never made a phone call just because stupidly, it's cheaper to get the broadband with the phone line! Due to technical issues in my area, I'm having to endure speeds of up to 1Mbps (yes, 1Mbps!) due to high utilisation in my area, but that's another story!

Same here, i've got a Virgin Media phone line which hasn't been used since the NTL dial-up internet days, yet every time ive tried to get rid of it ive been offered a better deal on the broadband, which has been cheaper than it is for just broadband with no phone line.

 

It's strange you mention the 1Mbps speeds, for the last week my 152meg connection has been about 2meg, however i went to: https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status, logged in and after running a check on the line said their was a problem. I was told to wait 10 mins then power cycle the modem, to my surprise I was about to get about 130meg after that. I've since been told their is a problem with the power levels on the modem and an engineer needs to come out and have a look. My connection is back down to about 30meg now, but it's still a lot more usable than the 2meg i was getting before. 

[MightyJordan]

4 hours ago, dipsylalapo said:

I know people like your brother who pay £50+ a month for TV/broadband etc and don't bat an eyelid. I pay £30 a month with VM for just my broadband and even that's higher than I'd like to pay. I think about 1/3 of that is for a phone line that I never use. 

To Virgin Media's credit, they do give you the option to ditch the landline, unlike everyone else, but if you choose to ditch it, they then jack up the prices of everything else so that it's practically the same, minus a couple of quid a month. I really wish Ofcom would put a stop to forced landlines; they're just not necessary nowadays, thanks to mobile phones and SIM-only contracts.