BBC to pull out of F1 entirely.

[suffolk009]

K-Cee said:

Time the beeb got rid of the year in year out crap like cooking food ( I know how to) f---ing dancing, the over bearing tw4t Sugar that can only muster 2 words ( your fired ).., and that never ending drivel ( Casualty) ie, how many accidents can you have with an ambulance going to an accident, and more coming back,? I,m sure just a small percentage from this lot would take care of F1.., and even pay for some decent weekend viewing like dramas etc .
They wont do that though cos it,s cheaper to host the above mentioned brain dead "reality" type shows !

Just cut all programmes which involves anyone getting "voted off".

[Eric Mc]

The trouble is that these types of programmes do pull in the viewers (not me, of course). The BBC are always on to a loser. If they make popular programmes, they are told they shouldn't be "populist" and should do more regarding their "minority interest" and "public service" brief.

However, if they do too much of the latter, they are accused of being elitist and not relevant.

I would not worry if the BBC decided to give up on live coverage of F1 and indeed gave up on sending teams to cover venues thousands of miles away. Maybe they could return to the type of coverage they started with in 1978 with highlights programmes on each Sunday evening of a grand prix weekend and keeping their small team in a London studio for the far flung venues.

At least us in terrestrial TV land would get to see what happened, even if it wasn't live.

[otolith]

Eric Mc said:

The trouble is that these types of programmes do pull in the viewers (not me, of course). The BBC are always on to a loser. If they make popular programmes, they are told they shouldn't be "populist" and should do more regarding their "minority interest" and "public service" brief.

That's the cleft stick of the BBC's existence.

[marshall100]

It'll end up on BT Sport or Discovery, I'd not miss it after this year if I'm honest.

Be interesting to see what the BTTC figures are, didn't the beeb do a lash up of the coverage package of that during it's peak days?

[MitchT]

rscott said:

Bernie's said he'd like the Sky/BBC deal to continue as he thinks Sky's coverage is excellent and has forced BBC to improve. He even muttered something about the money not being the most important thing!

Can hardly say it's improved when we only get half the races live. Whatever other elements of coverage may have improved is irrelevant - it's the live race that matters - the rest is froth. Froth that's nice to have, I'll admit, but nonetheless froth which can just as easily be found on the internet. If money wasn't the most important thing for Bernie he'd lower his price so the BBC can afford to pay for the whole season.

[MG CHRIS]

Gaz. said:

MG CHRIS said:

Yep because out of the 56 cars only 3 are diesels, you got v4/v6/v8/v10/v12 from the worlds leading car manufactures yea that does sound deeply boring what we really need is a field of 20 cars with st sounding 1.6 v6 and put a block on in season testing so if you start of with a crap car it stays crap all year that sounds thrilling oh no sorry it isn't and f1 is the most boring ive even seen it.

Back to the bbc will it be a loss no not really I don't really bother watching f1 now used to be a die hard fan back from the late 90s when I was kid oh well there other motorsports that are far more interesting so will go watch them instead.

56 cars from three race series with 3/4 classes in each. LMP1-H in WEC is just 7 cars and gets 95% of the coverage. The other 5% being GT-AM crashing and shots of the crowd/Dr Ulrich.

ompletely forgetting lmp1 non hybrid class and lmp2 which has a huge grid with loads of different chassis/engines and is always close fight between then. GT pro which has a high standard of drivers with Ferrari/Porsche/aston martin and corvette, wit ford joining with a 4 car team with the new gt also GTAM class. Multi class racing battles throughout the grid and some awesome sounding race cars. Makes f1 look st.

I used to be a huge f1 fan for the last 15 years but wec is far more exciting/cheaper and more crowd friendly.

[Some Gump]

Ali2202 said:

Will not miss it. Ball dropped on a multitude of levels within and without.

Trouble is, the WEC will be be so far out of a Beeb hipster's knowledge-zone they will not even think about that as an alternative. No class/style anymore when it comes to Motorsport you see?....

And thank fk for that. Motors TV give it the tratment it deserves - full coverage with Radio le Mans commentary.
Give it to the beeb, and it'd be reduced to an hour of bks preamble followed by highlights with shouting, and then they'd find some shortarse to try to unsucessfully goad whoever didn't win into making a bad statement. The WEC is just fine where it is.

[Eric Mc]

PW said:

to let a regional broadcaster use his business as a chip to gamble with.

Isn't that what business negotiations are all about?

Bernie is an expert at this type of deal making. I just think that in the last ten years or so the deals he has brokered are slowly killing the sport.

I frankly don't care if the BBC retains F1 or not. However, I would like to think that it remains "free to air" in some form on UK TV - even if it is only a highlights package. Indeed, if it does end up as a "highlights package" only, then being on commercial TV won't be the problem it was for live coverage because the ad breaks will be much more easily managed.

[ukaskew]

I think I'm at the point where I would happily take a decent free to air highlights package in the evening, although that says more about the sport than the quality of coverage or my financial ability to watch on Sky.

It would also remove the temptation to sit in on a Sunday afternoon rather than doing something more interesting/productive.

[red_duke]

ukaskew said:

It would also remove the temptation to sit in on a Sunday afternoon rather than doing something more interesting/productive.

Surely nobody watches live TV anymore?

I record everything of interest on Sky+. Haven't watched an advert in years and it's great for fast forwarding through boring races on Sunday evening.

[Swervin_Mervin]

ukaskew said:

I think I'm at the point where I would happily take a decent free to air highlights package in the evening, although that says more about the sport than the quality of coverage or my financial ability to watch on Sky.

It would also remove the temptation to sit in on a Sunday afternoon rather than doing something more interesting/productive.

Tbh, with many of the races BBC's extended highlights programme has been perfect. More often than not I've not even noticed any of the edits.

[Vaud]

red_duke said:

Surely nobody watches live TV anymore?

Apart from F1, I can't think of the last live TV programme I have watched in the last year.

[coanda_2013]

How about this for wild speculation? No basis in fact at all: just idle Friday afternoon fantasy guesswork - could we see F1 on Channel 4?

Here's my wild uninformed reasoning:

David Coulthard and Jake Humphries are Directors in a production company that produces lots of sports based content doing quite a lot work for F1 sponsors and teams.

There's a tweet on DC's feed where he, Jake and another director of their company are posing outside Channel 4 and he talks about growth for their company.

I recall that when the rights to f1 came up for renewal in 2011 that Channel 4 put in a serous bid for the rights.

Feel free to rubbish the idle speculation!

[klunkT5]

Yes please, I thought Jake Humphries was a great F1 presenter, I like DC aswell, He's Equally as good as Brundle despite not being as experienced IMO.

Edited by klunkT5 on Friday 20th November 18:04

[Eric Mc]

That is a not altogether unreal scenario I would suggest. I would be quite happy for Channel 4 to have a go at F1. They are currently doing a good job with their horse racing coverage and their cricket coverage in the past was OK.

My hunch is that Bernie will be the deciding factor.

[Hub]

thegreenhell said:

If this is the end of free-to-air F1 then it is also the end of my F1 viewership. I wouldn't pay for the current 'show', and certainly not to the Murdoch empire. I've already become accustomed to only catching the highlights rather than the full live broadcast, so maybe in future I'll be satisfied to just look up the results on Monday morning.

Me too. They'll lose a fair few viewers I'm sure - it just isn't value for money to pay for in its current state (for those who don't have Sky already and don't wish to either). Yes the BBC coverage has gone downhill since the Jake Humphrey days, but the highlights suit me fine at the moment - too much of a commitment to watch every race and quality in full!)

[jbudgie]

klunkT5 said:

Yes please, I thought Jake Humphries was a great F1 presenter, I like DC aswell, He's Equally as good as Brundle despite not being as experienced IMO.

Edited by klunkT5 on Friday 20th November 18:04

With you on this.

[R1 Indy]

Whats the chance of sky getting DC? Brundle and DC worked well.

[Smollet]

R1 Indy said:

Whats the chance of sky getting DC? Brundle and DC worked well.

DC already works with Brundle just the wrong one.

[ukaskew]

red_duke said:

Surely nobody watches live TV anymore?

I record everything of interest on Sky+. Haven't watched an advert in years and it's great for fast forwarding through boring races on Sunday evening.

Sports events where the effort to avoid the result is sometimes just a pain. Everything else is recorded.

We could probably drop the TV licence if we put our minds to it, but it's not entirely practical to only have access to all the catch up services without also having access to live TV.