Bernie was at the Bahrain GP as a guest of the royal family, and briefed the press thus:

The only thing that would be good for everyone would be if we could charge the promoters a lot less money. I charged them too much for what we provide.
I did some good deals commercially. They are paying a lot of money, and most of them, if not all of them, are not making any money. Quite the opposite.
Sooner or later I’m frightened that the governments behind them will say enough is enough, and bye-bye.
If we could reduce the fee they pay they could then charge less for tickets and sell more tickets.
The man's a genius! All these years and we never realised Bernie was squeezing the pips out of the sport. Lucky Bernie noticed now, who knows what harm might have been done otherwise.