F1 going to Sky

I wonder if the Long Distance races are going to Sky and will be shown by BBC at 13:00 as normal.

The BBC are doing a good job but ultimately they need to cut costs. They could not continue to provide the service they have been so it's a good idea that Sky have stepped in.

I hope it will be a free to air service but if it has to go to the Sky Sports channels, then so be it. What I fundamentally am against is it becoming an additional subscription service.

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Originally Posted by Bezza

You will still 10 races live on BBC with qualifying and practice sessions live as there are now. And the other 10 will have full race highlights. So you don't need to stop following F1, that is a blatant over reaction!

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I'm not sure. When I missed a race earlier this year, I never made any effort to watch it again or any highlights. I watched the Turkish Grand Prix hungover in the background - people were raving about it, I didn't see the amazement.

I might watch one or two races admittedly. But I still think that once you break something up, by having the Sky-only races, it will become very, very easy to not follow it even when it returns to the BBC...

It would be interesting to know how many people commenting in this thread have already got Sky TV?...

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Originally Posted by Bezza

You will still 10 races live on BBC with qualifying and practice sessions live as there are now. And the other 10 will have full race highlights. So you don't need to stop following F1, that is a blatant over reaction!

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I probably haven't missed 10 live races in 5 years. If I can't watch the races live in full (and most of the quallys) then I don't want to watch wany of it. Its about the season, not just one of races. Its a story that develops over a year, not 90 minutes of fun every other sunday. Its like any series, if you miss a couple you lose interest.

If they could provide a delayed but full version of the race on BBC in the evening on BB3 or something then that would just about do, but for me, and i suspect many others, it would simply not be enough to watch a handful of the races over the year

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I think the operative words in the post to which you refer are 'like I have for my whole life', meaning through full coverage of each race on terrestrial TV rather than highlights — unless I have misinterpreted it.

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Yeah, I just thought to stop following F1 completely because of this seemed a bit OTT. It is not as if all the coverage has gone to Sky with NO races or highlights on terrestrial TV.

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Originally Posted by henners88

Currently according to BSkyB they have 10,294,000 Sky subscribers. I do not know how much of that figure receive the Sky Sports package and how many of those are actually interested in F1 but my guess is on the races where Sky have the sole rights, they will not pull in 6 million viewers like the BBC has consistently done. I think they have shot themselves in the foot here and when we have 3 times as many people tuning in for the highlights on the BBC as have watched the race live, we'll see some very interesting figures.

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i'll be surprised if the consistently top 1m viewers for Sky, and BBC live races will probably take a 30% dive too

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Originally Posted by Mikeall

Boycott all sponsors associated with Formula 1 to put pressure on teams to force F1 back to free to air TV.

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No!!!!! Most pay channels (such as DSTV in South Africa) provide full uniterrupted practice, quali, race, podium and interviews coverage. I don't want to go back to third world public broadcast coverage cause some people are tight ar$ed :down:

for me cost isn't the issue giving money to Murdoch is, which is why I will never have Sky in my house. Although the initial annoucement took me back, actually BBC still gets Silverstone, Monaco and a few others. Sky can keep Bahrain, Singapore and others - highlights are the best way to watch those bore fests.

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Originally Posted by Bezza

Yeah, I just thought to stop following F1 completely because of this seemed a bit OTT. It is not as if all the coverage has gone to Sky with NO races or highlights on terrestrial TV.

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From my point of view, highlights are pretty worthless. With strategy being so important in F1, it's not really possible to fully understand what's happening through the field without the simultaneous live timing from F1.com.

If the BBC web site could replay the live timing in sync with the TV highlights it might help, but I doubt they'd do that as it draws attention to what you're missing when they cut bits out. Similar to how there's no match clock shown on Match of the Day.

I guess you mean how many people already subscribe to Sky Sports?

I have Sky but I can't afford Sky Sports. Of course I will just watch the 10 races on BBC and perhaps highlights for the rest, but it depends what time of day, if they are at 11pm and I have work the next day I probably won't. Which means I'll lose track of F1.

The news is also bad for this forum, as many here are UK based and less interest means less posts here.

I wonder if I should base the pickems only on the BBC races!