The suggestion from The Sunday Times that the BBC is considering dropping Formula 1 coverage, perhaps even at the end of this year, has set alarm bells ringing in F1 circles with all the major players rushing to the aid of the party… arguing that it is crucial to the commercial model of F1 that TV coverage remains free to air. This may be so, but it is also crucial to the commercial model of the BBC that it does not pay out too much money on a sport that is not considered essential by the powers-that-be at Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London.
No-one doubts the quality of the BBC coverage and the viewing figures have been doing very well, although they are not perhaps as large as the BBC hoped that they would be, there are some harsh realities that F1 must face. When the new coalition government came to office last year the state of the country’s finances were fairly dismal. The previous government has overspent significantly and cuts were needed to avoided the problems that are now being seen in other European countries. This required austerity measures, one of which was to cut back on the cost of the BBC, the national broadcaster. This involved the freezing of the TV licence fee for six years, which was equivalent to a 16% budget cut in real terms. The question then was how that money could be saved. Cuts were clearly needed and the BBC has spent the last six months looking at the various options, while at the same time having to deal with politicians telling them what can and cannot be done. The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt recently said that the BBC cannot cut core services and that the savings would have to come from better efficiency. The BBC’s new chairman Lord Patten has been trying to ensure that the BBC World Service is protected, as this is considered a key element in the BBC’s global identity. The former Conservative minister said that expensive sports rights were a key cost-saving target, along with high executive and performer salaries and that the BBC would have to accept that it might lose some star names to rival TV companies and that even some of the less mainstream channels could be axed.
“I think we’re bound to face some tough decisions in the area of sport. It’s extremely difficult for the BBC to bid for as many sports rights as it would like,” Patten said.
The key sports rights held by the BBC are soccer, tennis, rugby and Formula 1. The Match of the Day programme, Wimbledon and the Six Nations rugby competition are considered to be essential for the BBC in its role as a national broadcaster. Formula 1 is desirable and successful, but not essential and F1’s dealings over Bahrain, for example, have not helped the case. Insiders at the Beeb say that it makes no sense at all to axe the F1 coverage because the races bring in viewers at a time when audiences are low and often attract those who are not regular BBC viewers. They also add to the appreciation of what the BBC is doing, which is important with a public funded organisation. However, the fact remains that cuts need to be made and “the die is cast” for F1 to be axed at the end of the contract in 2013, or perhaps at the end of the current season if ITV makes an offer that would be acceptable for the Formula One group. This will mean a drop in income for the F1 world. And while F1 seems to be a little shocked by that possibility, it is only natural in the circumstances, taking into account the global economic situation.
Perhaps it is in the interest of News Corporation (which owns The Sunday Times) to make this information known, as it will lower the price it will have to pay for the Formula One group, but that does not mean that the information is not true. There are some, notably Adam Parr of Williams, who have argued that F1 needs to look at TV rights in a different way because the sport could do better doing a big deal with one global broadcaster, rather than dozens of smaller contracts. The Formula One group responded waspishly to this suggestion (as would be expected) but it is a point that is worth exploring as the world is changing with the arrival of more and more different means of delivery for programming. As previously reported, the NBA and NFL have sold all of their TV rights directly to Apple TV, which is charging viewers for access to the games using different payment structures to allow for the casual viewers and the hard core fans. YouTube, which is now owned by Google, is developing its own sporting channels, which look as though they will be funded by advertisers, rather than by subscriptions. The TV rating company Nielsen last week observed that people who are watching online video content in the United States are tending to watch less regular TV and the new trend is particularly pronounced in the 18-34 segment.
Conventional TV remains dominant for now but the growth rates of the new media are impressive and there will probably come a point at which people decide to stop paying for their cable, telephone and satellite services and rely solely on the Web, depending on how online TV is priced.
F1 needs to face up to these realities, whether the sport likes it or not. The loss of the BBC would be a heavy blow, but when one looks at the reasons behind the apparent decision, one can see that it makes sense outside the cosseted F1 environment where some people think that there is always money to burn.
joeblogsf1 
“This required austerity measures, one of which was to cut back on the cost of the BBC, the national broadcaster. The involved the freezing of the TV licence fee for six years, which was equivalent to a 16% budget cut in real terms.”
I don’t really understand the reasoning behind this. The TV Licence is paid for directly by anyone who owns a TV (or uses a computer to view live TV broadcasts). If the TV licence fee was increased it would be consumers, not the government that would pay – so government spending would not be affected.
I think you are conflating two issues – the across-the-board cuts in public spending that the government say is necessary to reduce the UK’s deficit, and the freeze in the TV licence fee which has been imposed for other reasons (e.g. the perception that the BBC is bloated and inefficient, or some nebulous concept of “putting money back into people’s pockets.”) But it is not clear how the TV licence freeze is directly related to the wider cuts to public services.
I think you’ve presented a rather one-sided political view by taking the government’s insistence that BBC cuts are needed at face value and ignoring the close relationship between David Cameron and the Murdoch family.
Clearly Sky have much to gain from putting the squeeze on the BBC, with obvious ramifications for its coverage of F1, and you don’t need me to tell you the Sunday Times article was simply being used as a Murdoch mouthpiece to get the message across.
Keith Collantine,
I do not see how you can read it any other way in terms of the mess that Labour left behind them, but I really have no desire to get into political disputes. The key point is that British finances are in a mess and the relationship between Cameron and News Corporation is of minor importance alongside such a mammoth problem.
Secondly, News Corporation writing about a reality is not putting the squeeze on anyone. It is simply a fact that has to be addressed. From what I can understand the decision has been made and will be announced at some point, unless it is an attempt by the BBC to renegotiate the terms of their deal with Bernie Ecclestone in which case a deal will be cut and less money will flow into F1 coffers.
I do agree with the thrust of your post in that the media landscape is indeed changing and that F1 needs to change with it.
The BBC’s remit is to educate, entertain and inform. How can BBC4 be considered part of core services when it reaches such a small audience and the programmes it produces could easily be shown on BBC2.
Perhaps it should consider entertaining upwards of 7 million every fortnight and reduce funding for less popular services such as 4, Alba and S4C rather than pandering to a small, but vocal, minority.
Of course such a philistine approach is idealistic such is the way it works!
Andy Shaw
The freeze in licence fees was a smal part of the whole big picture. An element of helping us through the potential pain of cutbacks. The goverment are telling the BBC that, for now, the world has changed, and so must they.
And, as Joe has mentioned, so must F1
Joe, in the comments to your last article on this BBC story, you said you had some new information that confirmed F1 would definitely be dropped at some point. You referred commenters to this post for more proof.
This article starts with “according to the Sunday Times” and adds, to my eyes, no specific new information; just some circumstantial quotes establishing that cuts in general are required and that sport is one broad area in which the BBC will – probably – be spending less money in future.
Furthermore, perhaps just a typo, but it’s been widely reported elsewhere that the current contract runs to the end of the 2013 season, not 2012.
SIY,
1) Sources cannot always be quoted. 2) Read the story again vis-a-vis the date.
“it is crucial to the commercial model of F1 that TV coverage remains free to air.”
Don’t let Adam Parr anywhere near the negotiations then 🙂
MOTD costs considerably more than F1, over £15,000,000 a year more, and gets about 2.5 million viewers less on average, if ‘axing’ sports was REALLY about costs MOTD would go.
The BBC Trusts own report puts F1 at the top of the corporations most cost effective sports, so will the BBC trust go against their own findings?
Karen,
How is the weather in Princes Gate?
AS part of the cuts the UK gov pushed the cost of the bbc world service on to the licence and off the FO budget.
The quality of the BBC f1 coverage easily surpasses anything ITV ever did and I would detest having adverts during the race again if, God forbid, ITV won the contract back. The question is what could Sky bring to the table? In my opinion they are the masters of promotion, look at what they did for the Premier League and even darts. I would quite happily pay £5 to £10 for a race weekend’s coverage providing it was rich in high quality content and ad free. Formula 1 could do with tapping into Sky’s promotional side as FOM are quite frankly hopeless at doing it themselves. With the huge amount of content that a race generates it’s a crime that we, the consumers cannot pay to access it. A tightly controlled FOM race edit and live timing is all we get. Even the portable Fanvision TVs at the track have more to offer than the big TV broadcasters!
Perhaps News Corporation want to spook the BBC out of renewing, so that they can get the broadcasting onto Sky in “fair” process.
If Murdock both owns and broadcasts F1, how long will it be before there are 4 compulsory safety cars per race to facilitate advert breaks
Hello,
I live in France and French is my mother language but as millions of people I watch F1 on BBC on underground websites. Why? because the French coverage in France is rare (only the race) and the speakers are so lame anyway. Other people do as I do simply because their is no proper coverage in their country.
If you drop the nowadays illusive notion of country, then the solution become Crystal clear:
Give a global license to whoever wants to cover F1 activities, ( Race, Qualification, winter tests,…) with no limitation such as broadcasting type (tv, internet,…) and no limitation such as Country boundaries…
If your coverage is of quality (such as the excellent one from BBC) AND available on Internet people from all over the world will follow it. As it is already the case today (but it is illegal)
Let’s do the math with the following:
1 million people pay £2.99 per F1 week end:
We have: 2.99 x 20 (races) x 1 000 000 (people) = £ 59 800 000
Add some advertising/partnership on the site for winter tests… and yearly offers like pay before the season starts and get 2 race free… and voila !
How much is the BBC paying for the F1 coverage today ? 60 millions / year ?
1 million people is not much, figures can go a lot higher with proper management…
it’s all about understanding what’s happening in our world, it’s never been about money. Money will always poor in if you give people what their want…
@joesaward : good article as usual.
F1 only has itself to blame, living in a bubble for the last 15/20 years hasn’t helped. Where is F1s web prescence? where is its global marketing strategy? any other business this big but this complacent would be a universal laughing stock. For all its sophistication and glamour F1 can be incredibly parochial in its attitudes feeling that the world should come to it rather than having to make the effort to even just keep up with the times let alone ahead of them.
The moment for Bernie to relieve himself of command is fast approaching, there are massive amounts of revenue to be had by the teams they just can’t seem to get off their backsides and get things moving!
Joe
When Bernie announced the deal with the BBC in 2008, he said something about making use of technologies developed by the BBC. Spectators can listen to the BBC Radio 5 Live commentary on Kangaroo TV/Fanvision, but I think that is the extent of the link up. Has his group done anything else?
The BBC could close down BBC3 and hardly anybody would miss it. Except for an excellent documentary on our troops in Afghanistan the other week, I can’t think of any decent programmes on BBC3 that have any public service value. The BBC F1 coverage is world class and worth far more than BBC3……..
Mike Lea,
Be that as it may, I do not believe they will do that.
Wow Joe, this is the first time I think I’ll have to disagree with you. No, cutting government spending during times of crisis will not save the economy, in fact it will make the crisis worse. Just look at Ireland for example. http://biztech.caledonianmercury.com/2011/03/29/nobel-laureate-krugman-questions-uks-policy-of-unforced-austerity/ .. or read Paul Krugman’s blog for more evidence, for example how the investor confidence worsened as soon as Cameron came into power.
Louis,
So, your solution is to borrow more money?
It’s possible, but unlikely, that the BBC could negotiate lower broadcasting fees. I understand some organizations have achieved this season a slight reduction already? ITV can’t afford it, it’s borderline bankrupt as it is, even at a massive reduction. There’s only the BBC or sky who could feasibly hold on.
The original source seems to be from BBC arts who are set to lose their budget (and even their channel) and seem to be fighting an ever losing battle with BBC sport.
BBC 3 & 4 will be dead in 5 years anyway. Ditching F1 is basically a short term way of protecting them. But these digital channels are gone. F1 actually gets a higher viewing via the iplayer than bbc4 does on broadcast.
Actually Joe, I believe the contracts between the NFL and Apple and the NBA and Apple are far more restrictive than the post indicates. My understanding is that what they have sold to Apple TV is the (non-exclusive) rights to make available through Apple TV any game live.
Leo,
This may be so, but the sale has been nonetheless. The details are not under discussion in this post.
Not being a Sky subscriber, perhaps someone who is could clarify … If Sky were to get the contract and make it pay-to-view, the cost of £5 or £10 to view the F1 event would only be for that one event – how exactly would a non-subscriber view this? It was my understanding (possibly mistaken, hence the question) that one would have to be an existing subscriber thus already forking over something like £15 – £30 per month? Add that onto the cost of the event and it doesn’t exactly make it a bargain!
Fully agree with you, JS. After all, TV rights are nothing more or less than commodities and are prone to ‘a bubble’. Look around, the French are not tendering on a new contract. I know that this is because of the fact there are no French F1 drivers or teams so that’s a bit of a different scenario. But again, look around you: MotoGP is dead (was it in Star Trek some said “You´re dead” and the reply was “No I´m not”), WRC has been struggling for years because the seller overestimates the price (I admit it´s a good product) and Eurosport either couldn´t afford the various rights)so they do there own thing(IRC) and lastly Bordeaux fine wine vintage 2010, far too expensive and insiders stated greed, greed, greed. It is time F1 looks at the real world…
fwiw My impression was always that the BBC is it’s run for the benefit of the BBC not the viewers. Perhaps it’s begining to change but its still a bit of a gravy train.
Some of thier programs are excellent (including F1) but there are far to many “old retainers” and “luvies” wheeled out at every opertunity. A job at the BBC is a job for life. Forsythe, Black, Wogan etc. And how much were they paying that twot Ross to massage his own ego in public every Friday night??
Oh! ans while I’m at it; The Eurovision Song Contest. Even Wogan boycoted that and still they show the tripe.
OK rant over.
@riccbat
Sky could make it F2A if they wanted. They have a chanel on Freeview. At least they did last time I looked.
@Joe
I wouldn’t know, I’m currently at an airfield getting things ready for Wednesday.
Karen,
Sorry, I meant Biggin Hill
WOW. There must be some pretty powerful fans of Antiques Roadshow…This coming just a week after Montreal’s record-setting race time, overriding their programming. heh.
Seriously, though, this would be incredibly stupid for the BBC to do. They have hands-down the best english-speaking coverage of the races and practice. In fact, I’d wager my savings (a whole $5) that if the BBC were allowed to open their F1 broadcasts to other countries…say, the U.S…that they’d suddenly find then enterprise much more lucrative, because – and I’m going to say this again and again so people outside the US know the reality-
NEWSCORP F1 COVERAGE SUCKS. Speed and FOX F1 broadcasts are horrible, stuffed with commercials and this enormous media company doesn’t even pay for their commentors to make a trip to the races on the same continent, let alone the other races around the world. The idea that this same company could come in and make thing better is ABSURD. Fact is that they have a lock on US F1 markets and they pretend that it’s okay to delay the airing of races (who needs to watch a live race…live?), cut off the broadcast before the interviews (with no alternate coverage to tune into, as on the BBC) and generally downplay the entire sport because it might cut into their NASCAR profits. *shudder*
The economic realities are harsh, I understand that. But selling off/giving away what is essentially an asset for short-term solvency is ludicrous at best. Over here we’ve got politicians suggesting we sell entire sectors of our national infrastructure for the same purpose (short-term solvency at a time when state budgets are in bad shape) after they’ve underfunded these resources to the point of failure under the pretense of ‘budget cuts’.
The BBC has hands-down the best F1 coverage and if it walks away from F1 I don’t expect things to get better, ever. When these rumored deals involve a media company that already skrimps on it’s own national coverage, you simply cannot take these rumor seriously, lest you enjoy feeling depressed.
As far as I’m concerned, the sport should allow viewers to chose their coverage, and find a way to let us pay for that choice. I bet that same $5 most US viewers would chose BBC any day… Assuming we can auto-mute Eddie Jordan whenever he opens his mouth (my only slightly petty grievance with BBC F1 personalities).
/end rant
@nicolas1106
With all due respect for your contribution you should not forget what happened to Pierre Van Vliet who made sharp anti Ferrari or anti Jean Todt or anti both during a Sunday afternoon race live broadcast. Todt came steaming in the office of the network´s chairman and on Tuesday Vav Vliet was out of his tv commentary job.
For many years I have been convinced at some point in the distant future the BBC will be sold off to Sky. This merely re-enforces that opinion as the BBC gets ever weaker and Sky grows ever stronger.
BBC has no adverts but you pay (lic fee). ITV has adverts but you don’t pay. Sky has adverts and you pay??. I have never been able to square that particular circle and remain committed non subscriber..
I will not pay to watch football (I stream via the net all illegal like) and would probably do the same for F1. Or like millions would simply forget it was on and do something more interesting instead..
2013 is a long way away and there is many a slip twix cup and lip on this one…
Robbiemeister – the BBC is like the NHS, it has a very well paid yet complex executive which veers to the right politically and a very complex range of middle management and nearly entirely self contained departments which are often slightly to the left politically ( it’s not really the Stalinist outpost the right wing press want to portray). Most people outside the media bubble aren’t really aware that the BBC programming tends to be made by the exact shared facility private companies that make itv, channel 4 and sky broadcasting as well.
The BBC sport unit is one of the smaller self contained outfits and so it’s operation is more like a self run foundation hospital department within the BBC.
And Jonathan Ross – love him or loathe him, brought in massive viewing figures for the BBC. It was only when he became too politically embarrassing that he was offloaded. Itv has faced bankruptcy several times but it keeps shelling out for the x factor simply because it has the viewers there.
BBC sport is different. Yes brundle and coulthard are rather well reimbursed but you’d be surprised at who gets paid a lot more on tv presenting contracts!
Agreed that the Beep is doing a good job but in my opinion Varsha, Hobbs and Matched are doing nearly an equal good job, maybe even with a little bit more enthusiasm. Speed is of course owned by Fox that owned by Murdoch’s News Corp. I wonder what Speed Channel’s budget for F1 is but surely not 30 million.
Well, i want to stand well away from this one: too many cooks. Oil splatters hurt.
The reason i paid atention to Bernie’s career, was he could do divide and rule and not overcook the dish (too many metaphors), or was it cutting my teeth at a publisher contracted to FOM, All England, PGA . . . and seeing a different kind of fallout . . . there were parallels.
I’m calling this one a mud fight. Not the kind which overgrown still pubescant ad salesmen stuck in their mental 20s fantasise about seeing up close.
I think team bosses have to wise up to the idea of going back to the kind of funding they had when i was a kid. Random. Most of them are with a few years of my age. For my own game, i always hired (nope, begged my betters) experience. Eat your heart out, all who want crazy dangerous tracks, silly turbos, “sponsors” who are fronts for we never found out who. Real Men, and more dead drivers. I would have said “bollocks” to this, had not Joe written again about it, so it is stinging. I think this is so fine tuned now, time to step back a bit.
I’ve been known – privately – to try to blow up deals, but only because i had another plan i thought would suit better, to put in. This does not sound like there is a second game. Privately i feel someone is trying to put this through the floor. But who is doing burned earth?
Sorry for being so blunt and empotional.
Joe, Patten is your ultimate fix it man. He has great views, i believe him, as a person, down to the last. But his big job was a cover up, HK. The similarity there, was the sale had already been made.
– john
(who should get off his fence sitting one day, if only this was really my business)
The thing that I have yet to understand is if Mediacorp where to buy the commercial rights to F1, then it would broadcast the sport without having to actually compete for the broadcasting contracts, how could the revenues of the sport be determined?
This could be a huge issue for the teams and the FIA since their bottom lines would be directly affected by this issue. I would figure they would be up in arms about the whole thing…unless they have woken up and decided to try and get in on the deal, from a comment made a few weeks ago, it seemed Mercedes was interested in the idea once they realized Ferrari was part of the possible bidding “conglomerate”.
I know that the possibility of this happening is between zero and none, but I really do think that the best thing would be for the teams to buy the commercial rights and take their future in their own hands. This way they could properly promote the sport and maintain a larger amount of it’s revenues in the sport, instead of buying houses with 123 rooms.
Joe,
You’re a brilliant sports journalist – the quality and depth of your work and your constant effort to refer to larger world events is greatly appreciated. However, economics is not really your forte. You mentioned:
“The previous government has overspent significantly and cuts were needed to avoided the problems that are now being seen in other European countries.”
They did overspend, though these spending plans were matched by all the opposition parties in their manifestos. The bigger problem I have is that you say that the UK had to take the action they did because they would have been like Greece, Ireland or Portugal. You may think that – I find it entirely incorrect. But at least it shouldn’t come across with such certainty and matter-of-fact way.
AD,
I am not an economist. If there are other solutions why is the government cutting?
RobbieMeister: Sky have channels on Digital Terrestrial Television but they are encrypted, you require a BT Vision or Top-Up TV subscription, plus their special decoder boxes, to watch. This was forced on Sky by the media regulator Ofcom. Rumours are that BT are now finding the wholesale price too high and may withdraw it.
Ironically, in regions that have yet to switch over, the Sky channels are actually being carried by the BBC, on the same multiplex as BBC Four, that being the only place there was space for them. (The mode changes for three out of six multiplexes at switchover, making more capacity, but one converts to HD, so the net amount of standard definition capacity is the same; the BBC have cleared all the services that wouldn’t fit into their remaining SD multiplex, making space to match with the additional capacity on one post-switchover multiplex. BT bid for the matched slots and decided to run the Sky slots.)
riccbat: The minimum cost of Sky Sports 1 on satellite is £31.75 *per month*, or £381 per year. That’s a basic entertainment pack subscription of £19.50 per month (required) plus Sky Sports 1 at £12.25/month. Sky Sports 2 is either £12.25/month on top of that or the sports bundle (1, 2, 3, 4 and Sky Sports News) is £20.50, £477 per year including the basic package. If you want HD that costs another £10.25 per month or £123 per year.
Yes, this means that Sky would charge, in effect, £600 for the same service you get from the BBC for £145.50, or about four times the price. You could probably cancel for November to March, but it’s reportedly hard to get them to actually do it. You still have to pay the BBC licence fee – the BBC gets *NO* part of the Sky subscription cost, despite still having the highest share of viewing of any provider on the platform.
If you have cable, Virgin Media charge £14.50/month for Sky Sports 1 or 2, or £22.50/month for the bundle, on top of their basic £6.50/month – £252 or £348 per year. BT Vision costs £12.50 per month plus £7.20 for one Sky Sports channel, £12.30 for both, total cost £236.40 or £297.60, but watch out for the minimum 12-month contract.
Sky are unlikely to make it pay-per-view, in my opinion. PPV, such as the Haye vs Klitschko fight in July, requires at least a minimum subscription. They’re charging £14.95 for this one event.
If you can’t get good Freeview reception after switchover, do consider free-to-air satellite under the Freesat or Freesat-from-Sky label. FSFS has a few more channels than Freesat, but you can’t get recording capability without paying Sky £10 per month or a basic subscription. See http://www.ukfree.tv/compare11.php?opt=2 for a comparison of channels.
Though the context is somewhat different, I hear more and more talks in France of TF1 (the biggest French TV operator) not broadcasting F1 when its current contract ends – or with a substantially lowered bill. TF1 has already stopped broadcasting the qualifying chosing instead to make it available (for a price) on its Eurosport channel. I know the absence of a French GP or a French driver or even a real French team (I doubt Renault can really be called French anymore) is not helping but it’s becoming harder and harder as time goes by to follow F1 in France.
I think it’s important to point out that the national debt was far lower when Labour left office in 2010 than when they joined in 1997, after the Major government, and is in fact not that high (but you wouldn’t know that from the Tory fear mongering). And the government are so keen to cut the BBC for the same reason they refuse to address drug laws in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, because they are afraid of the right-wing press and their army of letter writing morons. Murdoch’s high command sends down the message and his will is done, see Jeremy Hunt for details on what doing anything Murdoch asks feels like.
6 Wheeled Tyrrell,
I too feel that teams owning the sport is a great idea, but the fact is that you can’t trust teams too.
In fact I think that the future of F1 could depend on how successful the new IndyCar formula is going to be. If there is a challenging environment and if it begins to have more races outside the USA, I wouldn’t be surprised if teams saw that as greener pastures.
But I’m just dreaming, and I’m forced to do it since I have lost faith in the F1 teams. They’ve now effectively decided to go back to the late 1990s and early 2000s formula from 2013 on wards. after pumping up our excitement with concepts such as ground effects. I’m sick of these narrow track racing cars. Being in India I can’t attend any FOTA fan forums too.
Drop F1 to dave BBCs Three and Four?
If you need any more evidence of the snobbery, stupidity and arrogance of BBC executives, it’s right here.
PS Ad, Joe is not an economist, but he has a better grasp of the subject than you do.
I know Joe doesn’t need me to defend him, but it needed to be said. The IMF and the markets will tell you the same.
Keith Collantine said:
“I think you’ve presented a rather one-sided political view by taking the government’s insistence that BBC cuts are needed at face value and ignoring the close relationship between David Cameron and the Murdoch family.”
Yes, because anyone having a personal opinion which differs from yours can’tr bve thinking for themselves and must be being controlled from Wapping by the evil far right, eh?
But I digress. Almost as close as the relationship between Rupert Murdoch and the Blair family? Remember when Her Majesty’s Prime Minister flew to Australia at short notice when summoned to a meeting by Murdoch?
Selective memories on the Left. News International backed New Labour for over a decade, Labour and its supporters had no problem with Murdoch then. Incidentally, with the Guardian, Observer, Independent and the New Statesman slavishly towing the Labour Party/BBC editorial line every day, you should celebrate the diversity in the UK media when others fall behind a party on the other side of the political spectrum. But the left doesn’t like diveristy in any sphere of public life, for all its rhetoric.
@Andy Shaw: “But it is not clear how the TV licence freeze is directly related to the wider cuts to public services.”
Logically, the two (government spending, BBC spending) are entirely separate. However, government has decided that the BBC licence fee will be capped and owing to international economics, BBC World will be unable to fill the difference. A further change to BBC funding is that the World Service will be paid for by the BBC rather than the Foreign Office. Many people would regard the funding change to be rational (it reinforces World Service independence) but perhaps there are too many changes at once.
It has been suggested that F1 will be scrapped in order to fund BBC3 and BBC4. BBC4 has hosted some great motorsport history programmes, a complement and contrast to the F1 spectacle. I fear that if you lose one, you’ll quickly lose the other.
the problem with the BBC applying cuts to itself like this is it doesnt understand how to operate in a commercial environment as its income is fixed regardless of what it does, it doesnt have to innovate to win over customers, the state of the economy or satisfaction of its customers dont affect it,so it inevitably just looks at the biggest item in the budget and cuts that, rather than thinking about how to do things better and for less cost. it doesnt look at its economies of scale, or reuse its assets already on the ground.
take the british GP coming up, youll have Jake & co on the main sports coverage, the Radio 5 sports commentary team, the sports online team, the local BBC radio team, the local bbc tv team, the news online team, the news radio team, the news tv team, bbc world, all filing the same reports, all with producers, technical teams/backup/satellite access.
so the answer isnt to cut the coverage, its to work out where the economies are, why do both radio and tv have seperate pitlane reporters, why cant coverage be more streamlined, how about charging more for all those English language feeds the BBC provides, drop the exclusivity clauses, drop the online stuff, do license fee payers really follow the gp online via the BBC news webpage.
maybe even consider how much of the team needs to be on site, Eurosport covers a wide range of worldwide sports, often from people sitting in Feltham, much like Murray W and James Hunt used to do not so along ago.
I totally agree with AD, the Govemment cuts were not needed to the extent that has happened. the main reason this right wing government has performed these cuts is ideological.
They don’t like the public sector, so they want to cut it down to size, and the same applies to the BBC.
Joe,
Some would say “because there’s no money left”, others would say “because they’re Tories”. Both parties are probably correct to a degree.
I have to say, if the BBC loses F1 I may well become a license-fee evader. I watch only two things produced by the BBC – F1, and Question Time – and I am not going to be bullied into paying the BBC tax just for a weekly hour of Dimbleby.
I would definitely pay $100-200 a year (or more!) for live F1 streaming in HD to my Apple TV or other devices. The Baseball model also includes archived games which would be pretty damn awesome for F1! I have NO idea why FOM won’t make the leap, I guess it’s because they want someone to pay for it.
Of course I’m biased because I live in the US and the coverage here is 40% ads, 30% reintroducing the commentators and explaining what F1 is and 30% of actual race coverage.
I’d love to see someone like Fanvision (Kangaroo TV) having a streaming service to their website and / or devices like the Apple TV and ROKU.
Joe – perhaps Australia could get rid of its woeful local coverage and stream the BBC verion directly? Lachlan Murdoch has just taken over the current channel. Perhaps he could ask his Dad for some assistance in making this happen?
I watch BBC F1 coverage in New Zealand via Sky, yes I pay for it but then so does Sky. How many other countries get BBC F1 streams which they pay for and if the BBC pull out of F1 its a revenue they will loose.
Can ITV afford anything like the price BBC has paid for it? I was under the impression that ITV was struggling quite a lot these days as well?
I think the best option for all would be for Bernie and the BBC to try to work on a deal to sell their coverage to more countries.
also, if it’s in F1’s interests to be shown on the BBC then wouldn’t it benefit the sport more to just charge the BBC much less?
@Jack
In 2010 UK national debt was £910bn, or 60% of GDP.
In 1997 UK national debt was £350bn, or 34% of GDP.
Your statement that debt was lower in 2010 than in 1997 is a complete falsehood. Sorry.
F1 has tried going down the on-demand pay TV route before, though, with a tie-in with Sky Sports in the UK in the late 90s. And it was an unmitigated disaster with viewing figures you could count on the fingers of your hands. Ecclestone doesn’t seem to be the kind of man to make the same mistake twice.
The UK’s finances is a red herring, the attack on the BBC is ideological not fiscal. However their budget is still being cut so we have what we have.
It benefits everyone for this to leak out. The BBC get a stronger negotiating position on the contract. News Corporation get a stronger negotiating position on the purchase of some or all of the commercial rights.
Joe says “I am not an economist. If there are other solutions why is the government cutting?”
My answers: Cutting deep this quickly can be blamed – rightly or wrongly – on the failings of the previous government, then at the next election there’ll suddenly be a warchest of savings which can be used as a handy sweetner, as the electorate seem to have very short memories.
Plus there were always going to be ideological changes, the excuse of a weak economy just makes them easier to implement.
To: Joe, nicolas 1106, NM Jeff, Nick Spriggs
Please watch motogp.com during a race weekend. Dorna (the equivalent of FOM) have sold broadcasting rights in every territory, including to the BBC. But, in addition, they stream HD coverage on motogp.com (the equivalent of Formula1.com) for a subscription fee. All practice sessions and interviews. It’s fantastic.
Why can’t Bernie do this? If FOM can’t work it out, they should just contract the web coverage to the BBC and pay them. Global internet subscriptions for live coverage are a potential fortune waiting to be gathered for FOM. All those viewers in the US (and places like Africa – yes there are many).
Also, F1 has been sold to one broadcaster for the whole African continent; it is not free to air, it is a paid satellite subscription.
Arlito,
I imagine that the bushmen in the Kalahari are campaigning for free-to-air coverage.
I’m convinced that the BBC is looking at a quick way to look PC – thus ignoring what must be considerable revenues coming back in from flogging its coverage to Austalia, Canada and Global in order to stop being seen to ‘hand the licence fee to Bernie Ecclestone’.
That said, I 100% agree with Richard Williams in today’s Guardian: it doesn’t need half a dozen people to do the work that two managed to everyone’s satisfaction for so many years. Trim away the spurrious talking heads.
Frankly since they canned the first truly enjoyable British detective series in decades (Zen) for being ‘too middle class’, my patience with the Beeb is at its limit.
However, the importance of free-to-view domestic coverage to motor sport in Britain is enormous.
World Rally Championship went from 3 million on BBC Grandstand to 1.5 million as a stand-alone show on BBC2, to 500,000 on Channel 4, to 100,000 on Dave and now pulls fewer than 10,000 on ESPN. The British Touring Car Championship has followed a similar route into TV oblivion, while Le Mans got about 200,000 this year at any one time.
If the BBC won’t pay and ITV can’t pay, then F1 will drop off the terrestrial schedule. If nothing else, that will give Bernie a short, sharp lesson in how many people actually follow his series!
Joe,
“I imagine that the bushmen in the Kalahari are campaigning for free-to-air coverage.”
Presumably a continent of 54 countries and a billion people consists, in your mind, of the bushmen of Kalahari.
Arlito,
Have you ever heard of the word joke?
Joe,
That is a very weird comment. The opposition and a very large number of senior economists believe that the speed and extent of cuts is unnecessary. There is an alternative way and it won’t disappear if the government doesn’t adopt it. Is it not possible for governments to do something not for actual, substantive reasons but for politics or just because of a different ideology?
AD,
I am simply reporting on what a government does. I do not know why they are doing it – and frankly I don’t want to know. It seems to me that if you have two economists you have three opinions, although I think someone has already said that.