Sky Sports has yet to announce its commentary team but it has announced the launch of a dedicated channel for its f1 coverage, which aims to take viewers under the skin of the sport. Starting in March 2012, Sky Sports F1 will be the only place to enjoy live coverage of the whole Grand Prix season, including all practice and qualifying sessions and every race in the calendar, without the interruption of adverts. In addition there will be “a wealth of programmes with in-depth interviews, archive action and weekly magazine shows”. Through Sky’s interactive service, fans will also be able to follow the action through on-board cameras, go behind the scenes with the teams in the pits, and follow race data.
The dedicated channel will be provided at no extra charge to all Sky TV customers who take both Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 or the HD pack of channels. It will be found at 408 in Sky’s on-screen guide, after a scheduled move of the Sky Sports channels. Sky Sports viewers without the Sky+ HD pack will receive a standard definition version.
So just HD pack gets you all the races? Are you sure on this Joe?
It was from a Sky press release. I guess that I have to believe that.
You wouldn’t happen to be joining the Sky team, Joe?
Tom,
Not that I know of…
Sky have only said there will be no adverts in the races, expect advert in practice and qualifying.
no adverts sounds good, but I won’t be getting it.
I still think this deal sounds better than what we have to pay for in the U.S. At least you won’t have to cut to an ad with 5 min to go. We have to pay, and get worse coverage than free-to-air.
I remember so many people when deal was announced that my assumption that it would cost £60 a month to watch F1 was wrong, even though it was blatantly obvious.
Two Words. Duck Fat
This sounds great. Very exciting. Hopefully no Jake or Eddie.
I was getting fed up with the BBC turning F1 into the Jake and Eddie show. Eventually I just tuned in 5 mins before the race.
This blog and others provide a layer of depth that BBC was incapable of showing with such egocentric hosts.
I already subscribe so I’m reasonably happy. I can understand it’s annoying for those who don’t though, but if you want to watch the top golf, cricket, rugby and football matches you have to pay nowadays. It’s the way of the world.
One thing I will say for sky is that their coverage of sports is excellent. The way they’ve moved things like Cricket coverage on is amazing. If they do the same for F1 it’ll great for the hardcore fans like me !
Hi Joe,
Have you heard anything about Sky picking up the GP2/3 TV package as well?
Leigh,
No, but it usually comes with the package.
I thought you weren’t commenting on it because most of your viewers aren’t British?
But would you mind hinting and who if you know would be the unofficial ‘international’ commentators? i.e. the guys who most english speaking countries buy? e.g. in Australia we currently get BBC commentary. Who would we be getting now?
OR more to the point do you know who the commentators are? F1 2012 Commentary Silly Season!
I’ve heard Crofty and Brundle (great and great) with Kravitz in the paddock (best guy on tv for f1, but aparently in mckenzie’s job) for sky? Has this been confirmed?
BBC are saying they’ll “hopefully have big news about BBC 2012 coverage before the end of this weekend.” The only thing people I’ve spoken to want to know is whether they’ll show the non-live races as-live, in full. Reckon I could live with that, otherwise it’ll be free-to-air video from RTL & audio from R5Live for me. I have no idea why the BBC are holding back this bit of info.
I would be happy to never hear another word from the blarney hot-air balloon, but if it’s between putting up with EJ and giving one penny to Murdoch and his gang, there really is no contest.
I wonder what is going to happen for Canadian broadcasts (in English) – have you heard anything Joe? We currently get the BBC stuff via TSN, though it only begins 5 min before the race so no pre-race show. We used to get the ITV feed via TSN but WITH the pre-race show. We can watch Fri practice 2 on Speed, but Speed is blacked-out for live qual and race, even their pre-race show is black while nothing is on TSN. My friends and I really like Speed – they have a great broadcast team (Matchett, Hobbs, Varsha), and they also broadcast GP2 etc. Will we be getting something from Sky via TSN next year? I would be happy if we could watch it on Speed – live! I have never heard of Sky sports packages being available in Canada (cricket, rugby,Euro football?). So, I really hope we can watch Speed next year, even if they pipe it through TSN!
great news, i was hoping they’d be suitably in-depth. Thank god this isn’t a BBC site or there’d already be 400 bitching comments here
So, 10 races will cost me £480 (a year’s subscription with the sports package) … not going to happen. I’ll find another way.
Any news if they’ll be making this new channel available on cable (Virgin Media)? We can’t get satellite dishes in our area and so that’s our only option.
I would move house to make sure I could get the F1 coverage, but strangely the wife objects…
The promise of an entire channel can only mean that they are dedicated to making this work. I hope it does, because I have no choice BUT to get Sky now that the BBC are being (literally) half-hearted about F1
Would one be hugely, wickedly cynical to wonder whether this is analogous to the strategy of the friendly local drug dealer who offers extremely favourable rates to new customers and then ramps up the price once his victims are hooked?
Don’t expect the support races to be included … Some of the Sky team didn’t even know there were support races, these are atm likely to be SS content no matter how hard someone keeps reminding the Sky blockheads that “they’re part of the GP weekend”
Long time ’till March though … Assuming the Sky team know when March is, half of them couldn’t find their own arse with both hands
James Allen states that the commentary team is “obvious” and will be announced next week. Which, if I’ve read between the lines properly, is Good News.
The most important question is who will the anchor and live commentary team be ?? Please not Jordan, Coulthard or James Allen !! Personally I’d like to see Toby Moody (Eurosport MotoGP) in the commentary team as I think he would do a really good job in the same vein as Muddly Talker.
Am confused… lots or prior opinion about how terrible it would be to lose the free BBC coverage, but now I see opinion that SKY had better not use the BBC team… so, for somebody has never seen the BBC version, what about the coverage do they right aside from it being free? If not the commentary to go along with Bernie-TV, what else is there?
The BBC coverage is listed here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/15893254.stm
Hopefully Murdoch will be in prison by the time the season starts, the revelations from the select committee are growing darker by the day.
Joe do you know if the channel will be part of ‘Sky Go’ or not?
Been looking into it and for £35/m you get all the sports channels online or through the Xbox.
But because there is no contract you can opt in on a per month basis.
If I subscribed just for March, July and October, I get an extra 6 races for £105.
Means I would only miss out on:
-Bahrain (probably wont happen and is boring anyway)
-Canada (shame, its a favourite)
-Italy (again, a pity)
-USA (probably wont happen)
Think it might be the perfect half way house for those that cant quite afford full Sky, but don’t want to miss races either!
Realised earlier today that this weekend’s race is the end of the last season I’ll get to watch live. We can’t afford Sky anytime in the near future. Very sad. Don’t know what 2012 will bring for me as an F1 fan. I fear a half hearted BBC service will be worse than nothing at all.
How is going outside UK, like in Canada?
Hang on – so there’s a new channel for it. Does this mean the races won’t be on Sky Sports 1 &2? I have BT Vision with the Sky Sports 1 & 2 pack (mainly for the cricket), and sort of assumed I’d be OK, because I figured a major event like F1 would at least have the races live on one of the two main channels … does this mean I’m stuffed now?
Now let’s get a few things straight.
There’s no “dedicated channel” to anything anymore – just as “TV” remains merely as an excuse for a meaningful data interface. A “dedicated channel” is just another way of saying that an unnecessary middleman has sequestered a particular segment of the Global digital bitstream for what they view as their personal benefit (… and that of the CRH) and has to market and dress up their inflated layer of cake as a palatable and justifiable investment. This sort of thinking is reactionary and actually deleterious to the economic potential of what is at least ostensibly an information society.
Now, I know the relationship of information, ideas and wealth remains baffling to the old media beards who are desperately trying to equate them all as if there was a mechanical, predictable relationship, but – really – it’s them who stand to lose if they don’t get their heads out. And I’m fine with that, just sayin’ we could save some frustration and time here and stop pretending this is the ’90′s or something.
Speaking of which, it’s also blatantly clear that these honchos don’t think much of the general populace’s media savvy. I mean, this “enjoyment” (oh, PR-eese …) of race coverage and what surely promises to be a stream of soapoperesque economy filler programming given the empty swaths “between” races in the realm of this “channel” (if you really want to understand stuff, reading blogs such as these – and a decent education in some related field – is a must) is hardly “uninterrupted by adverts” unless NewsCorp decides to blur all the sponsor stickers, trackside billboards and forgo plastering their own logo on each and every shot they “broadcast” to boot. Yeah, right.
All of which makes the statement about “no extra charge” even more ridiculous on its face, for this makes no difference in an even half-way rational middle-class consumer taking a long, informed look at this “deal” in the cold hard light of a clear November day. So, which one of us has more use for this money, as sponsoring corporations and involved governments are already adding their costs to product prices and taxes we have little chance of avoiding? – No sell; if you want my involvement, you have to do better in every sense of the word. But then again it may not be my kind of (… ugh) “fan” you’re after anyhow, in which case you’re betting there are other kinds.
Don’t be such a beefcake Martin,UK…
I’m sick of this inflating of the issue – F1 will cost £20/month for normal Sky + £10 for HD – that will get you F1 coverage – that’s £30 a month, a long way from your £60.
And if you still want to moan about the £30 a month then try moaning on the BBC’s door – it’s them who decided to cut their budget from F1 to save Wimbledon.
Sick listening to the Sky-bashers. If you don’t want to pay it then don’t. But don’t blame Sky for BBC’s decision to axe their budget away…
Ben – what way?
I am very very surprised that no bright spark has or will set up e.g. liveonlinef1.com – there is liveonlinefooty.com which does an amazing job – why not make an F1 like that? I would pay!
If it is 480 quid, then for 9 non-BBC races… that’s obviously stretching ‘is it worth it’. That money would take you to two or even three LIVE F1 races!! (minus the travel costs). And in which case you’d only then be missing 6 races live.
They’re being very cagey about announcing the line-ups, probably to preserve their Twitter feed, etc being bombarded during the race weekend. The popular opinion seems to be that they have cherry-picked the best talent, ie Brundle, Croft and Kravitz. Quite what that will leave the BBC, I don’t know. However, we do know that regardless of who it is, they are sending the full team to every race so absolutely no savings on production costs I guess – the big saving was made sharing the rights with Sky.
It is sad looking at the line-up too. Bye bye Canada and Monza are the immediate thoughts and I so look forward to watching Valencia live as one of the ten chosen for me. Seems like I will have something else to do on Sundays now and if I remember to record the highlights show, watch it later on. In the meantime, let’s hope there are some sensible decisions regarding the replacement commentary – if Legard comes back, then we know exactly what the Beeb’s commitment to F1 is. I hope the 200,000 of you who watch the tennis enjoy it for the next squillion years for which they paid an eye-watering sum for the rights. For me, no Sky for economic reasons anyway but also distaste of most things Murdoch.
From what I have heard it sits in both the Sports Pack 1 package AND the HD package of channels, so if you subscribe to one or the other you will get the F1 channel. So Ben who thinks he has to sped an additional £420 a year is wrong… it would be just £120 a year, to subscribe to the HD pack… which, quite frankly, is worth every penny without the F1 channel as far as I am concerned!
I think this is possibly the best thing for F1 broadcasts, in the same way as the poster who made the comments about cricket, rugby, football etc. one thing sky have shown is that they do not skimp on the quality of their programming for sport and I expect the same from their F1 coverage.
As for those whinging about the possible lack of support race coverage, you don’t get that right now an never have, so it’s no loss if Sky don’t show that either… though it really wouldn’t surprise me if they did show it anyway!
Well, if it helps anyone, I’ve just been chatting with Sky and there is no stand alone F1 channel, it is part of a “sports pack”, if you are getting Sky for the first time it’ll cost £680 per year for HD, £480 for non-HD and £390 for Sports 1 only non-HD. That’s a lot of money to watch ten races a year live. Good luck to them.
Been to Maplins, got a £60 sat kit and I am watching on RTL. If your German is not good enough use 5live for commentary.
This all makes you realise how cheap the TV Licence actually is. If it wasn’t for the government forcing the BBC to fix the fee at £145.50 and charge what Murdoch does we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Is the BBC fee per TV or per household?
And is it illegal to own TV’s without paying the fee, or illegal to make use of the signal without paying?
RShack, I do not live in the UK. I do not know.
The UK TV license is per household.
RShack: From the License website:
You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it’s being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder. No TV Licence is needed if you don’t use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes as they’re being shown on TV – for example, if you use your TV only to watch DVDs or play video games, or you only watch programmes on your computer after they have been shown on TV.
Also, the license is per household, although if people in a rented house have individual let agreements for their rooms, they theoretically need their own license for a TV (or as above, watching live on the internet) in their own room.
Ben and Jonno… thanks for that…
A couple more…
Has TV always been this way in the UK?
Is a license required of someone who does not make use of the traditional over-the-air broadcast signal but does make use of a subscription satellite signal?
RShack
Yep, always that way – and yes, even if you don’t watch the BBC at all, if you want to receive live TV broadcasts of any kind, you need a license.
Normally, I’m a fan of the BBC … because of the license fee, they have a responsibility to cater for everyone, so they make programmes for everyone – i.e., they don’t always have to chase ratings, they can make stuff because it’s interesting and informative. That’s why it is such a blow that they made this deal with Sky, instead of another free to air alternative, as I just don’t see how it can be in the public interest to lose F1 from being completely free to air.
Speaking of which, Ben Gallop (head of BBC F1) has put another blog up, four months after running off to hide after the original announcement. Once again, he’s getting ripped to shreds in the comments …
RShack,
i was a bit confused about this, but i really looked into it:
if you want Sky, you start with one box and one screen. You need a package, about $70 ish PCM, how you cut it. N.B. They are not saying what package works with what, now . .
If you want more rooms, you pay about $18 PCM for each new screen, plus a setup, plus the contract tie in. Maybe surcharges for HDTV, another $20 PCM per screen.
This is atop basic household, legally required license to watch watch our govvy version of Fox, for somewhere at $200 PA for max three sets.
Also, the way Sky works – usually – is you have to have a big bundle with all the sports, Soccer and and Cricket etc., before you can add a “extra” sports package. The F1 is going to be on a new channel. Reckon $30 PCM for that for min. So at least 20 bucks per race, on top of standing charges, all the lot, added up above.
So, you are over $1200 PA before you get anywhere, for one set to view. Still, no F1.
The extra screens charges would never fly in decent sized homes, but they know how to get us in our little budgerigar cages. . .
This weekend was maybe the last broadcast we shall watch on an analog set together. (the post – race streamed on the computer for me)
Honestly, i’d pay for it, if the whole thing wasn’t plain wrong to every one i know, spoils the mood. Instead we roll . .
– j
Also worth noting that although the law states that “No TV Licence is needed if you don’t use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes”, even if you have a television in your house solely to watch DVDs you still need the licence as you have the ability to use it for watching television.
I don’t suppose anyone knows if there are options for getting RTL via Virgin cable? I don’t know if F1 on Sky will be available on cable – we can’t put satellite dishes up where I live – but even if it is I can’t justify the extra cost for the few races, especially as I don’t get to watch many of the races live these days.
Out of interest, will the BBC still be putting F1 on the iPlayer and if so will it just be what they broadcast or will they put the full qualifying and race up, even if it is a day or two after the event.
Mind you, the last two races haven’t appeared on iPlayer until a day or more after they happened so even that isn’t a very reliable way to keep in touch these days…