There are some folk in Formula 1 who sneer at soccer. I am not a great fan myself, I have to admit, but I do recognise that it is what the Americans call “the elephant in the room” when it comes to global sport, particularly in Europe and Asia. F1 people think that our sport is as big and as significant as soccer and that is a very big mistake. During the Canadian GP weekend, there were lots of people glued to TV screens watching matches that were part of the UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012. I am a great believer that cultural and sporting events are good to stop nations attacking one another. George Orwell said that sport was “war, minus the shooting” and I think that is a very astute comment. Two nations send their best men to kick a ball around for a while and no-one gets hurt. National pride is either boosted or battered and perhaps on occasion a few fans have got out of control and punched one another, but it is not like going to war. A lighter version of the same thing is the Eurovision Song Contest, or even Miss World Beauty Pageants where one can cheer for Victorias rather than Davids…
Anyway, the key point I am trying to make is not that F1 was watching Euro 2012, but rather a question: Was Euro 2012 watching F1? You see, there is a strange belief in F1 circles that the sport is just the same as soccer and that it can compete for the same sponsorship dollars. This is not true. This is the basis of the deal that Sauber recently did with Chelsea. The thought process behind that deal was not about some Russian bloke buying an F1 team, but rather that it gave Sauber the chance to share sponsorship dollars with Chelsea and thus offer the sponsors a better deal. There are lots of B2B stuff that one can dream up, plus some exposure for Chelsea in markets were F1 is bigger than the Premier League, but fundamentally the deal is about jumping on the soccer bandwagon…
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that Formula 1 gets sponsors because of the TV eyeballs it gathers, not because it is by nature a popular sport. There are, of course, a lot of casual viewers who watch it because it is on TV and they can get excited if the racing is good, but only a small percentage are passionate about it, whereas a lot of people are passionate about football, if only because “the beautiful game” is accessible to all. You don’t need a rich daddy to become a soccer star, you just need to be good at it. Being good at motor racing is no guarantee of a stellar career.
Thus I am in the camp that believe that switching F1 to pay-per-view is the fastest way to wipe it out. Without the large TV audiences, the sponsors will not be bothered. One can argue that the teams will not be affected because if they get the big TV bucks, they do not need sponsorships, but they do not seem to understand that even if they get 85 percent of the money (which the Formula One group is not going to give them without a fight) the pay-TV dollars are basically dependent on whether or not the sport attracts new subscribers for the TV stations. They are not doing it for charity. And I don’t think that will happen in big enough numbers because F1 is not soccer. One cannot look at the big soccer deals and say “It will be like that”. Hiding the sport behind a pay-wall will stifle it.
As the F1 TV numbers being seen in Britain now show, the answer is not Mr Murdoch. The best answer is to have free-to-air TV, lots of eyeballs, lots of sponsors and a little less greed from the financial muppets who take the cash and give nothing back.
The skill of being a good promoter is to promote and bring in bigger numbers of people. It is not just about take, take, take. When you get it right, you can enjoy the fruits of your labours, but taking money and not doing any promotion is the work of people who do not care whether they kill the sport or not.
And that is why these people should be encouraged to change their ways…
joeblogsf1 
Far, far, far too much common sense there Joe. F1 will start spinning on its head if people catch on.
Well said Joe. I wish ecclestone could see the bigger picture!
From an avid f1 fan of 18 years who doesn’t want to pay murdoch money for 10 live races not on the BBC.
Love the blog and sidepodcasts!
Just a few points:
– Bernie is trying to squeeze as much money for himself and CVC as possible
– Switching the income model for the teams from sponsorship to tv income, gives him not only the power (the teams will rely on him for their income) but will also give him a slice of money he did not previously have access to.
– From the figures I have seen, the numbers at Sky are currently about 25% off those the BBC had last year. Even if Sky gets the full rights (i.e. the BBC pulls out, which I think is very likely), I still think viewing figures will be max. 40% of last years figures. Of course that is only the UK, but looking at Italy there seems to be a clear drive to pay-view.
– Long-term figures could be even more down as new fans are not captured by stumbling across the sport on free for view.
– Reduced viewing figures will mean less sponsorship money for the teams. As mentioned they will rely more on Bernie for their income
– Reduced viewing figures will mean less income for circuits. This means traditional circuits will not be able to afford races anymore and we will see more tilke circuits in parts of the world with no history in the sport. This further undermines the sport and drives away traditional fans.
All of this is not good for the sport in the long term. As Joe said, believing that F1 can compete with football, a sport anybody can play in their garden and everybody has local representatives they can support, is deluded.
A few more personal points:
– I have watched the transmissions for both Sky and BBC for most races this season. I am anti Sky and love the BBC, so there might be a bias.
Pro Sky:
– Dedicated F1 channel, with interesting, if constantly repeated, programs.
– Martin Brundel and the rest of the team they nicked from the BBC
Pro BBC
– Much better pre and after show.
– David Coulthart, Eddie Jordan (controversial, but great and unique access, who else would dare to drag a I believe it was Patrick head out of the garage by the hand)
– FREE
Overall I usually watch the actual race on Sky due to Brundel, but watch the rest on the BBC. And in my opinion, last year we had the best commentating team (in Brundel and Coulthart), since Murray and Brundel. Brundel has proven he can be the lead commentator, so I see his role at Sky as step down, even though I do like Crofty.
Finally I do not pay for Sky. There are ways to view it online if you look around. I personally have found a good and mostly reliable source. No I will not reveal it!
Nice post neil,
i just find it a televisual St. Vitas Dance. Something here, something there. Can’t be explaining the sport to non F1 nuts and juggle all that. (though insanely, my intended telly replacement has umpteen tuners and PVR USB ports, and picture in picture, so either that will work, or I shall be sent to the bedlam)
Gotta laugh you cop a free signal for Sky. Not like they never hacked their rivals’ encryption and put the crack on the net, or anything like that . .
Blimey, he swiped my comment for a headline! 🙂
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/4h45m-after-the-race-a-75-page-e-magazine-direct-from-canada/#comment-100482
Orwell was Wigan born and bred, so he’d be spoilt for choice who to support today. (George would revel in lampooning F1 in prose, don’t y’think Joe?)
Most of my keen F1 friends would not dream of paying a penny to watch F1.
Good to see you’ve got a sound perspective too, Joe.
you’re “around a field” away from a copyright claim LOL!
Basically I think you’re right, although from within the F1 sport it is sometimes difficult for those at its peak to know or understand about life in other areas, particularly soccer.
Do you have firm information about TV viewing figures for this season? ‘Karen’ mentioned that Sky weren’t doing as well as they said they would, it’d be nice to see some firm figures to see what has happened.
The BBC coverage is pretty awful, and not really worth the trouble to watch, when it is available. Sky is out on principal, satellite FTA is a bit of a mix of RTL vision and Five Live commentary, and Jonathan Legard isn’t my kind of commentator either, so I watch 80% less F1 than I used to.
You can find UK viewing figures at BARB.co.uk for Sky Sports F1. BARB are running a business, so full figures of all programmes on all channels are not available, but they do provide a free weekly summary of the top 10 programmes on all monitored channels: http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weekly-top-programmes?_s=3 . The traditional PSB channels, slots 1-5 (101-105 on satellite and cable), get a top 30 list as well: http://www.barb.co.uk/report/weekly-top-programmes-overview?_s=3 . These figures are delayed a week so we won’t see the figures for the Canadian GP until next Tuesday.
From that you can see that Sky got 565,000 viewers for the Monaco Grand Prix, while the BBC didn’t get enough for it to register in the top 30, so it must have been fewer than 3.41 million. Last year the BBC got 5.1 million.
Joe, your comment do apply in France too as you surely know. Any way you can get this view through the French media as well ?
Thanks
Ironic that this issue crops up directly after the race going behind a paywall in France for the first time this season.
For those outside the land of baguettes, TF1 (French “major” free terrestrial channel) dumped the F1 on to Eurosport (part of its portfolio, not free) in favour of French election coverage.
It’s almost as if “who’s running the country?” is a more important question than “who’s running super soft tyres?”
Clearly ridiculous.
For the record, I paid up – which amongst other things means that I can now watch qualifying, although I’ll never get HD quality from streaming. I’m used to this pay-TV concept, I somewhat illicitly used a paid proxy system to stream BBC coverage last season.
I see the whole situation in two conflicting ways :
1) The nature of TV and modern media
We’re undeniably moving away from broad, flatrate subscription for broad content, most of which you won’t watch towards targeted “pay for precisely what you want” content.
Grand Prix Plus is, in a sense, an example of this. It’s not a supplement in a newspaper. It’s not a feature on a wide-based media outlet. It’s a specific F1 e-zine. Other examples are out there, but it’s not difficult to imagine a future where we buy digital copies or streaming rights for each TV programme we want to watch, whether it’s a sporting event, a sitcom, whatever.
The question: is this a “good thing”? Well… it’s a thing. On the upside it means that those with two brain cells to rub together will no longer fund The X Factor or Changing Rooms or whatever flavour of the month cheap TV show you can think of. On the downside it means less funding and exposure for the slightly odd programmes which could be surprisingly interesting and informative.
In essence, it’s liable to lead to something resembling the film and videogames industry situation : higher financial pressures to produce a top selling rather than a top quality product; more sequels or long running series, less funding for more intellectual offerings.
Which is actually already precisely what you get from your TV companies because they’re already like that due to concern over “ratings”. But it’ll probably get worse.
There is, somewhere in all this, a deep parallel with left-wing and right-wing politics. Everyone pays together for what everyone uses together, versus everyone pays for precisely what they use and no more.
2) F1 and its own, self-contained, future
The thing which I think is most tragic about the potential loss of free-to-air F1 is something Joe touched on from the wrong angle. He’s right, kids need more than talent to get into F1, they need funding. But they also need exposure to the sport, and from that exposure, aspiration. The world’s potentially greatest ever driver might be stuck in the midst of the Amazon jungle.
Football is behind a pay TV barrier in the UK already. We’re starting to see the first generation of British players who’ve grown up without reliable terrestrial coverage. But kids will pretty much always want to get involved, because football will be played by kids for generations to come in one form or another.
But no-one goes go-karting in the school playground. No-one does go-karting in PE lessons. Putting F1 behind a paywall risks slashing the number of kids who dream of putting their car on pole or even of being an F1 car designer (I was that kid, once upon a time).
I see to recall that when the Sky deal was originally announced there was talk of the manufacturers revolting due to pressure from their sponsors, possibly even sponsors pulling out.
Has any of this actually happened? Certainly the law suits threatened don’t seem to have materialised. Are the teams and sponsors just not willing to rock the boat?
I certainly agree with you that choosing to reduce the number of TV viewers will damage the sport. I use the word ‘choosing’ for a reason – they know that by going down the pay TV route that some viewers won’t be able to afford it and others will choose to stop following it even if they could afford it.
As you have commented before, F1 doesn’t have the big marketing machine behind it that football does. Teams like Ferrari aside, you don’t see F1 merchandise ‘in public’ that often. You also don’t have ‘lower leagues’ that fans can move over to. (At least not to anything like the same degree as football)
There is a possible way to improve the draw of F1 on the pay channels of course… A race every weekend, especially if you can avoid too much of a clash with the football season. No doubt you’d end up with mickey-mouse races and the need for two teams of mechanics but if fans knew they could turn on the TV any Sunday afternoon and watch a race it might bring more in.
I can’t help thinking of how other sports have fared when the FTA TV coverage has stopped. Rally has really dropped off in this country – you still get the grass roots who will follow anything but the big support is gone since the BBC stopped covering it. Cricket has suffered being lost by the BBC as well. Ice Hockey was gradually building up – we didn’t have FTA coverage of the UK game but 5 carried the NHL which got people in to the game. Now it’s gone back to pay-TV the crowds are a fraction of what they were 5 years ago. There are bound to be other examples. F1 will always live in a bubble but I wonder if it will adapt to the falling audience or if the bubble will just go pop one day.
Just one point Stephen, Ferrari is a luxury car manufacturer, at times the most recognised brand in the world.. Not everyone who wears their clothing range is an F1 fan.
In fact, if we could transport back to the 50’s and 60’s with their current business model, Ferrari competed most strongly at Sportscar racing. Le Mans, the Targa Florio and before it stopped the Mille Miglia, you get the idea.
F1 only really came to be the companies single focus around 1974.
What are the TV numbers on Sky and BBC? How do they compare with BBC only?
Joe
Great blog, always enjoy reading what you have to say.
Very much agree with your points about sponsorship but am fascinated by the point you make at the start of the penultimate paragraph..’ as the F1 tv numbers being seen in Britain now show, the answer is not Mr Murdoch’ Can you tell us what these tv numbers show, I assume we’re looking at a very major drop but it would be fascinating to know.
I’ve said all along that there was no way on earth I was ever going to pay Murdoch for F1 coverage, and now that I’ve seen what the BBC can do with the left-overs from Sky, I’m quite happy to stick with the BBC coverage. Even if I have to wait a couple of hours (dodging the news) for an extended highlights show, and manage without Martin Brundle’s excellent commentary.
I quite agree, I had hoped we would have Murdoch in prison by now but he seems to have slithered away again.
I watched the race via the timing chart and text commentary on Formula1.com.
Sad eh?
Sad? Perhaps. But, with the text commentary, a [small] step up from the days of “watching” football and cricket live by teletext!
You are correct! I pay to watch F1 on Speed because in North America there are a limited number of “free” broadcasts (the Canadian GP being one). This keeps F1 limited to a niche audience of racing enthusiasts in the US. There’s a tipping point to every fee and at some point, you say “enough”. As it stands, we have not reached that point and Speed delivers reasonable entertainment value on other days when F1 is not racing. But I would not pay to watch an individual race. You can pass that comment right along to Bernie for me.
F1 on PPV will be like boxing. A minority sport.
My interest has wained already (as has a lot of viewers) since the debacle the BBC wrought onto the sport. It will get worse and worse and be shunted around till the beeb suggest it’s not worth anything and give it back. * self fulfilling prophecy*
Also it’s been awhile since you wrote about VJ. What’s the latest
Especially if Pay-per-View employs the people that Sky did. I saw a live stream of their broadcast and BBC was just so much better.
An interesting post but I feel that the aim of F1 and its advertisers is to make as much profit as possible. Achieving high viewing figures is not part of the equation.
For example, brands that sponsor F1 like Mercedes, Infiniti, Red Bull, Pirelli etc.. are simply not interested in people who are not well off and will not afford their products. Their products cost a lot of money and only if you are relatively wealthy are you off any use to them.
Thus, F1 and its expensive sponsors are happy to go down the PPV route because PPV provides more income but reduced viewers. The sponsors can probably pay less to the teams, but the teams probably can offset this against a higher income from Bernie. And Bernie makes even more again.
Frankly, people who have enough money to purchase PPV are much more likely to purchase a Mercedes or purchase an expensive set of Pirelli tyres.
F1 has clearly identified it’s business model for the future. It is for people with money who can afford products from its premium sponsors. Clearly Bernie believes that if you can’t afford to pay for PPV you cant afford to buy the sponsors products.
Bernie has effectively told the vast majority of people who are not so well off to simply go away because they actually bring no value to F1.
Very sad indeed, and it is understandable why so many F1 fans feel utterly disgusted at the latest business developments in broadcasting and ownership.
Sadly it does seem this way, but the problem with this point of view is that a great many people who haven’t got money right now may find themselves with money in the future. The sport will also miss out on the kind of brands that Nascar attracts such as M&Ms, McDonalds, Subway, Home Depot or Tide. They may sell relatively cheap products, but they can afford to splash out on sports sponsorship.
But, Joe Cowan, and as Joe Saward has repeatedly addressed, there is an inevitable law of diminishing return, and if you allow PPV to narrow the broad
‘free to air’ fanbase you are in great danger of killing the goose that lays the priceless eggs. This is why Ecclestone’s whole business concept is so fraught with long-term danger. Murdoch provides a vital cash injection for CVC Capital Partners through this very damaging recession. But it is short-termism in the extreme. He’s also a very old man who has made a very large pile of gold and won’t be around the business much ;longer. What interest, therefore, does he really have in the long-term future of F1 ?
I do not find the answer to my rhetoric at all comforting. Do you ?
I totally agree with you. It is not comforting at all.
Joe Cowan,
I assure you that motor companies do not like to loose “reach”. The aspirational sell ~ advertise a C Class, shift a A or E model.
That’s straightforward.
Then you have demographics who do not show up immediately. Who lives beyond their means to lease a pretty thing.
Getting them when young is as old as religion.
“Dad, why don’t you drive one of those?” is not all that rare.
(though when I said that, my dad pulled out some pics of what he used to drive and told me to leave the room until I was less expensive)
Then there’s the fact that many of us could cut wasted expenditures and go get a pretty sweet motor.
Maybe there is some new jargon, but this is “reach” beyond the targeted obvious demo. Because the targeted demos are so obvious, reach gets considered very carefully.
Now let’s dovetail that with PPV.
Are you familiar with the phrase “dog and a dish”?
Coined by Ian Sinclair in Lights Out For The Territory, it means the poor on housing projects who are subsidised to the hilt, but still feed prime food to their great mastiffs, and pay Ole Rupe a proper dollop to get their footy.
So, Sky demos are not all that wonderful, either.
Also, I reckon Mr E could have sold us internet streams direct and coined more.
So, I don’t agree with your advertising assessment of the putative model. Though I may allow someone got it all back to front and sold some idea like you suggest. Don’t think it will hold, though.
– j
Mr S., weird bug on your blog, hit CTRL-T to open a new tab, kills my post! Not every time. I’m trying to isolate it because it is possible touch typing on a French keyboard, I hit the wrong note, but none of the neighbor keys do anything malign.
“Also, I reckon Mr E could have sold us internet streams direct and coined more.”
Where does the recently agreed deal with Tata and their fibre network fit in with the Sky plans? Any ideas?
I have never heard of TATA operating in any Tier 1 NOC or major exchange. Maybe locally to them. Sounds like a false flag consultancy to me. I may have a US centric view, because NANOG are more vocal than the boys here in London or Amsterdam, but naturally I have a big interest in internet distribution, because of ad networks. Until that announcement, this boy never knew TATA had anything. It’s simple to query the Autonomous Systems names. No ASs anywhere relevant to this purpose. Fiber is cheap. every few years or so DWDM gets better and you have a hundred times the capacity.
My point is that it is so cheap now to stream or multicast HD over the net, why does Bernie need the intermediary? Only one reason: reach. But the net has great ways of controlling that, with some fiddling. Actually, what you do want is low quality feeds pirated, and the good stuff at premium, every now and then. I think Karen has strongly indicated that this was none of Bernie’s plan, to go with Sky. But who has the numbers for who streams RTL on the sly? Can they correlate that with Sky subscribers who get bored of that feed? This is data ISPs resell, so they would try to help.
I am about 2 years out of date. Been looking sideways at things lately, squinting.
This is the latest news I can find:
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=221961
Tata Comms Offers Global Low Latency Service
but that is for the finance boys, best guess. They must simply have had better ability to gain rights of way, politically. Still, it confuses me, too fast to build out on big scale. I reckon they simply are reselling some QoS and more modern switches. Many years behind the move away from traditional tech, to OpenFlow.
Advertising brain on: this is a CxO pitch, not a technical pitch.
I’ll look into it. A-pac links have been behind for too slow for too long, but that was congestion, you can’t beat the speed of light, nor the time and sheer engineering it takes to lay undersea cable. Or the fact places like HK have awesome local broadband, pushing the limits.
Recent mapping:
http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
(I see no shorter path routes across India . . )
older article about the epicness of putting that cable down:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
What they *may* be doing, is local cacheing. But I don’t see that as competition globally for Google, Lightspeed, Akamai . .
one of the barriers to entry is power supply shortage, let alone real estate and peering . .
safer bet, they could be good in India, I think they are promising too much elsewhere.
How fast is fast?
apols no absolute answer and long winded reply, but I’ll call this one out.
all best, great Q,
~ j
Okay, got it,
the fit is this, is the Chennai > SGP and up to China & Taiwan links are pretty good on the TATA network. Probably politics.
Still, would have to look up capcity, and think about it, those are ideal plot lines, not real routes. Who was there first might have got the choice (you don;t tread on another’s toes by treaty, risk of snares) or who was there later could have had better mapping and SONAR.
Also, my mistake, coming out of Chennai could be a good cross land from the Mumbai landing.
Now where does Sky / Star or whatever they are not have great presence?
My mistake is they have no direct cross channel links, really do not operate here, their territory is not my market quite, so I got biased.
The thing is, and this is absolutely important, there is so very much more to network engineering than anything I could write here.
I still don’t get it.
My own company could buy you transit on any of those links, but there’s no profit in the trade. As much as you like, right now, simple call.
Very much nobody is an island, so my thinking was you have to be awesome to gain any advantage.
Just having the fiber does not gain you priority access to the next link.
But, being a conglomerate, maybe they are loss leading for favors . .
I still go with this is marketing, not tech, not F1 distribution.
The problem is that unless I have a AS at each peer, and also top tier service, I cannot run you a test to play around.
Interesting tidbit, the speed of light is not the exact limit, there are feedback effects from jitter and reflections which create different limits. I’ll allow though, that having the best kit might help congestion.
Only Google design their own hardware now. I recently contacted their Taiwanese OEM. You can actually buy that kit!
Couldn’t agree more Joe, Mr E more and more seems only interested in milking the cow for all he can. Yes formula 1 has a Lot to be thankful for to Mr E for what he had done for the sport but now is the time when the teams and promoters need to stick together and work to ensure that F1 remains available to all and not a select few, as you rightly say F1 will never be football and nor should it try to be it needs to stick to what it does best on the track and off look to bring to next generation of fans through by encouraging them along to races and by allowing them to watch the races on FREE TO VIEW TV. Come on Mr E you know what’s right.
Keep up the good work Joe
Completely agree, particularly with the last sentence. This all started when the TV contracts started reaching astronomical numbers the die was cast for F1 to have to go pay per view, but as you say that is to bite the hand that feeds you.
It’s clear that CVC sees F1 as a cash cow and nothing more, so they only care about the sport in as much as it brings in revenue and ultimately produces a large pay out once they decide to sell their stake in the commercial rights. More puzzling is the attitude of the teams, the people who run them are very smart and most of them are in the sport for the long haul (Im looking at you Ferrari, Mclaren and Williams), so why take the fast cash when in the long run the well is going to run dry?….or is it that they just don’t see it?
How are the Sky -vs- BBC numbers stacking up? I hope someone works out what is best soon and get it back on the BBC. I am currently boosting RTL’s viewing figures.
According to James Allen’s twitter feed:
“BBC F1 peak audience was 3.1 mill for Canada GP. If Sky got around 1m that’s 4.1m total. Last year BBC live was 8 mill (but primetime)”
(No idea where those figures came from)
From my experience the “hardcore” have “found a way” – RTL, Sky, dodgy internet feeds etc. But the “casuals” have deserted – certainly there is much less F1 based banter amongst my friends now, and most monday mornings I’m asked “Who won?” . Very disapointing, and worrying for the future.
James Allen deserted the BBC as well in Canada – anyone know what happened to him? Can’t be bothered to wade through his pages to find out.
Apparently he is missing six races this year. He did much the same last year but was not in such a high profile position.
It’s certainly true that Brazilian soccer players and fans watch Brazilian drivers, just watch some of the Senna videos.
However, soccer is a sport for the masses, largely poor and uneducated, while racing is a sport for the wealthy.
I won’t pay a cent to view a current F1 race on TV, but I just might for the World Cup finals, and I’m an American with little but historic interest in futbol.
Go figure.
Given that the vast majority of the sport is located in the UK, I find it baffling that there hasn’t been an up swell of revolt at the microscopic numbers Sky’s PPV screenings receive. For a bit of short term greed, the sport is being killed in its ancestral home.
There have been tomes written about what happens when sports refuse to adopt free-to-view. Here in the US, boxing and horse racing were among the very largest of sports until the 1960’s. While other sports embraced free-to-view TV, those two stridently stuck to pay per view, or worse, in person viewership.
Football already so dominates F1, the series needs to embrace free to view more than ever before. Were I a sponsor or team, I would be screaming for free internet streaming, to the world. Target the ads market by market and cut out the middle men. The largest ad company in the world, Google is getting into TV advertising. I suspect they’d love to land F1. They could sell the ads and host the worldwide video streams.
Though I suspect it will take the passing of a certain octogenarian for this to occur.
Absolutely true. Even in The Netherlands with a passionate F1 fanbase, for some time without a current local hero, it is nowhere against soccer. And after many attempts to put soccer behind pay-per-view they now managed to get a minimum needed audience but most people watch the free-to-air highlights show in the evening. Pay-per-view F1 would have no chance.
I think the current set up works fairly well in that the hardcore fans are getting excellent coverage due to the money Sky have pumped into it, and the more casual fans can watch a highlights show at a convenient time on a Sunday with their girlfriend/wife probably up for seeing the best bits of the race, rather than giving them an ear bashing for taking up the whole of a Sunday afternoon.
Don’t know how sustainable it is for the Beeb though, and entirely agree that longterm a pay per view set up is not worth it for sponsors or sky alike.
Totally incalculable of course, but one wonders how much the current Anti Murdoch feeling in the UK is hurting their F1 sales compared to in other territories if the model was replicated.
The sponsors AVE rating is being hit by over £3.4 million per race due to the partial collapse in viewing figures in the UK, with Red Bull set to lose £19.8 million in brand exposure by the end of the year.
Although F1 on Sky isn’t technically pay-per-view, it is subscription. Sky had to abandon putting F1 on one of its premium sports channels as it wasn’t driving subscriptions, but even with it being on a more accessible ‘HD required’ only channel, the ratings are still extremely low.
Live Race programme average 701k (before Canada)
Live Quali’ programme average 381k
Flagship F1 show average 77k
Legends average 41k
The BBC aren’t doing well either, with Canada losing 4 million viewers, much more if you look at the peak figures.
Sky isn’t catering for the avid fan either, as one would assume an avid fan would watch qualifying just as much as the race, but the Sky figures for qualifying are half of those for the race, in a similar fashion to the BBC live coverage, so it’s still mostly casual viewers who just happen to have an HD subscription. It doesn’t help that Sky have very little original programming, and have to resort to endless repeats that get very few viewers.
Two repeats on Sky:
F1 legends (prime time Saturday) 8k
F1 show (Friday night) 11k
And they are the top repeats for those shows.
If the Sky UK model is repeated globally, then the teams will certainly get more money in the short term, but the medium to long term outlook for F1 looks bleak … But then Whitmarsh and Parr won’t be around to worry about that.
Thanks for the figures, Karen.
Karen,
Those figures are interesting, but for the BBC figures have they taken into account the number of people now who watch it on iPlayer, via their laptop / PC? Where I was this Sunday I couldn’t watch it on a normal TV, so used my laptop – and iPlayer. After reading your comments, I phoned around to find out who else had watched it on their laptop and found out 11 out 14 of us had done so, for one reason or another.
Maybe you can answer this; the FT ran an article a few weeks back on the Global 100 brands. I counted only a few that have a sponsorship arrangement within F1, but out of the 100 Brands, which I knew most of them, I would or could make a good case for about 75 of them to be in F1, in a number of different ways. Vodafone is the only brand in the top 10 that is in F1, why is that?
I do follow your previous comments about the mix of female & male viewers, but given the viewing figures globally, I would expect a lot more of these global brands to be somewhere within F1.
Is Princess Gate doing anything about trying to bring in a more mixed image, and thereby attracting the brands, and these companies who have massive spending powers?
I think Parr has already left the room so to speak, unless you know something we don’t know about?
The BBC iPlayer figures are initially separate from the overnights, but are then combined along with Sky+ and other recorded broadcasts.
The teams are responsible for acquiring sponsorship, and seem to prefer B2B partnerships rather than having ‘Snickers’ on the side of the car.
A marketing consultant and a marketing director have been appointed.
Parr had to go, but he should have gone before the Canadian GP of 2011.
Karen, thank you for the reply.
Do you know what the figure was last year and again this year, for people not wanting to Pay for the F1 Race program, and thereby finding ways to view the series on “alternative” means. Maybe via the “grey” market, because looking at what is been said on this blog and others, the numbers have increase a lot. That could make up some of the dropped off – lost viewing figures from the BBC to the Sky switch.
As for having or not having the “Snickers” name on the side of the car, they weren’t in the top 100 Global brands, but I have noticed, that certain single product brands do make it in the “local” USA market on their race cars.
Also have you had a look recently at a few current teams and the sponsorship they have, which don’t even have a present in Europe or North America. Yes they could be there for the B2B marketing, and if we believe some of the deals that have been done, that is an extremely high amount paid to get across a company name for pure B2B marketing purposes.
So we now have a Marketing Dept. Good, one wonders how long they will last. Any idea in what direction they have planned for the way the Races are sold to the public and Sponsors. Who are they planning to target, the race fan or corp. Suits? I trust the new dept is not for the IPO only and will quietly disappear after the float?
We can therefore take it that Mr. Parr is not in the running to take over from a certain Mr. E anytime soon then, given your year back dated to 2011. (I am pretty sure we are in 2012 now.)
Canada was 6.3 million last year, with a peak of over 8 million.
This year 2.5 million, with a peak of over 3 on the BBC.
No way of knowing how many view ‘illegal’ Sky streams, or how many UK viewers watch RTL TV.
RTL’s ratings (about 5 million per race) do not include UK viewers, but their advertisers realise there’s a UK audience, and why not, it’s exactly the same coverage Sky UK broadcast, as is everybodies.
This is slightly dissembling because last year the Canadian GP accidentally overran into prime time and so it picked up the soap opera audience, boosting its figures by accident.
But it also moved onto BBC2 and lost a proportion of its audience as a result.
Also the longer broadcast actually lowered the average rating, the rating for the race alone was much higher than the figures given, the worm tracker was bouncing along at over 9 million in parts.
So Canada 2011 was (a) the most exciting race in years and (b) very high in the ratings
So the response was to change the regulations so that in the circumstances arose again, the race would be called off?
One cannot but get the feeling that Bernie is going to retire imminently and does not want to leave a viable operation behind and is pursuing a scorched earth policy.
Alternatively, alienating all the major sponsors upon which the teams currently depend not just heavily but vitally, will make the surviving teams almost entirely dependant upon the the CA money. Thus by a different route once again assuming a total control of the business (as of old)
Martin to go eh?
My comments below are more applicable to this post. To add to them though I on the whole am happy with skys coverage for races but agree they could broadcast more original content or archive race repeats on the dedicated channel on non race weeks. I thought Sky’s coverage was the best yet at Canada. I saw the BBCs coverage of Monaco and was bored senseless with the commentary. I understand you are disappointed with the viewing figures Karen but it is to be expected when the race isn’t available free to air and the extended highlights on at 10.30pm on a Sunday night when people have work next morning. I think if you are disappointed with the viewing figures the people you need to question are the ones who sold the tv rights and not the ones who bid for them!
Thank you Karen, also.
I want to say something with passion:
This year’s coverage has me cold.
Stuff the picture, I often blag the RTL feed, just for a difference. Ca change, ca meme.
Your numbers are being raped.
You could have made more selling a direct internet stream.
I am stony cold.
I watched the island in silence, with a unofficial time feed to amuse me.
Think of your career, or your kids, dependent there upon.
It sucks.
And I’d gladly pay you to sort it out.
Please please go talk to your lot.
Regards and genuine respect – john
Of course, comment on removing the upper structures would be cool.
Here we go:
“But I think a precondition will also be openness about, or the removal of, private voting accords.”
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/float-sinks/#comment-99536
and this headline, four days later:
“F1 parent company being dissolved”
Karen, I get the real feeling you give a damn about all this. But is that really translating?
Another Q? How goes it with the share purchases rate the gig at half what our dear leader pitched? Or was that just a fall-back covenant on the sales. A clawback?
Up the game.
– j
What about the numbers F1 posts in North America? Really not impressed with Fox’s coverage – sure seemed like laps were “time shifted” (how can we be on lap 62 and return from a break, three laps later?). People keep making the case for two F1 races in America but where are the TV numbers?
This is hardly the first time that FOM has made a decision which led to a reduction in viewing figures though is it? Why not talk about the fact that total viewing figures fell from 600m in 2008 to 520m in 2009. FOM admitted that this was largely due to the later start time of the Asian races which meant that F1 was broadcast in direct competition with domestic sports in Asia such as the Chinese super league football. There is no way that the switch to Sky and BBC sharing will lead to a loss of 80 million viewers and sponsorship didn’t collapse as a result of that so why should it now?
Ironically F1 was the loser as TV rights income fell nearly 10% from 2009 to 2010 so the night races haven’t really helped anyone yet the teams don’t scream and shout about them like they do about the move to subscription broadcasting. The truth is that the teams know that viewers who can afford to pay the sub are more likely to be of a higher calibre than those who can’t and watch on FTA. They will never admit this because it could damage their fan base. FOM is happy because it gets more money from subscription-based networks so you won’t hear compliants from them. All very sad really because the viewers lose out from decisions like racing at night then are told they have to pay to watch F1 in the first place!
Karen,
Are you inviting Red Bull (perhaps as part of a consortium of sponsors / teams) to bid for TV rights in order to sell them at a loss to free-to-air broadcasters?
“Milking the cow until it dies.” I don’t know that expression is commonly used in English. Anyway I think it suits the current promoters. They are trying to get so much money they can, without any thought of sustainability.
But, that seems to be the small problem. The big problem is that the sooner the cow dies, the more successful they feel.
Joe,
Agree with the TV comments. I think this is Bernie’s way of taking sponsorship revenue from the teams, so he gets more power, as they need his TV generated money more.
Completly unrelated, but I have not heard any talk about Kubica recently. Will he make an F1 comeback?
Being There, 1980. Peter Seller’s last flick, which he had to put his then non credibility on the line for for a decade to get made. The one movie he deserved accolades for. His heart was physically broken (do not take amphetamines to do the you know what with pretty young wives) but I think that one took what was left of what he had. But Shirley MacLaine fills in so much. I think Sellers, who passed the year after this release, knew he was on the way out, and performed accordingly.
I approve of your name, Mr. Gardener. Will we elect you President by default?
If I try not to be religious, it’s my upbringing, so I pray Robert heals good. RK is a star in my mind forever. A really strong F1 management would not baulk at pointing out the safety differences to rally.
I like having you in Canada, I get all your posts when I’m awake, and not at 4 in the morning.
To true completely agree with you Joe, I read somewhere the other day that Bernie says that Sky’s reach in GB is 10 million subscribers and that the bbc couldn’t match it, I was under the impression that the bbc could reach everybody. As the number of viewers drop’s the team’s sponsors will pay them less and therefore the teams will become more reliant on the money coming from Bernie which will them give him more say over how the sport? will be run.
Sky may reach 10m households (although I don’t know this for a fact, I’m using Bernie’s reference), but this isn’t the same number who have access to the Sky Sports F1 channel, as this is only available to Sky Sports or “HD pack” subscribers.
There are apparently just under 25m license fee payers in the UK (taken from the TV Licensing website, but again I’m unsure how accurate this number is or when it was last calculated) which means there are 15m more households that have access to the BBC in the UK, when using Ecclestone algebra. This figure doesn’t include the masses of people who don’t pay for a license or watch programming through the internet, which is illegal but still goes on quite regularly.
To suggest Sky has a bigger presence in the UK than the BBC is quite frankly silly, but then Bernie does tend to give silly quotes that are subsequently turned into serious news reports.
http://corporate.sky.com/media/key_facts_and_figures says Sky have 10,268,000 customers taking a TV package, of whom 4,222,000 have the HD package. They don’t release numbers taking the Sports package. (F1 is available through the HD package and through the Sports package, but you don’t get a discount if you take both!). There are slightly fewer homes where terrestrial is the only platform used (about 10.1m as of Q1 2011) but it’s far more common for second sets to be Freeview than to get Sky’s multiroom service (2,378,000) or to distribute the signal from the main Sky box. (DTT stats from http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/tv-research/tv-data/dig-tv-updates/DTV_charts_q1_2011.pdf, figure 12).
TV Licensing’s figure for licence fee payers should be accurate since they’re getting it from their own database! There are considered to be around 26m households in the UK, so > 95% of them having a TV licence shouldn’t be a surprise.
Bernie was being Bernie as usual, comparing the total number of Sky subscribers to the F1 audience on the BBC – truly, if everyone with access to Sky watched the F1 coverage it would be a higher audience than the 10-20% of BBC viewers who tuned in. Sadly for Sky though, their reach seems closer to 7 or 8%, even of those with access to the channel…
This is no surprise, the vast majority of Sky Sports subscribers only have it to watch their one team play football.
Sky F1’s weekly reach the week of the Monaco GP was 4.3%
A non-race week it is usually about 1.2%
Sounds feasible.
Aside from the “it’s Monaco” thing, there was pretty much no other sport on that weekend. For the Canadian race, F1 was directly competing with Euro 2012.
The European (Economic Crisis) Grand Prix will run the day after the Euro 2012 final if I’ve got my dates right, in theory that should be okay, but wives across Europe may insist that another day in watching sports simply isn’t acceptable.
The British Grand Prix weekend is the same as the Wimbledon finals weekend, so that’s liable to suffer badly; the German GP appears to be in something of a lull; Hungary will compete with the first weekend of the Olympics and then the F1 summer break will bring the sport back into competition with the football season.
Not an easy year to win ratings in sports as a whole, particularly European ones.
Euro 2012 final comes on about two hours after the Valencia GP.
It’s not necessarily as simple as clashing times. Your core F1 market has kids. They might spare 2 hours from a busy weekend to watch sport, not 4…
I’m not making an argument either way. I’m merely pointing out the time slot.
However the BBC figures show that prior to the current broadcasting model, the BBC’s average reach for F1 was 54%
Sky’s best has been 6.1%
I think ‘reach’ is being confused with ‘share’.
‘Reach’ is the number of TV households a programmes reaches. If the BBC had a reach of 54% then 54% of the 25 million TV households would be watching – that’s 13.5 million, which is way above what the BBC has ever got for F1.
‘Share’ is the percentage of the audience watching at any particular time, so BBC getting 54% is entirely possible (because not everyone watches TV at the same time).
Sky getting a 6.1 reach (about 1.5 million) is feasible, but so is a 6.1% share at any particular time.
As Joe has pointed out, figures for Canada/Brazil when races over-run need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as they include one people tuning in for Coronation Street (ITV days) or Antiques Roadshow or something like that and boosting the audience “peak” for the end of the race.
Reach is the % of available viewers at any given time, not the number of households capable of receiving a broadcast.
So if you have 500 of 1000 people watching a single broadcast at 3 in the morning, that’s a 50% reach.
The figures come from the BBC
The Canadian figures except those I indicated as Peak viewing, are unique viewers, and by definition have had to watch 75% of the race. If you count those viewers tuning in for only 2 laps, the Peak rate, it was over 9 million, but I didn’t.
Sky’s best reach of 6.1% came from the week of the Malaysian GP, and was the reach for the WHOLE week, not just the race, and comes to a total of 3,473,000 viewers in the entire week.
I suspect that he was talking about people that _can_ receive Sky, not the number of people that _do_. I’m not familiar with the quote but doubt the word “subscribers” was actually there.
The quote was taken from this article; http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/07/bernie-ecclestone-formula-one-free-bbc
“Sky reaches over 10m. We don’t get 10m on the BBC, normally about 6m or 7m.”
It was likely a throw away comment that’s been seen as excellent ammunition to criticise the BBC further. As in my previous post, Sky may reach 10m, but the BBC is available to a much wider audience.
Well said joe, im a true believer that pay per view is not the way to go and that the promoters have got greedy and dont care about the fans or the sport, only milking it for all its worth. That is not good. great blog joe
You don’t have to be the Brain of Britain 😉 to discover big audience viewing figures means big revenues from sponsors.
Coke a Cola are rumoured to be interested in investing in Formula One.
So ask yourself what about Disney and other family orientated western brands supporting Formula One?
Then what about our new friends from the Far East & Middle East?
Both have an ancient and wise culture to contribute to Formula One;
think abut it…. yes!
Free to air is the only way to go, after all who wants to pay to watch a race on television, unless it’s live.
The recent agreement with Tata Group to deliver ‘Formula One to the World’ – across the internet, for all to see, experience and enjoy, is the best way forward.
People proclaimed the creation of the Premier League and assigning broadcasting rights to BSkyB was going to be the end of football in Britain….. in 1992.
Yes, perhaps they did, but that was not my point.
Only the most popular sports can afford to move their business to pay viewership.
The issue isn’t just F1, the whole of motorsport is being outgrown by other sports. F1 may be the biggest fish in the motorsport pond, but it’s a pond that is being inundated by an ocean of other sports.
Premiere league and the US NFL can afford to put their games on pay per view, F1 most certainly cannot. In the competition for eyeballs, F1 is losing. The current strategy is just the worst example of the short-sighted mentality of F1’s commercial rights holder.
Although it’s arguably had a rather nasty effect on the Scottish leagues and the English lower divisions…Rangers, Portsmouth…straws in the wind?
Rangers, Leeds, Portsmouth, my own beloved Southampton – a handful of examples of teams which have brought it upon themselves.
In F1’s favour is the fact that the loss of one team doesn’t put the competition into a flat spin. When Super Aguri disappeared F1 just kept racing, it doesn’t matter. When a football team gets in trouble it causes serious headache, the league can’t afford for their matches to go unplayed.
I think you’ve missed the point there just slightly more than HRT and Marussia missed pole on saturday…. :-O
A classic case of decision-makers choosing wealth extraction over building future health…
It’s the legacy of the greed-is-good crowd: doing what’s best for the greater good is always somebody else’s job… and that “somebody else” turns out to be nobody…
As a follower of f1 for over 40 years, I wonder what I have done wrong. You see, I haven’t just started following this sport because Jenson Button was doing well, or Damon Hill for that matter, I have followed F1 since the ’70s. My problem is, I am not a subscriber to Sky and probably never will be, I don’t have a smart phone, an iPad or subscribe to any apps, but do buy other high-end goods. Yes I have watched the ‘brand’ grow from those very late BBC2 highlights programmes of the seventies, to the slick BBC ‘epics’ rolled out up to 2011. I have attended a dozen or more actual F1 races over the years, and thanks to Mr E and/or the BBC I am left with very little. I am not into any other sport other than motorsport, so have never felt the need to buy Sky. To me, it certainly looks like the BBC will drop this ‘product’ next year and people like me will be left with nothing. Thanks for the support over the years I hear you say, but if THEY don’t want me to watch this anymore – so be it! So much for that Concord agreement.
Re BBC – this is my fear also. Not pulling rank, but I started watching in 60’s when I was about 10yrs old. Might be back to magazines/internet next year then.
I’m with you Robert Lloyd, but by a sort of default.
Having been a Sky subscriber for a number of years in order to supply my children with endless premier league football from infancy to university, after they left home my wife and I soon found that there was nothing on Sky that we couldn’t live without. So 4 years ago we cancelled.
When I heard that Sky had the F1 contract I immediately cast around all of my friends to discover who had Sky, and promptly organised ‘F1 lunches’ – or dinners depending on the time-zone – at their houses on the appropriate weekends.
Meals I am sad to say, that I have never attended, having discovered that as opposed to following the strict viewing regimen required of free to view TV (lets face it, if its there you watch it – right ?), I have ‘drifted’ and find that I can now spend alternate weekends actually doing something outside the house, and then catch the race in my own time on the ‘red button’.
In my case, I’ve started going club racing.
Interestingly I find now that I sometimes don’t even watch the replays. A quick race review and finish order on-line can suffice. Or a discussion with my new racing ‘chums’ !
Sad – in some ways – as I’ve watched F1 since the 70’s. Even though I’m a bit of a ‘race anorak’ I now find it more pleasurable to occasionally read a race report thoroughly and pore over technical analyses – having spent an exhausting but pleasurable day out of the house.
I also have to say that I still find the BBC coverage the best. Concise, no flim-flam, no ‘filler’ in the programmes. To the point, spit it out, and move on.
Coulthard has really come into his own after a somewhat – understandably – nervous start alongside the (now less heard of !) maestro that was MB – where the heck did he go ?
DC has a very engaging and easy going manner now that he is more relaxed, and his humour comes through. MB and DC were good together, but DC is still as good without.
Finally I must say that some of the Sky background progs I find bloody annoying. A sort of F1 primer for the totally bloody clueless. There’s just so much ‘background’ that I need – Maybe that’s just me though.
So from my perspective – THANK YOU BERNIE.
You’ve given me back 2 additional days of my life, every other weekend throughout the season.
I also now get to read (and actually think !!) about theraces, and I avoid the dumb advertising !
TOP MAN B.E.
Reading a muddy piece from yesterdays Sunday panic, I note that Bernie is employing a chap to help exploit the few parts of F1 that remain available. (I was going to say unsullied but thought I had better not :-)) This is the same guy whose fault it is, that you will be able to buy nothing but Heiniken lager at the Olympics, at £7.35 a pint no other brands and definitely no proper beer available. He is also going to tie up F1 food, drink and clothing, with sponsorship as per the Olympics.
This guy must have been into Asda as well because when I tried to buy a new bottle of Adsa own brand head and shoulders I found 90% of shampoo is now olympic sponsored. (Had to get Tesco’s in the end)
Still I am perhaps an advertiser’s nightmare and strongly in the Alan Sugar camp for tv type ads if I even watch at all. (Having helped originate some many years ago, it seems crazy to me that agencies still do not realize that the punter has not seen the back story, that they sold over weeks to the customer) So I am with Sir Alan, show them the benefit show them the product and possibly tell them how much and where to buy it. As for print I have a blind spot for ads (I was prime reader and “marker up”, for all the industry mags and reports in my last company, thus ads were time wasters.) unless I am actually looking to buy something, then I research it on the web with AdBlock Plus and NoScript firmly in place.
Ah yes, there were Samsung litter-pickers in action after the Olympic torch relay, picking up just the rubbish with “Samsung” on, and leaving the rest. Makes you proud. Should have given them my phone.
I think F1 on FTA in the UK has been killed off by the Tennis and Golf loving BBC Sports Commissioners who refused to collaborate with any of the other FTA broadcasters. And just as they have landed the rights, Sky’s Subscription model is becoming completely outdated.
The days of paying your TV License/Sky Subscription to get access select to lots of content – but with only a little that you actually want to watch (I’m not interested in much of the garbage on TV these days) are well and truly numbered.
The technology is already available for media consumption on a much more individualised basis. If the price was right a pure event based Pay to view model is the way everything will go. It is also brilliantly accurate for AVE ratings. I’d happily pay £4 or £5 to stream an entire race weekend, including all the FP’s Quali and Race, throw in the GP2 for an extra £1.
What I’d rather not do is pay the Beeb 145 quid a year for the privilege of avoiding Eastenders, The Voice, Strictly etc. And what I won’t do is give Sky 35 quid a month just so I can watch F1 (despite being a passionate and committed fan from 11 years old in the early 80’s ).
The big problem with the pure Pay to view model is greed. Somewhere a suit will think it is reasonable to charge £30 for the privilege of watching a Race weekend.
Until a company with the technology platform, industry clout and vast amounts of reserves (Apple perhaps) comes in and shakes up the market to give me freedom and choice at a fair price – I shall be spending a couple of minutes out in the rain redirecting my Freesat dish 3 degrees to RTL every ‘Sky’ race weekend.
Does anyone remember some of the spin that was being fed to upset fans after the Sky deal was announced last year, that it would be possible to watch F1 in pubs and bars for free, just like the football 😀
Hands up who’s seen a pub or bar advertising live coverage of the races? (only half points awarded for any pub/bar/establishment mentioned in the London area ;))
It seems of a piece with the race fee strategy – Bernie is abandoning retail and going for wholesale channels.
Race fees get paid by governments rather than a guy counting on selling tickets. Non-live audiences are monetised by selling the rights for top dollar for PPV, rather than via sponsors selling things to them.
It simplifies the sport’s income channels, but both depend on a finite number of bodies able to foot the requisite bills and who migh very soon lose interest, rather than millions of little guys who are all individually interchangeable and expendable.
Agreed with all joe. I’m sure I will retire from f1 if access to it fta goes.
But I wouldn’t take up following football.
I’ve watched F1 for over 25 years, spent hard earned cash on attending races and merchandise. I consider myself a pretty loyal fan but this is all leaving a sour taste in the mouth. Shame on you Bernie
ps, just finished Grand Prix Saboteurs, great read Joe
You said that very well!
“Was Euro 2012 watching F1?” …
As one might predict: judging from the myriad of sporting interviews to be heard on BBC 5live, day-in day-out, folk from one sport keep an eye on another sporting event if there is a fellow national going strong in it — even if they’re not otherwise particularly keen on that other sport in general. This is not necessarily much stronger a tendency than you’d get from the general public and, of course, why the F1 world is particularly keen for a useful driver from the USA to emerge.
This time around, many European sporting eyes may well have been following the tennis at the French Open as much as F1.
But can’t not recall that, on 17th July 1994, in Pasadena, California, when the most successful national team of the most globally-followed international sport won that sport’s biggest event for a record breaking fourth time — Brazil winning the FIFA World Cup — at the end of the game the banner that that football-crazy nation’s team grabbed and ran to gather round in front of the world’s cameras spoke not of some footballing related matter, but said:
SENNA…ACELERAMOS JUNTOS,
O TETRA É NOSSO!
which translates as something like “Senna… we accelerated together, the fourth cup is ours!” I could scarcely believe my eyes at the time. Very moving.
I can’t agree more Joe.
As far as the UK goes, unless Sky withdraws from F1 because they’re failing to create sufficient audiences and revenue themselves, or because there is an intervention requiring F1 to be shown in full on free-to-air TV, I’m afraid I can only see a future of spiralling decline for F1 in this country in which the backbone of the F1 industry is located.
I haven’t been a Formula 1 fan for as long as Robert Lloyd; I’ve only been following for 18 years – since being drawn into the world of F1 following Senna’s fatal crash. However, in that time, I’ve become far more than the “casual fan” to whom Phil R refers.
For a number of years now I’ve been watching all the coverage including all the free practice sessions, listening to 5Live’s Chequered Flag, various weekly podcasts (including Joe’s “Asides”), and, over the past year or so, Peter Windsor’s excellent ‘The Flying Lap’. I’ve been to Silverstone for the GP and, in addition to the merchandise, the books on my shelves and the countless Autosport and F1 Racing magazines I’ve bought over the years, I’m often on the web – and more recently Twitter – keeping up with my fascination, not just for the racing on a Sunday afternoon but also for the day-to-day politics of F1, the personalities, and the continual push for innovation. In short, I like to think I know more about F1 than that “casual fan”.
Yet, despite that commitment to a real pleasure and passion (like Robert Lloyd, the only sport I follow) I simply cannot justify to myself or my family spending such a relatively large amount of money getting the Sky package for, in essence, only 10 races when we, as a household, watch relatively little other television.
It has, at least, made me feel a little better about the decision having seen some of the Sky coverage; I have friends and distant family who receive the Sky F1 channel as part of their subscription package. Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz are, of course, excellent (though I also think David Coulthard has got better and better) and, in my opinion, I’m afraid David Croft beats Ben Edwards hands down (bring back James Allen?). However, on the occasions when I have seen some of the Sky coverage, I haven’t been impressed by it. It’s either clunky, superficial, or limited… or all three!
But the crucial thing, in reference to the conversation above is: month by month, week by week, I am feeling increasingly disenfranchised by the sport I love; something I find hard to comprehend after so many years.
That’s particularly the case after this last Canadian weekend when the BBC’s coverage was lame. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the BBC saved the cost of sending Jake and EJ to Canada because relatively few viewers would be watching at such late an hour on a Sunday night. And the highlights of the race itself were as normal (including the usual string of errors from Ben Edwards).
But, bar some interviews with the main drivers, where was the context and analysis? Perhaps they would include it in the F1 Forum which often gives good post-race insight? However, no mention of it at the end of the highlights and I couldn’t seem to find it on the Red Button which, I suppose, is forgiveable; after all, by this time it was 0030 on a Monday morning! So I woke up this morning and went to the BBC’s F1 website to look for the Forum. Nothing! They didn’t bother.
Ignoring the odd rule – such as that for offside! – football, is such an easy game to understand with its talent relatively easily spotted; no wonder it has so many passionate fans around the world.
In my opinion, to appreciate F1 one needs more than a brief list of the top 5 drivers and a guide as to the colour of their cars. Not everybody wants or needs to know about torsion bar suspension or the subtle difference a hole in a car’s floor will make, but we do need creative, informative, passionate free-to-air coverage.
Unless we get this coverage, TV audiences will slowly peel away from the sport resulting in a long-term downturn of available sponsorship. I fear it would also lead to a decrease in numbers attending GP races at Silverstone (and other circuits such as Spa) and to other category racing elsewhere. It will lead to – if it hasn’t done already – the decrease in revenue made by other sectors such as that of publishing, and surely, eventually, even of the size of the F1 industry itself in the UK.
Unless a free-to-air TV broadcaster invests in their future audience, all F1 will be to too many viewers is a group of highly paid individuals driving around in circles. And that audience will grow bored and disappear elsewhere to watch the sponsors’ billboards and posters at Euro 2016, Euro 2020 and everything in between.
Joe,
Well expressed, and very real concern.
My own views are skewed by experience. I am a lifelong F1 fan, since before attending my first GP at The Glen in ’67. For a great number of years I followed F1 through race reports in auto publications, often a month or three old by the time they were available.
Sorry, cont’d
-Regular broadcast F1 here in the states is a relatively recent phenomenon, and due to PPV. So, the hardcore here in the states are HAPPY to have PPV access. You Brits have had it quite good, and are understandably upset now.
This ALL began with the first logo and sponsor color scheme on an F1 car. And it is reaching its logical over-extension. F1 is controlled and run by profiteers, and this cannot be sustained. The teams, and the venues, together, must take control of the sport. F1 has not needed Bernie for some time, and now must begin the process of excising him to prevent a successor. Yes, the successor must be the teams and venues that together comprise F1.
Or face the consequences
To NOT do so will just postpone the inevitable of the teams and venues INHERITING an entity sucked dry of capital, and bereft of fan base.
So, yes, I agree
I know it’s a mean thing to say, but I doubt we will see a return to free for all F1 until the dwarf pops his clogs.
Depends who takes over from him perhaps.
Actually are we sure it’s still him ? Perhaps its a puppet. One of the things I used to say in defence of Bernie was that at least he had the intelligence to realise that F1 had to stay on free-to-air. Now he’s presumably either died or gone senile, along with all these other people who believe their own publicity and no longer live in the real world.
Agree with every word Joe. Well said.
I agree. He may have built it up, but he is now trying his best to tear it down for CVC’s financial gain.
i.e., to coin a phrase, ‘doing a Danny’…
Joe:
Not to change the subject, your comments are spot on. Maybe the promoters of the US F1 race in Austin should read them. You can’t buy a good seat without giving them a 10 year commitment. Such fools! I’ve given up on Austin and will wait for New Jersey.
Exactly what I’ve been saying all along.
And I still can’t help thinking that, following this line of reasoning, broadcasting the World Feed (not necessarily with commentary) over the internet under a Creative Commons licence or similar is something the powers that be should at least be considering. As I said in a comment a few months ago, give it away and the sponsors will have all the eyeballs they could ever want.
Obviously such a move is risky – it’s far from certain that the increased value to sponsors woud offset the loss in direct TV rights revenue – but it’s obvious from the direction things seem to be headed, with more and more pay-TV and aggressive YouTube takedowns, that it isn’t even on the radar.
Just to be annoying, Joe, it’s not soccer, it’s football, a game played with the feet using a ball. The Yanks can whinge all they like about this, but if we follow logic, their game should be renamed ‘handpudding.
I use soccer so that everyone understands. I am simply being democratic…
Just to be annoying, Joe, it’s not soccer, it’s football, a game played with the feet using a ball.
That is not why it is called football in the UK, otherwise there would be no Rugby Football League or Rugby <Football Union. You can look this stuff up online, you know.
The Yanks can whinge all they like about this
It is not the Yanks who are whinging but the Brits. It is also called soccer in the Rep. of Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. All of those countries have other sports they call football. In this respect the UK is on its own in the English-speaking world. So Joe is being democratic and practical.
Not bein’ funny, but the international federation which represents the sport has ‘football’ in its title, as do almost all of the national bodies which are members of that federation. All of the other forms of international ‘football’ are descendants of the original game, played with the feet using a ball.
It would be enlightening, perhaps, to quote the words engraved on the wall which overlooks the playing field at Rugby School, but you can find that elsewhere if you’re interested. I rest my case, m’lud
I do not doubt that, but when you say football in America or Australia it means something different. Soccer means the same thing everywhere. I am not writing only for people in the Home Counties…
The problem is that F1 fans in general got into the sport “watching” it rather than “playing/doing” it like other sports. I watch football because I know how to play the game, I have no idea how to get a F1 car off the line let alone drive it.
I watch the coverage on Sky and in my opinion the coverage is very good. I tend to mute Simon Lazenby because he hasn’t a clue and also Johnny Herbert. I like him and his views but he can be a lot to listen to for 90 minutes.
Plus Sky are too much like ITV in their snobbery I think. The BBC’s coverage is smooth, slick and just a good laugh to watch a bunch of guys winging it, just sharing their passion for the sport with the viewers.
You can still see that from Martin, Crofty, Ant and Ted but the others don’t revel in that passion. E.g I was amazed that they had Mr. Villeneuve as a pundit considering he isn’t a fan of the current racing – way to build up the GP there guys, well done!
So – to make the Sky coverage worth the money – get DC, EJ and JH on board and let them do their thing.
OR …. better still – let the stuff go back on the Beeb! (Although I do like the dedicated channel and all the programs they are running on there).
I was getting sick of DC and EJ so the Sky coverage is a welcome reprieve. Lazenby just needs time to bed in like Jake did originally. Lets also be honest that Crofty and Brundle should have been the commentary team on the Beeb last year. I think they missed a trick not getting Jake to anchor it though. While the coverage is free to HD customers I’m not bothered. Will be annoyed if it goes to one of the Sports packages though.
Humphrey is on a massive contract with the Beeb, which is why he’s at the Euros and wasn’t at the Canadian GP. Presumably he’ll be at the Olympics and not at Hungary.
I don’t really see him as any better than Simon Lazenby. Marginally less punchable, but both are of no more value than Georgie Thompson, who’s role in the sky coverage is to have breasts and to agree with Ant Davidson.
Other than the “fact” that we don’t objectify men as much as we do women (slightly undermined by the number of girls I know who think Jake is “dishy” or “cute”), they’re really all as bad as each other.
Jake, admittedly, does a better job of herding cats (keeping EJ on topic) than Lazenby does (with Herbert).
I thought Lee Mackenzie did a superb job in Canada, and I’d rather keep her in future and lose Jake, who although great at first, has it seems to me started to believe his own hype too much over the last year or so and the matey/blokey act has now descended into obnoxious self-parody. That was one criticism of the BBC coverage that Martin Brundle had spot on. I would also like to lose Eddie Jordan now please, again, he’s just got too much.
Still, having Ben Edwards as lead commentator (something that should have happened the moment Murray Walker retired) makes up for everything.
I’ve heard differing opinions on McKenzie from my friends back in Blighty, though at least one of the people in the “no” camp has the hots for Humphrey, so I’m not sure whether her opinion counts.
I’ve never held Humphrey in overly high regard and he tarred any good opinion he may have earned by adding his voice to the sycophantic PR sugar-coating of the BBC/Sky deal.
Simon Lazenby….one word: bleugh.
Johnny Herbert – always fun keeping count of how many sentences he starts with “yeeeah no…”
I thought JV was great; his body language around Mario Andretti in the post-race was brilliant, exactly as I imagine it would have been when he was in short trousers.
The elephant in the room is the advent of internet subscriptions directly between Bernie and the consumer. Given they produce the video, all they would need is a different language commentator or narrator. That way Bernie could take all the money directly.
Small problem. Who is going to buy this stuff?
In a previous generation, sports that scorned free-to-air TV saw their empires crumble. Internet streaming is the new “free-to-air TV” – and it’s not just for computers any more. Many new TVs can view streams directly, older sets can be fed streams through game consoles or tiny boxes that cost as little as $30.
For the coming generation, internet streaming is going to be mandatory for all but the largest sports. For F1, offering free live streams would mean giving up their largest cash cow, the fees paid by regional broadcasters. So how to monetize free streams? The same way the sports are monetized in many markets today, by selling ads.
To recoup the money they’d lose from the current TV rights deals, F1 would need a partner with a worldwide ad sales force that could offer customized streams and localized advertisements into every important market in the world. By cutting out all those middle men, they’d reduce overhead. By offering streams for free, they’d greatly increase viewership.
It just so happens that the largest advertising company in the world also has , by far, the largest video streaming service in the world and perhaps the internet’s fastest, most extensive backbone. They also sell TV ads. I suspect Google would jump at the chance for such a partnership with F1.
Moving F1 to free internet streaming would do wonders for the sport, but it will never happen while Bernie or CVC hold the reins.
“By offering streams for free, they’d greatly increase viewership.”
Would they?
This argument gets trotted out a bit and I’m not sure I believe it. To the best of my knowledge, F1 remains largely free-to-air in quite a few core territories – free-to-stream isn’t likely to suddenly get everyone interested in F1 all of a sudden.
Yes. Were F1 to partner with the likes of Google, I believe free live streaming would absolutely increase viewership and revenue.
Two years ago this wouldn’t have been the case, but two years from now it definitely will be the case. Given existing TV contracts, two years is probably the soonest free streaming could be rolled out. By 2014, nearly every new TV will ship with built-in streaming.
Much more importantly, smart phones and tablets able to stream video will be far cheaper and far more ubiquitous in two years time. Even today, established TV networks are simulcasting their sports feeds into internet streams, but only for their customers. A low quality tablet fully able to view internet streams can be had for less than $100 – today. In two years? Far less.
For F1, the hard part wouldn’t be increasing viewership, it would be selling enough ads into every regional market to equal the current revenue take. I’ve no doubt that the revenue could not only be matched, but greatly exceeded. That said, matching existing revenue may take a year or two, but joined with a large partner like Google, the sport should be able negotiate out of any short term revenue shortfall.
Any sport that does not embrace live streaming will be just as doomed as those that scorned free-to-air TV in the past generation. F1 was almost a decade late in adopting HD video, if Bernie continues to run the show, I expect the same with internet streaming.
Interesting way of looking at it. I’m still not really convinced that it’ll add to the F1 fanbase, but it might make F1 more resistant to losing out as the world moves to mobile device-based lives.
Of course, some of this already exists – albeit not free – and is run by the rights holders on a territory by territory basis, which may well remain the natural order of things. For all the globalisation of business, speaking as an ex-pat I can assure you that companies are still almost entirely separated along national borders.
FTA = BBC = Politics.
FTA F1 would be lovely, indeed I think the 2011 coverage was fantastic but the BBC have made their decision and since politics is involved…they won’t change that decision.
It’s a shame as it’s only £20 million saved to lose millions of viewers.
There’s a very real possibility, that the cost per hour and cost per viewer for the BBC will actually be higher under the new contract than the old one.
Pre-season the BBC were confident that more people would watch the highlights than a live race, but this just hasn’t turned out to be the case, plus the BBC have almost totally abandoned the F1 forum on Freeview, and this had a cumulative audience of nearly 8 million.
And just to prove the point that the BBC are neglecting F1
They’ve shunted the BRITISH Grand Prix off to BBC2
Yes, but Karen, Wimbledon is a “protected sport” and F1 (motorsport as a whole)… isn’t, despite how much the motorsport industry brings to the British economy.
Fickle, eh..?
Karen – What’s the reason for the British Grand Prix being bumped onto BBC2? The Olympics haven’t begun at that stage and I think Euro 2012 finishes the week before.
Men’s singles final at Wimbledon. So probably Federer versus Nadal instead of Vettel versus Hamilton.
So when a media outlet doesn’t pay sufficient attention to your product that’s THEIR fault, not yours?
Houston, we have a problem…
You have to ask yourself why the BBC isn’t paying enough attention to ‘was’ their most popular and cost effective sport.
F1’s cumulative reach is nearly double that of Wimbledon, despite Wimbledon having more broadcast sessions.
I’m glad you see the need to ask that question. What answer did you come up with?
Some of the rumours are …
Either, the BBC want to drive down viewing so there’s a greater possibility of the need for FTA TV, and a return to the BBC.
Or that there is an anti-F1 clique operating within the BBC, who were alarmed by the BBC trusts report that showed that F1 was not only the BBC’s most popular sport, but its most cost effective too, and therefore want it gone as it doesn’t fit in the public school boy game image the BBC like to foster.
Oh come on you’re more intelligent than that, and so are we.
Mad eh? Still, the BBC chose *not* to have the Canadian Grand Prix – a sure viewer puller with a prime time slot and guaranteed action history.
It’s arguably the most commercially valuable race…and they gifted it to Sky. Sky can obviously make better commercial use of the opportunities but still…they just seem like an expensive, bloated state institution.
Which reminds me of another (UK) public service gripe of mine…today our company moved into a new office. The previous office has been taken over by the local state college. We paid £40k pa rent, they’re paying £78k pa rent because they made no attempt to haggle. They took the rate card price.
Mental.
Josh, sorry this is a bit late, given your lease et.c. but down the City of London, there is so much empty space in the older but stupidly well built 60s offices, which no longer suit the big outfits, that a pal of mine picked up 2,000 sq feet on short lease for 5 grand / annum. There’s another 80,000 sq feet by our estimates within a stone’s throw, all nice addresses. Turn the corner, you have the river.
You do have to accept being thrown out when the developer gets around to it. But I let a place for a friend, el cheapo, while ago, and it took several years extra for Gerald Ronson to get around to demolishing it, because, boy did they build strong stuff.
Space, cheap, down the City of London? This should be exploited. For good things.
For comparison, a scraper would cost you 200K pa for the same as my pal got, around the corner . . of course, that is peanuts to a big outfit. Just not much is a big outfit. I don’t think you can navigate the waters unless well staffed with legal bods. My reaction, despite I hate clubs, was to join our equivalent of the BBB, see if I can get word out. If this goes on, I shall have to join The Worshipful Company Of Paper Makers!
The decision by the BBC to cut it’s budget for F1 was entirely politically driven and should be seen in the context of James Murdoch’s Mctaggart lecture in 2009, where he ranted over the BBC’s “chilling” domination of the media in the UK. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/28/james-murdoch-bbc-mactaggart-edinburgh-tv-festival )
Knowing what we know now, post Levenson and post phone hacking scandal, it’s pretty clear that in return for the support of the Sun and Times David Cameron acquiesced in part by freezing the license fee hence cutting BBC funding at the first opportunity after the coalition were elected.
Mark Thompson, BBC Director General, could have attempted to negotiate a FTA sharing arrangement with ITV, Channel 4 or even Channel 5 but chose to go straight to SKY without even involving the other FTA broadcasters.
We now know exactly how close the Tories were to the Murdochs, and how much influence they had over government media policy so you can make of that what you will.
Thompson meanwhile, is leaving the BBC this Autumn…..
This is one thing I really don’t think we can hang on Bernie.
Hey Flavio. I have disagreed with you before, but I think you are spot on. That lecture was, to many minds, so far behind the times, it was ignored. But it does look like the politicos thought it novel. Me, I thought James was a Teleprompter whore. This is the ugliness I often miss. That what is a passée gets regurgitated by certain class. For their own motivations. The BBC is not in immediate competition with Sky, is the solution to this equation. They have to compete with the other FTA boys, so no crumbs on the table. Excellent observation. Thanks – j
Thanks John. Sometimes we F1 followers are caught up so easily in our own media bubble we fail to see the bigger picture. F1 must have been a very easy target for cost cutting at the BBC. The funny thing is that for SKY half of the cake is useless – they need it all for their subscription model to work! I really hope that enough pressure can be brought to bear politically on the new DG to prevent that happening. The BBC still have the contract until 2016 as far as I know.
Cheers Flavio. I’m well known for getting up my own, sadly it’s not a self correcting condition. Kinda something I spot in the mirror occasionally! Anyhow, stick to the main game. In this case, the BBC pulling a fast one on everyone. It has me thinking of the Laker case. All best ~ j
Chair: Did you actually talk to any other free-to-air broadcasters?
Mark Thompson: No … It seems to me that it was not required of us,
Thank you so much for that Karen. Absolute killer. Sums up the attitude. You got heart for getting this out there, even if you righteously have the commercial hump.
Good article Joe, Like the viewing stats show I am one of the many who are not prepared to pay money to Murdoch to watch F1. Not one penny never-mind £30 or £40 a month. Whats more people who pay this are bombarded with advertisements before and after the race.
What is worst about this TV deal is I used to never even miss a practice session but now I don’t mind missing parts of the GP weekend so if things keep going this way by the time this joint TV deal ends I and I imagine many others will have long stopped watching F1 altogether.
With the figures for Sky viewing given by Karen, (whom I instinctively believe implicitly) I cannot understand how Sky can possibly afford to do it. Ok I cannot afford the subscription but assuming I could, how is it financially viable for Sky? Certainly not on the back of advertising during the show, (though the ad free promise will most likely last for one season only) who will want to place an ad during the race to an audience of only 700k? Slots must be going incredibly cheap, a fraction of what ITV used to charge. So back to the question how can Sky afford to show F1?
Maybe the Sky uk people don’t talk to their Italian counterparts, since a similar deal has now been struck for the tifosi.
PS I believe the balls are more or less 100% plastic these days – not an animal bladder in sight.
@Joe,
Have any GP’s even come remotely close to selling out this year?
No idea. Most have had good crowds.
Depends on definition of a “good” crowd. From the telecasts – I see a lot of empty seats in grandstands and there are grandstands not used (China).
So…. I beg to differ.
I have to agree, the stadium section (the largest area for seating at the ciruit de catalunya) in Barcelona was the smallest crowd I ever remember seeing. Maybe 60% full.
Monaco might have had a couple of seats free, but I did look, more by accident than design, in the week before the race and pickings were very slim.
Gregmund and EnzoElgar – Brilliant posts – Exactly how I feel about it ! I am so glad that Sky can’t even scrape 750,000 viewers, when the beeb used to have 3-4 million on a race weekend ?
I have watched F1 since I was old enough to sit up straight on the sofa and understand what dad and my godfather were so excited about.
My first taste of F1 was qualifying 1989 British GP, i’ll never forget Mansell flying through the ‘old’ becketts in that crimson Ferrari. I’ve been hooked ever since, i’ve been lucky enough to go to 7 or 8 British GP’s, Spa 91-94, China 2008, Spain 2009 and now I find I can’t watch it as I refuse to pay £410 a year to watch half the races. I to feel disenfranchised with the whole show. The races are generally exciting, but qualifying now we have the silly situation of drivers not setting a time in some sessions as they need to save the tyres. utterly ridiculous. They should be forced to do at least 5 or 6 laps every session.
Looks like I may have to start re positioning that freesat dish for the RTL coverage.. 🙂
I have to agree about the sky coverage too, I watched the Bahrain race at my godfathers place, we let it record for 10 mins or so, then just fast forwarded through the dross. The coverage was ok ish, but none of the banter and fun of the BBC. The only bits I thought were worth it were Martin and David. Why is that Georgie woman even there, apart from to look good ? She brings so little, it’s embarrasing. Why in their mid week shows do they spend 10 minutes talking about what is coming up in the next 15 mins after the break ?! Padding it out a bit ! I’m so glad I didn’t go for Sky in the end.
I do enjoy Gary Andersons technical pieces on the beeb, they could make more of this if they would put the forum on ALL channels (why is it not available on freeview ?)
Take a guess (without looking on the iTunes store) at how much the ‘Official F1 Timing Application’ is per year ? That is the application to allow you to follow live timing on your iDevice (ie Apple iPhone, iPad etc).
I almost bought the mobile app when I had some Java problems on my pc which were killing the FIA live timings (total uninstall/restart/reinstall finally fixed it) – £20!
The live timings make such a difference to enjoying and following the progress of the race I expect they’ll be behind a paywall before long…
Ouch, Same!
I think I know what the sell is now: buy expensive “fondleslab” (iPad to the unwashed) and you feel you are being cheap not to shell out for every app. Oh, dear. At least I have a very specific functional reason, replete with knowing how crappy the touch interface is, certainly compared with a Wacom pen, to get one of those. You see, I use some very specific things from e.g. Autodesk which seem to have ported very well. So the fondleslab is a small part of the budget.
I sometimes wonder if Oracle does not want to give up the desktop, and is only dragged there by installed base of paying customers. Number of times I have had to fix obscure command line options on the java virtual machine, just sucks.
They won’t screw it, whilst things like BARX run big trading. But heed the fact that Larry was serious when he meant to go all out internet. He abandoned earlier customers. Think that was late 90s. So the logic now would be keep Java on the server only, dump the desktop, go HTML5 and AJAX for clients. Remember the Network Computer?
Interesting search would be “unofficial f1 live timing”. Not bad at all.
Ah too late. But I don’t suppose there’s a source of a track-position graphic? Sky supposedly have one on their site but it’s only for Sky dish subscribers, not we plebs subscribing via Virgin.
Cynic, I bet a few smart guys could set up some photogrammetry. (measuring distances by photographs) and a couple of guys on the ground could tell us what Canon or Fujinon lenses are used for broadcast, and well it’s not too hard to get the data on the distortion coefficients. Normal buying question. So, you take a pic, trackside, with GPS assist, of where the feed cameras are. About half a dozen ought to sort the numbers. Now, we suddenly know where are the cameras, and we can start figuring out the timings from the live feed. This would be novel, derivative, and utterly safe from petty legal assailment. Then, with a (fairly big) bit of compute, probably in the nice new GPGPUs nVidia want to sell you, well, there you go, independent timing. Not saying it’s easy, just saying it is within the realm of doable.
Cynic, belated answer to your actual Q:
I did a really awful one in OpenGL once. As in, really awful. Might impress granny . . Nowadays you need to do it in SVG and javascript.
(there is a OpenGL for web, but early for that)
What we need to patch into is this: http://d3js.org/
check that out, very neato graphics framework.
What you then need to do is a little thought about the curves of the track, and so on.
Cynic, my sincere apologies, I was thinking actual track sporting timing, and if you knew me, everyone says stop bloody complicating it.
Other things, either pay Reuters for track layouts (not that expensive, but depends) or ask the guys at RFactor to chip in for some promo. 3D on board car virtual following anyone? But that I am quite sure required my headache above to be done.
I am deeply impressed by the modern free frameworks. No, it’s not plug and play. Things got much more complex. But lately, any modest “neat” idea I had, well i just googled for a few terms, and bingo, someone is doing it. I reckon for really good engineers (not me, in that crowd, never dedicated myself enough) you might be only months to time to live on any non trivial mathematical problem.
I’m wearing shades.
If any dude or dudette thinks, like i hazard, someone smart can do that in a matter of weeks, though, please talk to me. The car tracking on 2D thing.
Ha, second holiday in 20 years, this 🙂
trivial problem, silly thing of me, not non trivial! Copy!!
Joe do you ever get chance to watch any of the TV coverage (English, US or French) back or not enough time? Would be intrigued to know your experience of them at any point in the last few years as you are at the event itself.
No
That’s a shame. I think you’d have been pleasantly surprised if you’d caught the Beeb’s 2009-2010 coverage. In 2011, as I intimated elsewhere, it started to droop a bit as the presenters seemed to think blokey chat about shirt colours was more important than the racing, but overall it was still excellent.
I still remember the utter shock from Nigel Roebuck when he had to sit out the 1997 (poss ’98) Argentine Grand Prix and had to subject himself to the same “wonderful” ITV coverage as the rest of us. The excoriating column he wrote that week was one of his best ever, and highlighted just how much the average member of the circus had no idea what it was like to watch as an average viewer.
At least Haymarket had the balls to publish it, not that that made up for their refusal at all other times to criticise the ITV coverage (presumably helped by the ITV logo appearing in the corner of F1 Racing magazine shortly after the deal was announced, at which point all discussion of it seemed to fall silent).
I seem to remember when Sir Frank Williams had to miss a race a few years ago, Bernie offered to set him up with all the custom feeds that were available to European PPV customers (this was back in the days of Bernievision but not the year that it was tried in the UK with Sky), but Frank, bless him, said No thank you, he would rather watch it on ITV just as everyone else had to. I have the impression, although I could be wrong, that he had a few things to say about it after that experience.
Ach, sorry for waffling on, partly fighting old battles too… all the best to you, Joe.
I have certainly lost a bit of interest this year as I refuse to buy Sky and that is from someone who has followed F1 since the 70s. However, to be fair, there are other sports that seem to continue to do OK behind a wall and are not kickerball, eg cricket, so maybe this can work.
Cricket, doing OK is it ? Where was the passion of the 2005 Ashes in 2009 ? Nowhere to be seen. Where is the next generation of young fans ? In front of the Playstation. And the only reason cricket continues as a water-fountain sport is TMS.
Actually youth participation in clubs is through the roof. The Sky money has bankrolled a massive programme of coach training and facilities investment at grass roots level, while the Chance To Shine programme goes into state schools (most of which no longer play the game having sold off the fields) and refer those kids who enjoyed a dabble in the sport to local clubs. Most of the England Women’s team are employed on pro contracts combining playing with Chance To Shine activities – all Sky money.
However, live audiences are down, and the only free to air TV is the IPL, so it’s far from perfect.
Comparing 2005 to 2009 is unfair – winning the Ashes in 2009 was expected, in 2005 it was a new dawn. 2005 was arguably the closest, most intense Test series of all time, between the World’s no. 1 and 2 teams. Every session was a thriller. By 2009 I think England and Australia were something like 4 and 5, and frankly the series was pretty tame by comparison.
I agree with your comment that “only a small percentage [of F1 viewers] are passionate about it, whereas a lot of people are passionate about football” and would go further in highlighting the differences: F1 fans are, I believe, primarily fans of the sport rather than having a tribal allegiance to any particular team (the Tifosi being an obvious exception). We all have our favourite drivers of course but it is not the same as supporting Liverpool, Barcelona or Juventus (or for that matter England, Spain or Italy). Football support goes way deeper than simply having a favourite player or team, it is a statement of national or
regional – and in some cases (Celtic/Rangers) even religious – identity. F1 cannot compete with that and should not try.
Spot on Joe, in my view. If you’re interested someone posted the following in reply to a comment I made – he seems to be claiming to be from Sky, but he could be anyone:
I agree Jerry. While I have my favourites if forced to choose, I don’t watch with the sole intention of cheering on one particular driver or team. I watch because I’m enthralled and captivated by the engineers’ 24/7 pursuit of perfection, the drivers’ dogged determination to find the ultimate lap, and the pitwall’s attempts to outwit their rivals.
And now our big friend Bernie has sold F1 to Sky Italia and no Rai next season. I won’t be watching any F1 next year, that’s a pity. I’ve been a fan for 2 years. But I would like to ask: where is Ferrari now? They threaten to abandon F1 everyday and yet they didn’t open their mouth about the situation. They forgot that Rai were their biggest fans always talking about Alonso. Where are your threats now, dear pranching horse?
Personally, I’m going to be gutted if the BBC loses the rest of their coverage. It’ll mean the end of F1 for me, as I really cannot afford Sky, let alone another £120 a year for HD. The BBC licence fee is bad enough.
Joe,
I fully agree with George Orwell. But I prefer to speak of “panem et circenses” like roman emperors. At least in F1 we don’t have (too much) nationalistic feelings like in soccer. I hate to see those live-tv camera close-ups of the footballer species just prior the games (to check if they sing the national anthem and if they hold their hand (or fist!) on their heart. That’s so moving……
Joe, even though we give it a silly name like “Soccer”, this time the NASL “gets it”. I have lately found myself drawn to Football matches, since FOX has a soccer channel which televises UEFA, Champion’s league, Barclay’s premier league, as well as Italian and Spanish football. Our league, the NASL, conducts play that is very comparable to European football. Seattle Sounders, or FC Seattle, is playing at a very high level. Youth soccer is very ubiquitous wherever you go in the U.S., so I do believe we are getting on with it. It’s quite an improvement from the old NASL, back in the late 1970s and early eighties, when they tried to “Americanize” soccer. I especially love the Premier league matches (ManCity is one of my favorites). My point being that football (soccer) is not a lost cause in the US, or at least in Seattle, where the fans are very supportive, wearing knit scarves in team colors to the matches and cheering FC Seattle with great enthusiasm. Someone from Europe would have to look closely to discern any difference on the way the matches are presented, played, and conducted, especially since the presenters are from the UK.
As for the matter of paying to watch formula one, with the exception of four races which are “free to air” (although fully supported by SPEED with pre race and post race coverage, including live practice and quali coverage; only the race itself is on the “free to air” network (which is a FOX affiliate) the rest of our season must be seen on SPEED (another Fox affiliate) which has the full run of F-1 content from an F-1 weekend. Between the television and SPEED’s website, we can see every session the cars are on track (FP1,2,3; Quali; and the race). I am one of the many stalwarts who get up at 4:30 to watch the action live, although I may be the only one in Anacortes who does so. I guess part of the reason why pay television isn’t such a big deal here is that without it, we couldn’t get anything but three channels, two of which are Canadian channels, so we have been used to this for some time now. The only drawback is that we have commercials during the telecasts, and inevitably, the major action happens while we are away at break. Commercial breaks have gotten so bad, and so long during network broadcasts (I’m talking generally now, not F-1 specific), that aside from sports, I mostly watch internet streaming of iTunes or Netflix. There I can see every season of my favorite show, “Top Gear-UK” without interruption.
Incidentally, SPEED will be showing all 24 hours of LeMans this weekend, which is always a father’s day treat for me. I try to stay awake the whole race.
I suppose, since it’s a weekend off for you, you’ll be attending?
Echoing Interested Party’s regaining his weekends, I’ve instead found it rather sociable to have the feed. I doubt you could call any of my friends poor, but we are all constructively cheap. So, having the television feed is actually sociable. We split the bill, or take turns cooking. Only, as I said, the coverage leaves me cold, so if no meet up and cook up, I go on a walk too, or read, in front of a silenced screen. I won’t go so far as thanking Rupert for this, but it’s cool to occasionally get four generations from wildly different backgrounds, in a room.
Serious note, a bit of hardship might undo the isolation easy riches created. No, I can’t afford to chat to you on the phone, come over! My suspicious mind wonders if things like Facebook are not ploys to keep us physically apart, rather than to socialise us. It’s easier to sell to someone on their own. They get ideas of individualism, sold by the gallon.
I watched the Canadian GP on an “unofficial” Sky stream, well on 2 as the streams were a bit hit and miss so I swapped between the 2 and there were over 3000 people on each site during the closing stages of the race and 2500+ for the rest of the show. The technical problems with the stream certainly made me want to get Sky for the next races but the Beeb are showing most of them so I’ll probably watch the Sky races through alternative means (I refuse to watch highlights). So 6000+ people who haven’t paid for Sky and won’t watch the BBC and both sides lose revenue. I paid for the season opening races on Sky and the coverage is far superior to the Beeb’s in my opinion, Jake and the boys seem like a pale reflection on last year, the F1 Forum has virtually no guests and is just Jake and the gang wandering the paddock, hoovering up anyone who’s unfortunate to get in their way and trying to be amusing with their antics. TBH I didn’t need to see EJ get his foot strapped up by the McLaren medic did I? The BBC commentary is awful too but Sky isn’t perfect, it seems like Johnny Herbert isn’t listening to Simon Lazenby at all and never answers his questions.
F1 in Pubs? Well that’s died a death. I checked the site before Canada to see if I could watch the race in a local with my Dad and there were a total of 6 pubs signed up, all in London. One local to me were advertising they were showing the F1 but Canada clashed with Soccer so the chances of the race actually being shown were close to zero.
The BBC will pull out at the end of the season, Jake’s getting his feet under the Football table and the BBC will blame the Olympics for rising costs, yadda yadda, no more FTA F1.
@ Jean,
Sorry guys, this is off-topic. – I’m glad F1 goes to Sky Italia next year, even though in Switzerland I won’t be able to watch it. When I can’t watch races on BBC I still have a great choice of channels of different countries (being multi-lingual) and sometimes I used to watch RAI which is the most awful broadcaster in the world, much worse than in banana republics. I’ve been sending them “constructive critical advise” for years but of course nobody cares. The poor guy called Bortuzzo is no Jake Humphrey! And then there is Mazzoni who interrupts the expert consultant (that’s what they call Ivan Capelli who is actually very good albeit linguistically handicapped) to inform the stupid audience that Karthikeyan is pitting! This guy Mazzoni thinks he’s speaking for the radio so he he repeats every 5 minutes the complete ranking from 1st to 24th, one by one! He is very knowledgeable about his subject but thinks that shouting into the mike is sufficient to thrill the guys who listen. Occasionally he’s obliged to let the pitlane commentator say a few things. Giovannelli is his name and when he speaks, he thinks he is the lead commentator instead of coming up with fresh pitlane information. Then after the race Bortuzzo frequently botches his intervention while interviewing fellow caste members (journalists, i.e.) by interrupting everybody and making silly head signs to his colleagues because he’s unable to listen to his earplug, speak and direct his crew all at the same time! All this is extremely unprofessional! And on top of all this RAI journalists frequently speak very fast so as to maximise advertising time! Am not sure if they do such ridiculous things even in banana republics!
Having been an F1 fan since the eighties or maybe even a bit earlier, I’m a bit bored with it now. I used to see it as, largely, a titanic strategic battle where overtaking was a remarkable achievement (to be much applauded) and the leaders were obvious and relentlessly hunted down by their usual followers. It was similar to fishing or five day test matches. Slow and dull at times, but when things heated up, you could be out of your seat with excitement. I used to insist on watching it regardless of how sunny it was outside. Even the wife used to watch. But not now.
Now it’s more interesting for the me-too short termism politics. Now it’s little more than a lottery programme where, basically, viewers are desperate for it to get to the results part. Even the participants seem to have little clue how to win or why they’ve just won and, so far, have no chance of repeating the victory. Overtaking is just a Playstation button press away after a slow corner with a decent straight. Fascinating (and occasionally unruly) defensive strategies have been done away with. Qualifying has deteriorated into a tyre saving competition. Peel away the layers and what’s underneath is too contrived and false for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that F1 is a business and not a sport so how’s that looking? Well, it’s a bit expensive so let’s fix that by reducing eyeballs on TV, changing the rules as often as possible (preferably with major component alterations – aero being the last one and engines and transmissions being the next one), boot out cheap venues and go to expensive ones, attempt a flotation while failing to placate a stakeholder etc etc etc. Par for the course.
I wonder if the BBC saw through all the nonsense (though couldn’t admit it) and attempted to shove the whole pile of embarrassing manure onto Sky. I think I’ve just about seen through their ‘cost saving’ excuse for that seeing as the coverage they’re actually recording can’t be vastly cheaper than what went before. I’m a bit disappointed that their Canada highlights pack wasn’t edited to reduce the coverage more so now I’ll have to record future programmes and use the fast forward button as with the full races. Either way, I still get my weekends back which has had unmentionable side benefits due to my new-found attentiveness toward my Wife.
Too much attention is being paid to the move to pay TV and I know, from my own limited experience, that that may be a side issue to what has become a glossy but ultimately repetitive (excluding the actual lottery number results) and uninteresting magazine show.
Unfortunately, if F1 is now reduced to a comedy show revolving around incompetence, ignorance and random bizarre events, I’d rather get out my Fawlty Towers DVDs to see it done properly.
Ignoring all the above, I nearly liked Canada this year. Lewis’ fine performance reminded me of the old school days but I still had to try and ‘forget’ how massive the tyre and DRS show was. My history with F1 stops me divorcing the old bird completely but we no longer sleep in the same room. I doubt I’m alone in this respect.
Keep Blogging Joe..
Living on the island that gave the world Dan Gurney, the Sky vs BBC debate is of marginal importance to me. But I have seen the New York stick and ball teams
over the last 40 years move many of their broadcasts from VHF TV channels “poor people TVs” to various cable packages such as MSG and YES that require you to pay extra each month (some $12-15). Attendance and team valuations have skyrocketed. If you are a boxing fan, it is almost exclusively a pay per view of some $50 a fight. Admittedly this is not the same as what our cousins across the pond have to do with but it seems somewhat similar. I expect this trend to continue.
Perhaps their is a way to gave the masses the basics of watching a race on poor people’s tv while having a pay channel for the real hardcore fan who can’t get enough and wants as much information and video as he can get. But Bernie will take the quick, money grabbing way.
Titus, it’s the same extra money to see the ballgames here, on ESPN, and I think the same for a fight. Just the usual annoying 1 buck = 1 pound. To add to the insults, this year Roland Garros was on ESPN only. Used to be FTA. No skin off my nose, but if you like what people do with a tennis racket, the clay courts are essential form to watch. I wasn’t born when I was first (unknown to anyone) invited to Wimbledon. Not too sure whether to laugh or cry on the fights, as my manor is well known for infamous dodgy promoters, my pop could sling one, and there were once some brother preachers about here, who started prize fighting and got religious, in the 20s.
Hemingway once said there are only three sports: bull fighting, mountain climbing and racecar driving. Not far off it.
It’s all entertainment. I think it’s worth a bit of pocket money. Just I don’t like my pocket being picked unnecessarily.
If I’m going to pay for F1 it will be for Grand Prix + not pay TV
It’ll cost you £1.50 a race, or less than 2p per page. With the price of beer nowadays, I reckon I save more than that in the time I’m sitting reading it!
and what I want to know is the lowest price at which Mr E is in the money.
My guess is not much multiple of a GP+.
Does he know all the ISPs will pay for the distribution?
There’s something else odd about Sky F1. You’d think Sky would put all their motorsports coverage on that channel, but no. Sky F1 has GP3, GP2 and GP1. Sorry, I mean F1…
F2, F3, Indy, and assorted tintops are on SkySports 4. NASCAR seems to pop up on 4 most of the time but occasionaly on SkySports2. Haven’t come across WSR yet.
No prizes for working out the difference. But why wouldn’t you do the sensible thing and bring it together, unless your contract woudn’t let you, and why wouldn’t it do that?
As I understand it, the available bundles on VIrgin and Sky mean you can pay to have Sports1,2 and F1, or pay a bit more and get Sports1,2,3,4, and F1. So does someone want the non FOM series to remain in the backwater…?
Very odd when you see that Sky F1 is showing F1 Legends for the five-thousandth time, when other motorsport is showing one or two channels further up the EPG.
F2 and F3 are not on Sky at all. F2 is either Motors TV or Eurosport (or both), while F3 had Channel 4 and Motors TV coverage.
Well I definitely watched F3 Euroseries on Sky4 last night…
Wow – didn’t even know that was being shown in the UK at all. Perhaps I should clarify I was referring to British F3.
As an aside, WSBR is on ESPN UK, while I don’t think NASCAR Sprint Cup has any UK coverage. Nationwide is on Motors TV though.
NASCAR was on SkySports 3 weekend just gone
OK fair enough. Hadn’t heard if they had a new deal for 2012.
Joe, I have been watching and attending F1 races since the middle 70’s. So, I can say I am “reasonably” educated fan. Being in the states – we only get regular coverage of F1 on SpeedTv. Fox Tv shows maybe 4 races a year full of commercial.
But as far as I can remember – there never was any major coverage of F1 in the states. The lack of interest in the states is due to not having a race or a driver. I would say the biggest mistake – F1 ever made regarding racing in the states was to pull out of Long Beach and Watkin Glen.
Well for the future – I don’t think you are going to indefinitely squeeze money out of promoters, race fans, and TV providers. The problem is the “experience” doesn’t warrant shelling out the cash w/out return. For me, I might pay 500 Euro’s for a weekend of racing. But I couldn’t afford to take my family of 4 to the race. And if I can’t take them how am I going to pass my appreciation onto to my son. TV viewing doesn’t enhance the experience.
Nor, am I going to spend money on an IPAD application to get “real time” timing. Not worth it. SpeedTv provides plenty of updates to get the sense. And besides I have a pretty good idea – of how the race is going to fold. Some guys make one stop, some guys make two stops.
Now, the value experience is product like “Cocktails with Joe” and your blog.
If and when I afford (maybe next year at NJ) I will catch it. It brings fans closer to the experience. You want to get F1 fans more excited have some of the drivers – participate in web chats.
Where does this go? I think Derek Warwick podcast with Motorsport covers it. You need to be real careful of taking a sport of it’s origin Europe and pushing it across the world and expecting it to grow……