BSkyB to Broadcast all races Live and Exclusive in the UK from 2019

[Ron Squire]

A few hours ago Sky Sports announced that it has strengthened its broadcasting grip on F1 up to 2024 and from 2019 it will broadcast all races live and exclusive to the Pay TV Channel making F1 not being able to broadcast live on FTA TV for the first time since 1978, its current deal sees all races being broadcast live with 11 other races live and exclusive, they share the other 10 live races with Channel 4 as the FTA broadcaster following the BBC pulling out in December 2015.

Another careless decision by Bernie again......not even surprised tbh

 

[JamesU]

Makes me even happier that i stream my sports...for £26 for 6 months...HD Streams...never an issue.

PM me if you wanna...

 

[eSEA One]

This is what is killing F1 world wide. more and more free to air countries are falling by the wayside.

 

[ears]

and it's goodnight from me.

My first race was Australia 1990. Almost never missed a race since. All things must come to an end.

Will Bernie ever realise that when people say that the way the sport is run is antiquated and has lost touch with reality, that they're talking about him?

 

[ears]

This has been on my mind recently.

Is this a terrible decision by Sky and a greedy decision by Bernie?

F1 audiences are in decline. And British audiences are terribly ... nationally focussed. Apart from the enthusiasts, who are not great in numbers, large F1 audiences in the UK only occur when there's a British driver doing well.

So what happens if Lewis Hamilton has got disillusioned by 2019 and left F1? There is no obvious successor, sorry Jolyon. So what if there's no British driver at the front in 2019? Where does the audience and return on investment come from?

Even as an F1 fan of some 25 years, I wouldn't subscribe to Sky's F1 channel - mainly because of their pricing structure. If I subscribe to their F1 channel, there's no way of me doing it without subscribing to their football too. And I've seen the numbers. If I pay that subscription, I'm paying a huge football tax.

So I do start to wonder - have Sky thrown money around for exclusivity once too often? Has Berne taken the short term money instead of the long term investment once too often?

I even find myself hoping so.

 

[Yapci]

Here in Spain motoGp and F1 are ppv now. Highly doubt lot of people see it and even more now that Alonso is struggling hard.

The same with football, just a free shitty match on Saturdays (basketball is not that much followed here so it's even worse...).

And not to talk about boxing or other contact sports. We see none of this here on public tv.

 

[Kenny Paton]

The only consolation is that more minor sports are getting better coverage on terrestrial tv.
The point that @ears made is a good one, my wife has Sky Sports purely for the tennis and I do grudge that we pay for the rest of it and she never uses it.