Grand Prix Rant

geordieracer

Im going to play with my scalextric and listen to the radio in future to pretend its really me.


The pictures and live feeds wont change so this really is all about the money and that which BskyB can easily outbid the beeb for.
Such a shame

hcb42

i dont like this decision, but I am certainly not paying out £50 a month for sky television, so despite the fact we have been fans for years, we will be doing without.

I do hope my hubby doesnt sign us up without talking to me about it though lol, as I wont be happy!

viktory

Barneysmom wrote: »

How long does the season last, is it a couple of months?

Maybe I'll do a family whip-round for them?

March - November.

Damn shame. We have a great commentary team with Brundle et al and I fear their services will no longer be required. My husband and I have been avid F1 fans for years now and I consider this the end of an era. Quite apart from the extra costs if you want to see all the races it does, of course, mean the addition of adverts once again - and Sky adverts are horrendous.

ChequeredFlag

Well I cant live without my F1! Live for it each race and now we have to wait whilst they have their summer break. I can't quite wait until the next race. My hairs stand up on the back of my neck when those five lights go out - I Love It! It keeps me going, so I'm afraid I will have to find the extra costs so that I can see the race!
Will not be watching any other sport on Sky, so any extra costs I might have will be just so that I can continue watching F1.
I understand that it's not everyone that feels like this about F1, so they will have different point of view - fair enough

geordieracer

viktory wrote: »

March - November.

Damn shame. We have a great commentary team with Brundle et al and I fear their services will no longer be required. My husband and I have been avid F1 fans for years now and I consider this the end of an era. Quite apart from the extra costs if you want to see all the races it does, of course, mean the addition of adverts once again - and Sky adverts are horrendous.

Sky are not showing any adverts during the race either. just before and after

Kite2010

Nilrem wrote: »

Ah, I knew it made money but didn't want to overstate it.

And ironically one of the reasons it's popular is, from what American friends have told me, is that it doesn't hesitate to say "this car is junk", something most similar programmes are quite unwilling to do for some reason (nothing to do with the fact that advertisers tend to show displeasure at a channel that has programmes that call their products rubbish*).

But that's one of things a lot of people don't realise, some popular programmes that the BBC do are at worst revenue neutral, thus effectively free, whilst others do make enough to help pay for other less popular content.

It could be interesting to see what the F1 teams say about the partial move to Sky, IIRC most of them are based in the UK (Redbull/Jaguar is based about 10 miles from me), and almost revolted when it was suggested before that they might see the sport move behind the Sky paywall.

*I think it was Renault whose EU management basically said "pull the advertising" after seeing one of their cars getting slated on TG - completely missing that it was on a non advert channel.

The worst that can happen if TG slates a car is not getting anymore freebies.

viktory

geordieracer wrote: »

Sky are not showing any adverts during the race either. just before and after

Thanks, didn't know that. Makes no difference though - I can't afford Sky Sports

StevieJ

Nilrem wrote: »

But that's one of things a lot of people don't realise, some popular programmes that the BBC do are at worst revenue neutral, thus effectively free, whilst others do make enough to help pay for other less popular content.

That's interesting, so why do they take £12 out of my bank account each month ?

Kite2010

I predict a few complaints about tonight's episode of Top Gear, for Jeremy & James parking their electric cars in what appeared to be disabled bays at the services.

Nilrem

Kite2010 wrote: »

The worst that can happen if TG slates a car is not getting anymore freebies.

Aye, IIRC that's happened a few times and TG usually make a real mockery of the company.
I think Bentley pulled out of a comparison test meant to last a few days last year, they got a cheap old fashioned Lada or something and used that instead, referring to it as "the Bentley" instead, and on other occasions they've made jokes about "well we would have tried X car, but Y manufacturer is worried about us not liking it"

StevieJ wrote: »

That's interesting, so why do they take £12 out of my bank account each month ?

Because much of the Content the BBC puts out isn't a commercial success abroad (it's too focused on the UK viewer, and may do great here, but not the "cup of tea" of say the Americans or Aussies), and indeed a lot of the purest PSB content (news/educational/documentary) stuff is a money pit that will never see a financial return...

Things like TG actually help keep the LF down, but they'd never do well enough to remove it.
IIRC the Conservatives suggested culling a lot of the BBC content and stripping it down to the "purest" PSB* before the last election, but quietly dropped it when their own study suggested that would only save a fiver a year on the TVL (the study seems to have disappeared from the tory website now).

Unfortunately in the case of F1 I suspect they needed to make a saving on sports, and the two most expensive sports they've got are F1, and Wimbledon.
Wimbledon is probably the cheaper to keep in full, given it's all done in the UK from a single main location, and is over and done with in a few weeks, whilst F1 requires staff to fly all over the place for weeks at a time throughout the year with the associated costs.



*Little or no entertainment/sports etc.