Formula 1: Thoughts On The BBC/Sky Deal

I wanted this to be a considered and informed post, which is the reason I waited a while to write it.

For those who don’t care (why are you reading this?), or haven’t heard, it was announced this morning that from 2012 to 2018 only half the F1 races will broadcast live on the BBC as part of the new arrangement with Sky. Now, since the initial news, developments have taken place as, apparently, all the races will be shown in full on the BBC, but half of them will be delayed [source]. (This however, isn’t to be found elsewhere, so whether there will be movement on this or not, who knows…)

Now, clearly this is less than ideal, and I was one of those who had joined the masses in being very upset about this decision initially. For a flavour of the sort of things people felt about it, have a look at Twitter.

Most of the negativity is about the possibility of adverts in the coverage, which we suffered through when ITV had the rights for 12 years. 12 years of adverts in a sport where every thousandth of a second counts.  Sky were very quick to assure people that the races would be uninterrupted. Good move.

Another development is that the commentary team will be the same, as  the companies look to save as much as possible. They are sharing on-site facilities – as in they will use the same truck for editing purposes. This begs the questions then, why have we been told that there will be two sets of presenting teams? It’s all a bit odd.

At the end of the day, this all boils down to saving money. It has been clear for some time that the BBC’s F1 coverage was in grave danger of getting the axe completely. I, for one, would absolutely hate Sky being the only way to see my favourite form of sport. So I’m glad that there will be the full season, in possibly shortened form at times, there to see. There are great F1 races, there are OK F1 races, but some are fairly tedious – Valencia for instance. (I absolutely believe that we should be paid to watch that one rather than the other way round). The highlights will more than tell the story of the season. They will be of the same high standard that we see from their coverage today.

The BBC has been roundly criticised about the expense of covering F1. It apparently costs them between £40 million and £60 million per year just for the broadcasting rights. If you were looking to make savings, then you’d choose a number like that fairly quickly, especially given the way it is funded through the licence fee. I suppose if you don’t care about F1 then you’d see that as wasted money. But I don’t ever watch much of the BBC’s output and don’t really mind paying the fee (not that I do living with parents still, but I will be in the near future – I still have a right to say these things. Honest.)

In the end, I’ve fairly quickly come to the conclusion that I’m glad it has done something to ensure that half of the races remain live rather than simply dropping the coverage altogether. It may not stop me paying to watch the races live on Sky if I can afford it, but I’ll probably still want to see the Beeb‘s highlights too.

Related articles:

• BBC and Sky Sports to share F1 coverage (topgear.com)
• BBC and Sky to share F1 broadcast rights (guardian.co.uk)
• Letters: Formula One deal (guardian.co.uk)
• Reach for the SKY Bernie (autogenetic.wordpress.com)
• Sky Sports to show every Formula One race live next season as BBC cuts back F1 coverage (telegraph.co.uk)
• Formula One teams seek clarification over Sky deal (guardian.co.uk)
• New F1 deal throws up questions for all concerned | Owen Gibson (guardian.co.uk)
• Formula One: Sky Sports secure rights to coverage (mirror.co.uk)
• British viewers lose free-to-air coverage from 2012 (inautonews.com)
• New deal for F1 rights announced (news.bbc.co.uk)
• …and pretty much anywhere else you can think of.