F1 Fanatic

201 comments on BBC reveal free-to-air live F1 races for 2012

1. 

   nikolarun (@nikolarun) said on 26th November 2011, 2:24

   I will be watching half the races on an European Sat Dish , the commentary on 5live .
   No way I’m giving SKY a penny.

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2. 

   mingmong (@ming-mong) said on 26th November 2011, 2:43

   Does anyone know how this will affect the coverage in Australia?

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   • 

     muk said on 26th November 2011, 12:28

     I’m just gutted that my VPN to iPlayer won’t work half the time. It’s been so great to be able to cut over to BBC coverage during ad-breaks or when Darrel Beatie starts droning on about motorbikes.

     That and I assume I won’t be able to watch FP1, FP2 and FP3 through iPlayer either. One HD has all the rights to all the practice sessions and the online rights but doesn’t show them, preferring Nascrap repeats. /rant

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3. 

   John H (@john-h) said on 26th November 2011, 8:04

   Just unexpectedly heard you on 5Live Keith! Thanks for being honest with the comments at the end of the interview, think you summed it up very well.

   I think if he BBC had the opener (not least because Melbourne is always a good race) instead of Valencia or similar, then the list would probably be about ok. It feels like they’re one race short of what would be ‘satisfactory’ for us fans, especially as they did the deal one year before their contract expired.

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   • 

     Estesark (@estesark) said on 26th November 2011, 20:30

     Which 5Live programme was Keith on, @john-h?

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     • 

       Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 26th November 2011, 20:50

       I did a brief interview this morning at around five to eight – I should be on again tomorrow morning around the same time, with Jody Scheckter apparently.

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       • 

         Estesark (@estesark) said on 26th November 2011, 21:06

         Excellent – I’ll try to find the morning’s programme on the iPlayer, and listen out for you tomorrow!

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         • 

           Estesark (@estesark) said on 26th November 2011, 21:19

           In case anyone else is interested:

           http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017lz4k/Weekend_Breakfast_26_11_2011/

           The F1 discussion starts at 1:56.44, with Keith introduced shortly afterwards.
       • 

         Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 26th November 2011, 21:58

         Scratch that – just had a call with them, now not on! That’s why I tend not to give much advance warning with these things, they do change stuff around at the last minute sometimes.

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4. 

   zicasso (@zicasso) said on 26th November 2011, 10:11

   I am tired of feeling upset about this. One thing is certain never did and will never pay sky to watch sports. Don’t want to take part in something that only foments greed.

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5. 

   Adrian J (@adrian-j) said on 26th November 2011, 10:23

   Ok, so here’s the thing.

   Would I subscribe to Sky just to watch F1? Yes actually, I would. Can I afford to? No. Could I convince my girlfriend that we need to pay out for Sky? No. Even if I could, can I have a Sky dish put on the side of the (listed) building my flat is in? No.

   I’m holding out hope that, either the BBC Highlights programs will be pretty good and acceptable, or that they are able to put the full race on iPlayer later on that day.

   Otherwise I might seriously consider looking into the Sky Go route, as I would only need to pay for the months with races in them and could probably just about afford that…plus it looks like it’s pay-as-you-go so I wouldn’t be signing up to a 12 month commitment or anything.

   Or if the Sky F1 channel is made available to Virgin Media customers then I might look at switching our broadband across to them as well and going that route…depending on cost…

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6. 

   mattsaxon said on 26th November 2011, 10:57

   I live in Australia but grew up in Britain where I watched F1 since the mid eighties. F1 coverage in the UK has grown better and better in quality over the years, even on ITV. I have always been jealous of this while living in Oz where they have ads, a rubbish studio team (who have to lead in and out of the ad breaks I think this is to satisfy local content regulations).
   Anyway I digress. If costs really are the issue for the Beeb then lose the gravy train that Jake Humphrey, Eddie Jordan, Andrew Benson, Lee Mckenzie and the other woman who appears on the BBC website but seems to contribute nothing else are riding on. Cut down the coverage to qualy and the race and lose all the pointless interactive red button rubbish which savvy fans access elsewhere any way. If the BBC wants to base it’s decision making on financial impreatives rather than serving a massive section of it’s viewer ratings, then it’s time it was made into a self funding commercial entity. The BBC and Bernie have in my opinion been completely dishonest about this deal and the reasons for it, the Beeb wants rid of the obligation of F1 being live during it’s prime Sunday schedules- no more upset Antiques Roadshow fans, especially during the olympics. And Bernie knows that revenue wise, the future of F1 globally is a user pays model, so why should the UK be any different. If I lived in the UK I would write to my MP insisting that the compulsory license fee be abolished and I would subscribe to Sky as at least their motives are transparent – offer a good product at a fee to people who want it.

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   • 

     muk said on 26th November 2011, 12:32

     I’d recommend a VPN, which I’ve been using all season, but you’ll only get half the races next year.

     I would gladly pay to cut One HD out of the loop and get FP1, FP2, FP3 and all the content we miss out on. Coverage is crap in Australia.

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     • 

       Pablo said on 26th November 2011, 14:32

       Not Sure if i can ask here, but what VPN would you recommend?

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7. 

   Alex White (@alex-white) said on 26th November 2011, 11:05

   I need to say – The deal for existing SKY customers is excellent.. It will probably disappear next year though.

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8. 

   Jon Allen (@jona1976) said on 26th November 2011, 11:24

   Interesting blog article today on the Daily Telegraph site:

   http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tomcary/100021994/bbc-race-picks-disappoint-fans-but-aunties-hands-were-tied/

   Explains how the races were picked.

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9. 

   Toro Stevo (@toro-stevo) said on 26th November 2011, 13:52

   Given that the Australian race is now no longer on free to air in what I presume was the largest FTA market in Europe, can the Australian race now start at a sensible time of day?

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10. 

    Jonathan189 (@jonathan189) said on 26th November 2011, 17:44

    Does anyone know when the Italian GP was last not broadcast on UK terrestrial TV?

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11. 

    AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 27th November 2011, 11:51

    A decent selection, all things considered. Remember, this is a commercial outlet for Sky, why would they allow the BBC to have 10 absolute fan favourites? It just reduces the amount of casual viewers they could otherwise persuade to invest in Sky.

    However, i’m not out of the woods yet. Still waiting on how this works for Virgin Media customers.

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12. 

    Chaz (@chaz) said on 27th November 2011, 18:07

    Two questions folks –

    1) Will the BBC still be showing all the practice sessions or will those also correlate with the channel showing the race for that weekend?

    2) And secondly, will Virgin TV subscribers also get this new dedicated F1 channel that sky is setting up?

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13. 

    mags (@mags) said on 27th November 2011, 20:13

    i’ve just been on to SKY about the whole thing and the advisors told me that NONE of the races, practice or qualifying is available for free. I have kept a transcript of my conversation as I was so horrified at the hard-sell. Just thought I’d stick that in…

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14. 

    David Smith said on 28th November 2011, 9:07

    I forgot to add blame bernie!!!

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15. 

    rob73 (@rob73) said on 28th November 2011, 10:48

    I would guess that the BBC had very little say in the races they will cover.

    SKY are showing them all anyway, so basically this years BBC coverage is no more than an attempt to ‘convert’ people to the way of SKY.

    I’m sure SKY could have taken the coverage over completely, removing the BBC alltogether, but some people may have worried that sponsors etc will panic about the loss of the audience.

    Make no bones about it, next season will be the last one with live coverage on terrestrial tv for us in the UK. I also suspect it will not be that difficult for sky to get the live streams shut down.

    Overall, do you sell out to sky, or make a stand?

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