Keep F1 on the BBC
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Hello F1 fans
If you live in the uk you may know the BBC plan on dropping F1 next year and it may be heading for PPV tv. So i have set up a Twitter and Facebook campaign to get the fans voices heard.
In just over a week we have 400+ followers but still need alot more if you live in the uk or in a country that gets the BBC F1 feed i ask you to follow us to help save F1 on the BBC.
Thank you and please follow
http://twitter.com/#!/F1_For_Free
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keep-F1-on-BBC/149121281832578
The BBC know how popular F1 is, they don’t need ridiculous Twitter accounts and Facebook groups to prove the fact. When weighing up their options and making a definitive decision I highly doubt they are going to take numbers from Social networking site seriously.
There’s nothing wrong or ridiculous in what the man is trying to do. You know, sometimes, the people opinions can have an effect in world events be it war in middle east or BBC keeping or not F1
In this subject, it will be more a matter of money than other thing at all. What BBC will have to pay to match a pay TV proposal can have an effect in that decision. No matter how much popularity it has, it can be the case they wouldn’t afford it. I’ve seen it happen. Pay TV buys the rights, they acquire the monopoly, don’t care very much about it and you end up paying 30€/m for the world feed with a deadpan commentator in the background sitting on a studio. Translate that to £ and give graces for what you have today and enjoy it while you can.
That said, good luck with your initiative, F1 for free
This is the best way to get BBC’s attention, they seem to be in love with Twitter – stories make the BBC news just because they’re something to do with Twitter. See how many presenters, not just Jake Humphrey but all over news and sport, are on about people “tweeting”.
Keep it free, with Brundle and no ad breaks, and I’m happy. Best of luck with the campaign.
I never understood this Twitter thing… I’m mean, we have blogs for 10 years now. From what I understand, it’s like a blog, but you are limited to the number of characters you can actually post each time. So, the same thing but more limited, or am I wrong?
pretty much, but it’s live.. When new’s breaks, it’s on twitter in about 10 seconds, and live chat ensues..
The current BBC F1 contract runs until 2014, the BBC can not end this deal without paying huge termination costs.
This is a non-story that’s being put about by the tabloid press, particularly the Murdoch press, and I personally wouldn’t waste my time with it. The actual story is that the BBC may not opt to renew their contract with F1 but even this decision won’t be getting made until the end of the 2013 season.
In the Daily Express this morning it said the BBC would have to pay £60m to terminate their contract, but it apparently costs them £50m a year to run it. It also said that if the BBC did cancel their contract then a likely place for F1 to end up is with channel 5 because Bernie is friends with the owner of it. I personally hope it stays on BBC. Good look with your campaign.
I thought too that it would go until the end of 2013. The issue may arise then, though. UK has a lot of luck for having the public service television that has, but the worldwide trend is for that to end. It will be the market that will make the choices, which is the same as saying: whoever is able to pay more will get the gig, or whoever is able to profitize more the product will get it (because will be able to pay more). And publicity only, can’t keep up with Costumer Paying (+publicity sometimes).
A solution is to continue with what you have now, which I imagine is to not profitizing at all the product (F1), at least directly, and support the loss just for the bragging rights and the prestige of broadcasting F1 for UK. And some consumer-loyalty that is bond to it (consumers that watch F1 also watch other stuff on the channel that broadcasts it, in this case BBC) But how long can they keep doing it?
One problem that will arise when you finally go to pay TV is this: at that moment, only the fanactic, the addicted F1 consumer will go and subscribe to the pay TV channel. The ocasional user won’t do it, because that’s the kind of consumer that watches if it’s on, but doesn’t care very much to watch it if not, at least not to the point to subscribe a monthly paid channel. And usually there’s more consumers of this ocasional type than the “fanatic” one. The result will be that F1 won’t generate new fans, at least not massively as it does now, because all fanatics were once (at least one time) ocasionals.
Speaking by experience.
That said, maybe ultimately the F1 itself doesn’t want that, won’t allow that to happen, at least not in the huge markets like UK or at least not for big consecutive periods of time.
If you live in the uk you may know the BBC plan on dropping F1 next year and it may be heading for PPV tv.
The teams have already said that they’ll block any move that puts the sport on Pay TV. If you realised that instead of jumping to conclusions, this whole campaign would actually hold some weight since you wouldn’t be basing it off an incorrect assumption.
“The current BBC F1 contract runs until 2014″… I thought it was scheduled to end in 2012?
Anyway, if the BBC needs to cut back on its budget, dropping F1 would be perfectly sensible. If they can renegotiate a fairer deal that’d be great, otherwise they ought to stop wasting so much money on one sport
@ Ned
I think we may both be wrong mate, the BBC is in its third year of a five year contract with F1 so they should be showing it for two more years which would take us to the end of the 2013 season.
Although technically I could claim that I meant until the begining of the 2014 season but that would be dodging the fact that I forgot to include 2009 when countin out five seasons :-0
Blech. If F1 does go to channel 5 as Ecclestone suggests would be his favoured alternative station, it might as well go to ppv for what good that would do me. I don’t get channel 5 where I live. The reception is just horrendous here :(
Is F1 not one of the ‘crown jewel’ sports that have to remain free to air? like FA cup and Wimbeldon?
Money well spent by the beeb in my opinion. And not just because I love the sport, it is just an amazing production. The proms is not for me, but i dont care that they spend a fortune on it as they do it so well. Same goes for loads of their output.
Will be a sad day if they do ditch it.
apparently james allen also thinks this is an issue:
«New BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten was asked recently on a BBC TV show whether F1 was in line to be dropped and he replied in general terms about things that the corporation “would like to do but can no longer afford to.”»
According to James Allen sources,
Some departments on BBC could suffer up to 10% in lay offs
F1 costs 45 million (rights) + 10M in costs
Some speculate that BBC could cut the deal in the end of this season, but more likely to be in 2012
He talks in channel 5 or channel 4, but more likely to be 4
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