f1

[tikay]

i am sure sky did F1 quite a few seasons ago when ITV first took over from the BBC sure they had stuff behind the red button allowing you pick which feed you wanted

it was box office though and cost about £15 a race which was a little silly as ITV was showing it free

That would have been Bernie Vision I took the last 6 races for £50.Compared to what was normally available at the time it was a great improvement,but not a £12 (the normal price) a race improvement.

Yes, absolutely.

In the book I recently read about Ecclestone's life, he bemoaned the failure of "Bernie Vision" (correct title "F1 Digital+") over & over again, having invested a fortune in it. It was a colossal enterprise, & was owned by FOM - Formula One Management, a company controlled wholly by Ecclestone.

For the scale of it, see this from it's Wiki page.....

The operation involved transporting around 200 tons of equipment to each race. To transport the equipment required 18 trucks for European rounds or two Boeing 747 jumbo jets for fly-away races. At the race venue, a 1200 sq m air-conditioned tent was setup containing the majority of the equipment. The service was run by Eddie Baker, and the tent was colloquially referred to as Bakersville.[4]

Two hundred staff were employed to provide the coverage. A two-week turn around was required to dismantle and reassemble all the equipment. Dismantling would begin immediately following a race broadcast on Sunday and would be finished by Tuesday. It would then be transported to the next venue. Between Friday and Sunday the broadcast centre would be reassembled and all cameras and cabling around the circuit would be completed by Wednesday. The equipment was tested on Thursday in preparation for the first broadcast of a race meeting on Friday.[5]

But he priced it way too high, & eventually, he found a better way of doing it. These days, FOM still produces the TV feed from all bar two venues, but they use the indigenous TV companies for the OB set up. So, dear Bernie still controls it, still makes all the money from it, but he has, in effect, outsourced the work to "local" TV stations in each counttry.

Bernie is a very stubborn, & very greedy, man. He's also vey clever, & very, very, rich. Digital F1 was one of his few mistakes, but he turned the situation round, & still made a fortune out of it eventually. He no longer "owns" F1 as such, but he still controls FOM.


 

[AndrewT]

The BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, said the joint deal had saved the corporation as much money as if it had closed BBC4

Losing just half the F1 races had the same cost as all of BBC4.

Pretty much a no brainer picking between the two if the BBC is to fulfill its remit as a public service broadcaster.

[tikay]

The BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, said the joint deal had saved the corporation as much money as if it had closed BBC4

Losing just half the F1 races had the same cost as all of BBC4.

Pretty much a no brainer picking between the two if the BBC is to fulfill its remit as a public service broadcaster.

How can anyone possibly argue with that?

[Skippy]

The BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, said the joint deal had saved the corporation as much money as if it had closed BBC4

Losing just half the F1 races had the same cost as all of BBC4.

Pretty much a no brainer picking between the two if the BBC is to fulfill its remit as a public service broadcaster.

How can anyone possibly argue with that?

You seem to take a very Reithian view of the BBC. The idea that the BBC should only put on programs where the commercial sector does not want to (e.g. never ending Songs of Praise) has been pretty much discredited- no one will want to pay the license fee in that case. The BBC does have to provide popular programs along with the worthy stuff.

Sky might very well not make any money from F1, but that's not the point. The point for Sky is to strip the BBC of anything you might want to watch on it until the license fee is so unpopular it is scrapped. At which point Sky will have a monopoly on the TV of the UK, and can a) rake it in b) control the politics of the UK.

To be honest I don't mind paying for sport on TV- I think Pay TV is its natural home. What I object to is that Sky bundle it all together so you have to pay for a load of rammel you don't want, just to watch the stuff you do. Even if you only want the F1 (and I've got friends like this), that'll be £360 a year, please. Why can't we have an F1 channel for £5 per month, which we can watch without anything else?

[millidonk]

You seem to take a very Reithian view of the BBC. The idea that the BBC should only put on programs where the commercial sector does not want to (e.g. never ending Songs of Praise) has been pretty much discredited- no one will want to pay the license fee in that case. The BBC does have to provide popular programs along with the worthy stuff.

wp Skippy. You made me have to look a word up. fml.