Bernie Ecclestone hints at end of F1 on free-to-air TV
Published Jun 8 2012, 10:52 BST | By Andrew Laughlin
© Rex Features / The World of Sports SC
Yesterday, it was announced that the rights to air live F1 races in Italy have been sold to Sky Italia, the pay-TV giant owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
Many commentators are viewing this as a sign that the days of free-to-air (FTA) coverage of Formula One in Europe are numbered.
In Britain, this year marked the first time that not all Grand Prix are available live on FTA television, after the BBC agreed to share the rights with Sky, the satellite broadcaster 39.1%-owned by Murdoch.
Sky is showing every practice, qualifying and race session live on its new Sky Sports F1 channel, while the BBC has rights to show half the races live, with delayed highlights of the others.
Formula One fans reacted with anger to the deal, as many faced the prospect of stumping up nearly £500 a year to get the Sky Sports package to watch all the live coverage.
Ecclestone reassured fans in other regions that the sport will remain on FTA, in part at least, but refused to give the same assurances for UK viewers.
"We will never move all countries to pay‑per‑view only, though it wouldn't make any difference here in the UK," he told The Guardian.
Ecclestone praised Sky for doing a "super job", and noted that the BBC showed complacency in letting the live rights slip through its grasp.
"The Beeb were sure we wouldn't be able to go anywhere else," he said.
Ecclestone said that Sky is able to reach 10m UK homes, which the sport doesn't get with the BBC.
"Sky reaches over 10 million households," Ecclestone said. "We don't get 10 million on the BBC, normally about six or seven million".
The BBC's viewing figures have also suffered from the arrival of Sky's coverage, as the corporation's opening live race, the Chinese Grand Prix in April, was down around 1m on the 2011 audience.
Grand Prix coverage on Sky Sports F1, Sky's first channel dedicated to just one sport, has averaged 1m viewers over the first four races of the 2012 season, noted The Guardian.
Sky is also more able to flex its financial muscles in picking up live rights to sport, as the BBC recently suffered a 15% cut in its budget for sports rights bidding.
"The thing that TV stations want to buy most is live sport," said Ecclestone. "People don't want to watch delayed stuff because nowadays it's hard not to know the result if you don't want to."
The BBC has not commented on the report.
Oh dear, I hope this is not true. Bernie is a hypocrite, and a greedy worm
June 11th 2012 at 1:21pm(+1 like)
I've already stopped watching F1, the whole thing is a money making scam. I can live without it and I have Sky too!!
June 11th 2012 at 12:54pm(+1 like)
You still have to pay for a licence to watch live television so there is no such thing as free to air here in the UK. Due to the licence fee being frozen, the BBC had to pull its belt tight to cope with it. I get the feeling the licence was frozen so the bbc quality drops and murdoch can succeed.
June 10th 2012 at 7:59pm
I think you're right, David. Hell will freeze over before we give that weasel Murdoch any of our hard earned money though!
June 11th 2012 at 3:38pm
Sky's coverage has been pretty good and they have been much more even-handed in their treatment of Lewis Hamilton than the BBC. However, given that advertising and sponsorship is so important to the revenue model of the sport taking it off of free to air seems a bit of an odd thing to do. Sponsors etc surely want to reach as large a market as possible.
June 10th 2012 at 4:27pm
"Sky reaches over 10 million households," Ecclestone said. "We don't get 10 million on the BBC, normally about six or seven million".
that 10 million sky tv subscribers, but AT MOST 1/2 have sports packages so thats 5 million and from current viewing figures which are availble to the public only 2.4 million people watch F1 on sky.
the bbc get at least double that, the reason its on sky tv is because ecclstone is a greedy money grabbing ******* who sticks 2 fingers up at everyone, he's the one that takes tens of millions for a paycheck and forces all the teams to spend less and less, adding more restrictions, forcing the teams ti slow there cars down so he can make the race last longer.
sorry but F1 has been going down hill due to the politics behind the scenes (watch the docu-movie senna and see what i mean).
all the retired drivers are all saying the same thing, bernie is killing F1 making races run to long screws everything up, if they want a long race get the nurburgring Nordschleife resurfaced for f1 cars and have the races around that, 14 mile lap, 15 - 20 laps thats nearly 2 hours of racing.
bernie is ignoring what the fans want and only wants to line his own pockets, he's in ferrari's pocket (which was exposed on the bbc 1 show horizon)
June 10th 2012 at 3:13pm(+2 likes)