Motor racing fans throughout the UK are in shock this week, due to the announcement that Sky Sports will be the only place to watch the entire 2013 F1 season.
The BBC are putting a brave face on the fact that they have half the races but the deal beggars belief. Over the last two-and-a-half years, the quality of the BBC’s ad-free coverage has been awesome and the racing has got more and more exciting after a rather boring decade. The viewing figures back this up. 8 million people watch F1 on the BBC – thats 1 in 8 UK inhabitants. How many other sports can boast that level of TV viewing in the UK?
Sky want to replicate the “success” that they enjoyed with Premier League Football and the BBC want to cut costs – with Bernie Ecclestone looking for ways to make even more money. The problems with this deal are:
- Less people watch football on Sky than used to watch it on BBC/ITV – so viewing figures will go down.
- The internet/tv/twitter means that it is now almost impossible to avoid seeing the race results before the highlights are broadcast
- More people watch F1 on BBC1 than watch the whole of BBC4
So what should we do about it?
We should all tell the BBC what we think and we should all agree to boycott F1 on Sky. If enough of us boycott the Sky coverage they will have to rethink. But we will have to be determined. BSkyB has a lot of cash and will be prepared to take losses in year one in order to get us all used to paying for F1 before the end of their contract. So we would urge you to sign the online petition here and to boycott Sky Sports.
Jim Graham
Team Daytona