Disingenious. They are showing whole races, just not all of them. You can't currently watch every Premier League game (or even every game for one team).

BBC don't show every tennis tournament during the year, so I'm boycotting Wimbedon!

F1 & Doctor Who was the only thing I watched on the Beeb, With all the reality TV crap they show on TV they could have cut those.

Also only showing half the races is like stabbing you with a stick to see if you are still breathing, I rather it was none.

To get sky for this would be a tenner a month for their fucking crappy 'basic' package then another tenner for a Sky Sports channel that shows the races, and if there's 2 races in a month and one is on BBC, you are paying £20 and putting one of those bloody dishes on your house for one race, which might be shit anyway.

I'm am being a bit devil's advocatey here, but not much.

Me too, but it pisses me off that this is allowed to happen over and over again. I know that Sky are the only company with the financial clout to make Bernie's eyes light up, but I've already lost Test Cricket and it gets my goat.

Dammit!

Myp2p will have to suffice, though the buffering is often worse than embedded ads.

http://www.myp2p.eu.

Also, some sky channels including sport are planned to be a paid for addition to freebies by 2013 iirc

The BBC shouldn't be paying for exclusivity on anything. Unfortunately if they don't, Sky will, which sort of breaks that idea.

So is what you're saying that in a couple of years I can buy Sky sports and just sky sports and nothing else?

Will hope the Murdoch share is significantly smaller by then, then.

Indeed. BBC should be focussed on stuff the nation can't do without ( and with 5m viewers, that ain't F1) or stuff that needs exposure but can't get it through commercial channels.

Indeed. BBC should be focussed on stuff the nation can't do without ( and with 5m viewers, that ain't F1) or stuff that needs exposure but can't get it through commercial channels.

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Everyone arguing that it is the same situation as tennis, or cricket, or football is entirely missing the point.
This is completely different, because I like F1

I wonder if we'll get more live and in-depth coverage of some other decent motorsport series from the BBC instead then?

We won't, will we?

Sky already have NASCAR and IndyCar, so probably not. ITV4 shows BTCC, If I recall correctly.

I downloaded and watched some of this season's WRC the other day. It was shit. Why the fuck are they all driving the sort of small underpowered shitty things that the lower tiers used to use?

Sport governing body taking short term view of Many £s and running the risk of significantly reducing future audience and participation as a result of moving all mainstream coverage to sky shocker.

See also: virtually every participation sport in Britain which enjoyed significant TV audiences in the 1980s before moving to sky. However, I'll venture that F1 is harmed less in the longer term than say, cricket, as a result of this deal.

Due to the changes in broadcasting rights, it's going to be renamed Formula 0.5 from next season.

+1

Jeremy Darroch, the BSkyB chief executive, said that the satellite broadcaster became involved in the negotiations for Formula One very late in the process. Channel 4 reportedly expressed an interest in buying the rights, while ITV rejected the idea of making a bid. "Formula One is in the top tier of sports properties," Darroch said. "It is very much a blue riband event."

So to those that would have preferred it to go back to ITV, they didn't want it.

I can't think of anyone who wanted that, obviously including ITV themselves...

The ITV coverage was awful.

Yep the nation can't do without Strictly Come dancing or The Apprentice

The BBC aren't paying an absolute fortune for exclusivity on those though.

So, essentially it boils down to 'axe all the things I'm not interested in to keep the things I'm interested in'.

Someone is grumpy today.

Indeed. BBC should be focussed on stuff the nation can't do without ( and with 5m viewers, that ain't F1)

I read a couple of days ago that Newsnight gets around 250,000 viewers on average. Quite how that's still on TV is a bit of a mystery.