The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has received complaints surrounding Sky’s Formula 1 pre-season promotion, the body has confirmed.
The authority, which is the UK’s regulator of advertising, received eleven complaints in total from members of the public. Complainants challenged Sky’s pre-season strategy around their ‘best-ever offer‘, suggesting that Sky’s advertising was misleading.
Sky are running an offer through March that allows fans to subscribe to the Sky Sports F1 channel for an additional £10.00 on top of their existing Sky package.
However, complainants argued that advertising across their social media outlets and website did not make it clear that customers could only activate the offer on top of Sky’s entry-level Entertainment package, and that the offer was unavailable to customers of other services (such as Virgin Media).
Shy have since amended the wording to make it clearer for consumers, following intervention from the authority.
> Doing the sums: the cost of viewing Sky Sports F1 in 2019
In a statement to Motorsport Broadcasting, the regulator said “We approached Sky with the concerns that had been raised. They accepted that they had made an editorial mistake on their Twitter feed and on their website about the F1 package.”
“They deleted the tweet and amended the website claims to make it immediately clear that consumers can only get this channel for £10 a month on top of a subscription.”
Based on viewing figures from last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, Sky’s F1 deal has attracted new customers to their platform. In isolation, the average audience for their Melbourne race programme on the F1 channel increased in volume by 14 percent year-on-year.
The Grand Prix season continues next weekend in Bahrain.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
I recall hearing this promotion too. What confused me was the fact that the F1 channel was always included in the HD subscription on Sky, have they since removed it?
I jumped ship from Sky 2 years ago and do miss the Formula One but at Sky’s routine and continual inflation of pricing I am happy to enjoy the offerings of C4 which I actually do enjoy, especially with the added playful banter, I find it far more entertaining to a degree :).
The “Legacy HD Pack” does still include the F1 HD channel (as well as HD Box Sets), but this package is no longer available to new subscribers or as an upgrade. Subscribers who currently have it can keep it, but if you cancelled it, you could not subsequently add it back again.
@RPhil, ah ok, thanks for answering that question.