BBC confirm 2015 plans as Sky drops online Race Control

It has been a busy two days in F1 broadcasting land, with both BBC and Sky holding their annual media days.

The BBC have officially confirmed their 2015 team which, as expected, is identical to their 2014 team. The main bit of news is that Suzi Perry will be presenting an F1 Rewind programme on BBC iPlayer and the Red Button, which is essentially a repackaged classic race. It also will be turning up on BBC Two, presumably on Saturday’s when the European season starts, as has been the case recently with their FA Cup Rewind programming. On 5 Live, Jack Nicholls will be commentating on five rounds (China, Austria, Hungary, Japan and Russia) with James Allen the lead commentator on the other 14 rounds.

BBC Head of F1, Ben Gallop, says: “With the current World Champion writing exclusively for the BBC, our access and insight into Formula 1 cannot be beaten. Across TV, radio and online, our top-class team will get audiences as close as possible to the starting grid, paddock, pit-lane and track – bringing expert analysis and insight throughout the race weekend. We are all hugely looking forward to the 2015 season and delivering every moment of Lewis Hamilton’s defending season to millions of F1 fans.”

This season, it looks like the BBC’s web offering for their live races will now be more expansive than Sky’s. The latter have decided to tailor their Race Control offering to just iPad and Red Button, dropping the web version entirely, which seems like a silly decision to me. When asked by this blog whether they would be dropping the online version of Race Control, Sky said “Yes that is right, we are going with iPad and red button.” I can’t speak for others, but I used Race Control online whenever Sky Go was playing up, so I’m disappointed to see it disappear. Whether it is related to costs, I don’t know. I do wonder if this will also be the case for Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia as well…

On the brighter side, Sky say that, they will “offer eight individual on board feeds from different cars on the Race Control iPad app”, a total of 14 live streams.

Scheduling: The 2015 Australian Grand Prix

Three and a half months after Lewis Hamilton won the 2014 championship, Formula 1 is back! The first round of 2015 takes place at Albert Park, Melbourne, traditionally the season opener. Whilst there have been a lot of high profile changes in the driver line-up, with Sebastian Vettel heading to Ferrari and Fernando Alonso off to McLaren, it has been an extremely quiet off-season on the broadcasting side of things.

Both BBC and Sky are, as of writing, fielding the same teams as last season. Suzi Perry returns as presenter of BBC’s coverage. She will again be joined by Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard, the latter also alongside Ben Edwards in the commentary box. Tom Clarkson and Lee McKenzie round off BBC’s television team. Over on radio, Jennie Gow will lead the coverage. James Allen and Allan McNish will commentate on proceedings, with Jack Nicholls commentating on several rounds in place of Allen. Gow is ITV’s Formula E presenter, and will not be in Melbourne, which may in turn explain the skeleton BBC radio schedule for Australia. Commentary should turn up on the BBC Sport website, though.

Meanwhile the situation on Sky Sports F1 remains the same as 2014. Simon Lazenby heads into year four as Formula 1 presenter, alongside him on rotation is Anthony Davidson, Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert and Bruno Senna. Ted Kravitz, Natalie Pinkham and Rachel Brookes will continue to trawl pitlane, with Martin Brundle and David Croft on commentary. One thing worth pointing out is that it appears there will be more integration with Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia this year based on their testing coverage, so don’t be surprised if Tanja Bauer turns up periodically this season.

As has been the case since the shared deal came into effect in 2012, Sky Sports F1 are covering the weekend exclusively live, with highlights on BBC One. The programming slate is largely identical to 2014, although BBC TV’s run-times are shorter due to the Six Nations, whilst over on Sky, there are not many new classic races and qualifying is being simulcast live on Sky1 and Sky Sports 1. Elsewhere, Formula E is back with round five of their season from Miami. The aforementioned Jennie Gow presents the coverage from ITV’s London studios with Mark Priestley and Jann Mardenborough joining her as guests. Below are all the scheduling details you need…

BBC F1
BBC One
11/03 – 23:15 to 00:25 – 2014 Review (R)
14/03 – 12:50 to 14:00 – Qualifying Highlights
15/03 – 13:15 to 14:40 – Race Highlights

BBC News Channel
13/03 – 18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1
14/03 – 18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1

BBC Red Button
10/03 – 22:00 – Season Preview

BBC Radio 5 Live
05/03 – 19:30 to 20:00 – Season Preview
12/03 – 21:00 to 22:00 – Australia Preview
15/03 – 04:30 to 07:00 – Race

Sky Sports F1
Sessions
13/03 – 01:00 to 03:20 – Practice 1
13/03 – 05:15 to 07:30 – Practice 2
14/03 – 02:45 to 04:15 – Practice 3
14/03 – 05:00 to 07:45 – Qualifying (also Sky1 and Sky Sports 1)
14/03 – 06:00 to 08:45 – Qualifying (Sky1 +1)
15/03 – 03:30 to 08:15 – Race
=> 03:30 – Track Parade
=> 04:00 – Pit Lane Live
=> 04:30 – Race
=> 07:30 – Paddock Live

Supplementary Programming
06/03 – 20:00 to 21:00 – The F1 Show
06/03 – 21:00 to 22:00 – Mercedes F1 Team: Road to 2015
07/03 – 20:30 to 21:00 – Sauber’s Secrets of F1
12/03 – 04:00 to 04:30 – Driver Press Conference
12/03 – 20:45 to 21:00 – Paddock Uncut: Australia
13/03 – 07:30 to 08:15 – Team Press Conference
13/03 – 09:30 to 10:30 – The F1 Show
18/03 – 20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report

NEW Classic Races
10/03 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 1999 Canadian Grand Prix
20/03 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1995 Pacific Grand Prix Highlights

Formula E – Miami (online via FIAFormulaE.com)
14/03 – 12:10 to 13:10 – Practice 1
14/03 – 14:25 to 15:10 – Practice 2
14/03 – 15:45 to 17:10 – Qualifying

Formula E – Miami (ITV4)
14/03 – 19:00 to 21:30 – Race
15/03 – 10:00 to 11:00 – Highlights

If anything changes, I’ll update the post as usual.

Update on March 5th – Some changes based on confirmation of BBC line-up, along with Sky’s race day changes.

Update on March 8th – The 1995 Pacific Grand Prix, which was scheduled for Monday 9th March on Sky Sports F1, has disappeared. In its place is a repeat of the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Update on March 12th – The 1995 Pacific Grand Prix has returned, in highlights form, which will air on Friday 20th March. Also of note is the fact that, for Australia at least, Natalie Pinkham is presenting the Midweek Report alongside Mike Gascoyne and David Brabham. Hopefully Anna Woolhouse is back later this year as the Midweek Report was much more watchable than The F1 Show at points last year, in my opinion.

News round-up: Australia gets 50/50 split; F1 website roll-out coming

Before I get into the round-up, a quick update on the status of this blog. As regular readers may be aware, I am currently in the final year of my undergraduate degree. This means that, especially in the last few months, I have been spending less time maintaining the blog, which is why the news round-up’s have turned up sporadically, so I can bundle what would be three or four separate articles into one succinct post.

On some days, time is limited to just University work (or relaxing!), meaning that writing new content for the blog is an afterthought. The reduction in content will continue for at least the next month, but should pick back up as we head into April. In the mean time, this is what has been dominating the agenda during the past week.

Australia gets a BBC/Sky style deal
It was rumoured late last year that Australia would be heading towards a shared coverage deal from 2016. Critically, the structure of the deal would be different to that of BBC and Sky, with Network Ten and Fox Sports sharing coverage every race, but Fox Sports would broadcast every practice and qualifying session exclusively live.

The shared deal between Fox and cash-strapped Network Ten has now been confirmed. Unfortunately for Australian readers, there were two big surprises. The first is that the deal between Fox Sports and Network Ten will be structured in exactly the same way as the BBC and Sky deal in the United Kingdom. Secondly, the deal comes into effect from this season. Yes, that is the season that is less than a month away!

Reading around, it looks like Fox Sports will be taking Sky Sports F1’s UK commentary. Some people have interpreted this as meaning that Australian viewers will also have access to content such as Ted’s Notebook and Sky’s pre and post-race coverage. I don’t believe that is the case. Australian television has taken the UK commentary for years, going back to the late 1990’s, perhaps even earlier, and never was it accompanied by the extras that UK viewers get.

The new F1 website gets closer
A teaser banner promoting the new Formula 1 website has been posted on the current Formula 1 website, with the tag-line “All the action, anytime, anywhere.” The images in the banner clearly show that the new website is mobile ready and configured for different types of devices. It looks like the new website will arrive before Australia, although no date has been confirmed. Presumably it will be the same date as the new 2015 Formula One app, but nothing has been made official.

You would have to squint to decipher anything else from the four screens, but a member button is clearly visible in the top right of each screenshot, which supports previous comments made by Marissa Pace, Formula One Management’s Digital Media Manager. In an article (£) this week, Jonathan Noble, AUTOSPORT’s Group F1 Editor, said that Formula 1 needs YouTube, a thought I completely agree with, as it would help immensely in introducing F1 to the next generation. Pace mentioned that YouTube will happen with regards to F1, but when? Well, that’s the million dollar question. Beyond the membership area, there is nothing else to say about the screenshots, but good luck to anyone who wishes to try…

Changes elsewhere
Speaking of AUTOSPORT, there is a fair bit of movement happening over there, almost like the F1 media has its own transfer window! Pablo Elizalde left AUTOSPORT to join Motorsport.com as of February 1st. Elizalde was not the only journalist heading out of AUTOSPORT’s doors, earlier this week, it was announced that Jonathan Noble will be joining Motorsport.com from May. Both of them are huge gains to Motorsport.com’s portfolio, as it becomes increasingly clear that they are looking to become a major player in the digital world. With Charles Bradley leading the ship, it will be fascinating to see where things head from here.

With exits, there are arrivals. Lawrence Barretto jumps ship from BBC’s F1 online team to AUTOSPORT as their new F1 reporter. That in itself is a big move, not only do AUTOSPORT gain a talented writer, but BBC’s F1 online output is once again sliced. At this point, Andrew Benson must be the only permanent F1 writer that BBC have.

More pre-Australia scheduling news
The special Formula 1 edition of A Question of Sport will air next Friday (27th February) at 19:30 on BBC One, it has been confirmed. I’m a bit surprised that this wasn’t held back until the Friday before Melbourne if at all possible to help build-up to the new season. The edition features McLaren test driver Kevin Magnussen and Red Bull boss Christian Horner alongside BBC F1 team members Suzi Perry and David Coulthard.

Elsewhere, the Australian Grand Prix Qualifying programme will be broadcast live on Sky Sports F1 as usual, but also Sky Sports 1 and Sky1, which is an unusual occurrence! The benefit of it being on Sky1 is that Sky1 has a +1 service, for anyone who wishes to have an extra hour in bed. The race will still be exclusively live on Sky’s F1 channel.

News round-up: A Question of F1; Sky looking for new sponsor

Alongside the big Premier League news from earlier this week, there are a few bits of other news worth reporting on this blog, including Sky Sports looking for a new sponsor for 2015.

Sky Sports F1 looking for new sponsor
Thanks to Jon Wilde over on Twitter for the tip here, alerting me to the news that Sky Sports F1 are looking for a new sponsor for 2015. Santander and BlackCircles.com were their sponsors for 2012, with Rolex and Shell taking over for 2013 and 2014. No idea at this stage who will be sponsoring their programming this season.

There’s a few statistics over on the Sky Media PDF for anyone interested, including a few viewing figure predictions for 2015. The headline one is that they predict a Individual 4+ TVR of 0.98 for their race day programme, equivalent to around 572,000 viewers, which looks incredibly low to me, although it presumably includes Paddock Live and the Track Parade.

Pre-Australia schedule takes shape
Sky Sports F1’s schedule, up to and including Friday practice for the Australian Grand Prix, has been revealed. It is not much different to last year, so isn’t a worth a piece on its own, until the finalised version is released. Either way, The F1 Show is definitely back from Friday 6th March, Classic F1 races are back and everything else is as you would expect.

If you were hoping for a completely new batch of Classic F1 races, you’ll be disappointed to learn that three of the first six races being broadcast are from 2014 (Bahrain, Hungary and Britain). Out of the other three, two have been broadcast before (1990 US and 1996 Australia), which leaves only the 1995 Pacific Grand Prix as a new classic race to the channel.

Over on the BBC, a special Formula 1 themed episode of A Question of Sport was filmed today, presumably for transmission in the lead-up to the Australian Grand Prix. The guests were David Coulthard, Suzi Perry, Kevin Magnussen and Christian Horner.

British Eurosport announce Superbike commentary team
Tom Gaymor will be stepping up to lead World Superbikes commentator on British Eurosport for 2015. Gaymor will be commentating alongside Steve Parrish for the rounds that clash with the British Superbike Championship. Jack Burnicle and James Whitham will commentate on the World Superbikes when it does not clash with the British Superbikes. The channel will also be broadcasting the FIM Endurance World Championship live in 2015.

Over on BT Sport, no official confirmation on their MotoGP line-up, but it doesn’t appear that there will be any changes. I did ask Abi Griffiths about their coverage this season, and the response was that “all will be revealed soon.” So, we shall see.

Putting £5 billion into context – and what it means for F1

I find that it’s incredibly difficult trying to quantify how much £5 million really is. So, what happens when a figure of over £5 billion comes along? You’re left thinking “woah”. And quite rightly so. Over three seasons, from the 2016-17 season through to the 2018-19 season, BT Sport and Sky Sports will be paying the Premier League £5,136,000,000.00 (or £5.136 billion), a frankly ridiculous amount of money.

Across each season, that works out to £1.712 billion. It’s difficult to comprehend just how big that number is. But, eventually you can break it down.

– £5.136 billion across three seasons
– £1.712 billion across one season
– £10.19 million per game

In comparison, the Formula 1 numbers pale into comparison. Numbers have never been officially released into the public domain, but the best guesstimates for BBC and Sky combined put the number around £55 million.

– £55.0 million approx across one season
– £2.75 million approx per race weekend

Formula 1 is pocket money compared to the Premier League, which may be seen as somewhat surprising considering the Premier League does not bring Sky Sports four times the audience of Formula 1. However, the reach for the Premier League is significantly greater than your typical Formula 1 season on Sky. Whether we like it or not, the Premier League is such a subscription driver for both BT and Sky that both parties are willing to break the bank to get what they want to ridiculous proportions. Sadly, that means that customers suffer as a result, with higher costs, and not necessarily better quality.

Comparing the Premier League live TV rights (2016-17 to 2018-19) to the current Formula 1 rights (2012-18).

It will be another two years before either Sky and BT Sport even begin thinking about the Formula 1 rights. Given that they mention it in every press release, it is pretty clear to me that the BBC are going to fulfil their contract until the end of 2018. I do wonder how much have money Formula One Management have lost as a result of the seven year deal between BBC and Sky. We say that Bernie Ecclestone is good at making deals, but if you’re looking at it from a money perspective, then he lost a massive amount of money by giving in to BBC’s and Sky’s demands in 2011. Seven year contracts are very unusual, the Premier League rights run on three year cycles, for example. Since the middle of 2011, we’ve had BT Sport enter the scene.

I am convinced that, if the Formula 1 rights had been on the market on the past twelve months, then live coverage would have disappeared from free-to-air television, and the value of the rights would have soared. How high would the rights have gone, I don’t know, but you can guarantee that there would have been a tug of war between Sky and BT to get live Formula 1 rights. Assuming that there are no fundamental changes to Formula 1, as we know it before 2018, then I think the next set of Formula 1 rights will be north of £100 million per year.

The main thing though, beyond anything else, is that the money generated goes back into the sport. It cannot go to those outside the sport. If it does stay inside the sport, with a more equal prize structure, then the sport should flourish.