Moody not part of BT’s MotoGP team

In what is quickly turning into a year of bizarre decisions, Toby Moody has confirmed today on Twitter that he will not be part of BT Sport’s MotoGP team this season.

Moody, writing in a series of tweets, said “I wanted you to hear direct from me that I will not part of the UK commentary line-up for MotoGP in 2014. I’ve worked on MotoGP for 18 years, something I’m very proud of. I’ll still be around so will see more great racing. I will return to a TV screen near you very soon; you guys will know first when I do. Thank you for all your support. Plenty of voice left!”

What this does mean is that a BT Sport official line up announcement is presumably pretty imminent, although as with all of these things, a date has not been announced beforehand. I assume BT had the final say, rather than Moody ruling himself out. If that is the case, then it is immensely disappointing to see that someone else has been chosen over Moody. However, there could be mitigating circumstances. In the past few seasons, Moody has not commentated on every single race for Eurosport. BT Sport may well have been looking for someone to commit to every weekend, of which Moody was unwilling to do. I don’t know, I’m just speculating there, because I can’t think of any other logical reason for someone else to be chosen over Moody.

I think this announcement means that we are getting either Charlie Cox and Steve Parish as commentators, or Julian Ryder alongside Keith Huewen. I could probably flip a coin here and guess, but I have no idea which pair it could be. The view points here suggest that Ryder and Moody were high up on people’s list, including mine. Ryder and Huewen have been commentators together back in the early 1990s, on Sky.

BT Sport, Motors TV join ITV4 as WRC rights holders

BT Sport have joined ITV4 as rights holders for the World Rally Championship, AUTOSPORT are confirming this evening, whilst it also appears Motors TV are joining the fray. BT Sport, according to the website, are screening exclusive live coverage of the series.

The website notes that the deal will be officially confirmed tomorrow at the AUTOSPORT Show, and says that BT Sport will “begin its WRC coverage with a mid-week season preview next week before nightly coverage of the Monte Carlo Rally and then live coverage of both runs over the Sospel-Breil sur Roya stage next Saturday afternoon and evening.”. What the article does not make clear is whether ITV4 are staying on as rights holders. A look at the ITV4 schedule however still shows WRC in the schedule for Tuesday 21st January at 20:00 with highlights of the Monte Carlo rally, supporting information supplied to this blog last month.

The Motors TV schedule shows half an hour of highlights for each day of action. BT Sport will have live coverage at various points on each day, with highlights too. As the BT Sport live coverage is in addition to the ITV4 highlights, then this is brilliant news for all fans of rallying.

Looking ahead to 2014

The first four parts of the 2013 verdict looked back at the year gone by and analysed both the BBC and Sky Sports F1 products, along with their respective teams. But of course while Formula 1 plays a large part in this blog (hence the blog name), it is easy every so often to get wrapped in the Formula 1 bubble. Which in why in 2013, I have been trying to cover more than just Formula 1 on the blog, on both two and four wheels.

Sometimes, in the broadcasting and media world, you have to look at the bigger picture to see what patterns are emerging, to see where the landscape is heading, to see what could be the next big thing. Enter BT Sport. Launching on August 1st, 2013, BT has only been on air for five months. March 2014 will signal the beginning of their MotoGP coverage. Sitting here, writing this at the end of 2013, we still do not know who will form part of the line-up. Obviously first impressions are vital, so it will be interesting to see who is announced, no doubt within the next month I imagine.

I hope that viewing figures are good for MotoGP, but we will only get the full picture after a few races of the season. Critically, they need a championship battle to last for the majority of the season to prevent viewing figures dropping. Of course, the figures will be lower than BBC, I just hope by not a huge amount. Another story in 2014 will be the Formula E rights announcement, which will be make up break for the series. If it is not on terrestrial television, then it will simply blend in with the rest and won’t stand out, simple as. If they want the concept to be successful in this country, it needs to be easily accessible. Time will tell.

And then of course we have all the usual Formula 1 discussion, from both BBC and Sky, home and abroad. Year three of a seven year contract means that both sides should have firmly settled in, although like last year, we could well see some surprising changes. Along with that there will be the usual ratings analysis, will the draw of the ‘2014 formula’ bring viewers back to Formula 1 again, or will viewing figures slip down a notch further? A lot of questions ahead for 2014, some bigger than others, and it looks set to be another interesting year on the broadcasting front.

North One wins BT Sport MotoGP production deal

North One Television will produce BT Sport’s coverage of the MotoGP World Championship for the duration of the contract, it was confirmed today.

The five year contract, worth £30 million according to Broadcast, works out at approximately £6 million a year, which is not too far away from the Formula 1 production rights for BBC and ITV respectively pre-2012. North One of course were the company that produced ITV’s Formula 1 coverage before 2009, so are definitely experts in the field.

North One’s chief executive, Neil Duncanson said: “It’s nice to be involved in a big name motorsport again. It will give the business a bit more scale and enable us to bring some youngsters on board too.” Head of BT Sport Simon Green said: “North One has a wealth of experience in motorsport production and we look forward to working with them to develop ground breaking MotoGP coverage in the UK.” It is worth noting that the news itself is not too surprising, and is expected given that North One helped BT get the rights in the first place.

Another point that I need to make is that the production documents will include the details of the talent that will be involved in the coverage, should they win. Now that North One have won, it won’t be too long before we find out who those talents named in the brief are. Two plus two equals four, and yesterday eagle eyed people may have spotted an interesting tweet from a well known face who has covered two wheels and four wheels. I’m not going to link to it (just in case I am barking up the wrong tree), but yesterday was apparently an “exciting day” with “exciting news”, and a wink at the end. Related, possibly? We shall see soon find out…

BT Sport vs BSkyB for live Formula E rights?

A lot of people this week have been getting to the blog via various ‘Formula E UK TV rights’ terms, wondering who will be screening the series. Today, we have our first indicator of where the rights could be heading.

Christian Sylt, writing for the Telegraph, is quoting Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag, who says that they “are talking with BT Sport and with Sky. The strategy in the UK and in Europe is to wait until the drivers are out in February or March then we go for it because we can get more value. The TV people we are talking to absolutely love it. One hour races and they love the pit stop concept because the drivers are going to run. Everybody will have the same distance between their car and the other car. This running, the TV people love it. You can actually have overtaking here. [My ultimate aim is] to do free-to-air even if we get less money. Free-to-air would be great: BBC or ITV.”

Agag in the above mentions that interest will increase once the drivers’ are announced. Unless they pull off a huge coup and, for example purposes, manage to get Michael Schumacher in a car, the rights money in the UK at least won’t budge. Not a muscle. Casual audiences will not be drawn towards ‘F1 rejects’, to coin the term. I really can’t think of many drivers’ alone that could be a draw to UK audiences.

Moving onto free-to-air, I think we can eliminate BBC straight away. ITV or Channel 4 (which Agag hasn’t mentioned)? I don’t think it is likely, but never say never. I’d be really surprised if it happened, and could be quite a risk commercially. Would ITV enter a three year deal for something that may not be guaranteed to last three years? I’m sure A1 Grand Prix wanted free-to-air, but the fact is that it is a huge risk to take into uncharted territory. I think terrestrial television highlights is the more likely option.

BT Sport or Sky Sports will always be king with live sport. Sky Sports would surprise me. They have Formula 1, why would they want Formula E? And then, if they did get it, would they even be allowed to screen it on Sky Sports F1? Would Bernie (or whoever at FOM) block them from screening it on Sky Sports F1? It would definitely go against Martin Turner’s statements in the past about screening non-F1 content on the channel as it would ‘dilute the brand’. Unless something drastic changes in the next six months, Formula E being on Sky Sports is a non starter. I do note though that the term ‘BSkyB’ is used, so whether there could be home for it outside of the Sky Sports portfolio, I don’t know.

I think BT Sport will get it, and in doing so would actually create a strong motor sport brand for them: MotoGP, Formula E and IndyCar, which should entice some motor sport fans. It will be interesting to see what happens, there’s several potential options for them. Of course, it could just end up on Eurosport or Motors TV, which I somehow doubt Agag wants!