If I were insane, I could’ve stayed awake until 5am and watched the entirety of the WEC finale online for €5 (or approximately A$1,000 at current exchange rates), a small cost to pay to see Mark Webber crowned champion in Porsche.
For just 50 euro cents more per race I could have bought coverage of the entire MotoGP season to watch Jorge Lorenzo clinch the title over teammate Valentino Rossi (or if in Italy, read: see Marc Marquez rob Rossi of the championship).
Even Formula E, which placed its season finale in the hands of the terrifyingly bureaucratic Wandsworth Council Community Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee this week and survived, makes available a live video stream to fans in regions without television coverage.
That makes three of Formula One’s motorsport contemporaries doing little more than what Karl Stefanovic once did drunk after the Logies – broadcast themselves in moving pictures – on the internet, a medium so apparently accessible that it is dominated mostly by cat videos.
Until now Formula One’s affinity for the fax machine and reluctance to be more than a bit-player online has merely been humorous decoration around an apparently sound business juggernaut, but the BBC’s unsuccessful attempt to renegotiate its already lightweight broadcast rights package with Bernie Ecclestone has shaded the situation more seriously.
If the BBC absolves itself of its broadcasting obligations, Formula One will be the loser, and not because Formula One management may lose a paying customer. Despite the sport receiving a direct cash injection from pay television, free-to-air remains critical to the sport’s viewership, and therefore its buying power.
To bolster against pay TV’s generally poor take-up figures in most parts of the world, share deals like those between Network Ten and Fox Sports or BBC and Sky Sports F1, have been taken up, but highlight only how unprepared the public is to fork out for a subscription service. In the UK, for example, the BBC’s coverage of the Brazilian Grand Prix averaged 4.02 million viewers while Sky Sports Formula One managed just 548,000.
Take away the free-to-air coverage in Britain and Formula One would have scarcely more eyeballs than Australia’s Gogglebox, a truly chilling statistic.
The solution, as realised by so many other sports, is that Formula One could have its cake and eat it too if it looked yonder to online streaming.
To tell viewers that they cannot watch Formula One unless they pay Rupert Murdoch or other relevant media moguls for the privilege, as is Formula One’s current wont, is absurd. When the viewer realises their $50 monthly bill is subsidising a host of nothing-content, like E! TV, they realise their return on investment is poor and leave the service – and Formula One – forever.
Offer an online subscription service directly to the viewer at a reasonable price, however, and the justification is easier to make.
The technology is so painfully within reach, yet Formula One insists on that most frustrating and misinformed business practice of refusing to take our money no matter how hard we plead with them.
Some have drawn parallels with Bernie’s 1996 investment in Formula One Digital+, a satellite-based precursor to the sort of multiscreen experience we have now, saying that it burnt him when it didn’t make enough to cover its roughly $250 million price tag for nine of its years of operation. It would certainly explain why it took the sport until 2011 to hitch a ride on the high-definition TV bandwagon or until this year to activate a full array of social media channels, at very least.
Whichever way you cut it, it seems Formula One has become reluctant to make an initial infrastructure investment without evidence of an immediate financial return, and this doubly so if the infrastructure is digital.
Formula1.com, launched only this year, is evidence of this. Despite promising in March to allow a premium subscription bought on a phone to be transferable to the desktop website and vice versa, it attempted to bill users for two subscriptions until two weeks ago if they wanted both. And for a period of months the array of clocks couldn’t accurately identify what time a race would start in your local time zone.
Both problems are easily rectified – Candy Crush has inter-platform connectivity and the watch was invented in 1770 – but, as has been the case with almost anything internet-related, with the exception of the business of taking down YouTube videos, Formula One has been slow to the party.
Such tardiness in the coming weeks could prove costly, however, with the BBC threatening to vaporise a significant portion of Formula One’s audience as quickly as one might change the channel.
Ironically enough, the BBC is having its funding cut because of its inability to negotiate the integration of iPlayer, the BBC’s on-demand video service, into its licence fee funding model, burning a significant hole in its pocket.
It’s a cautionary tale for failing to keep ahead of the game. Will Formula One heed the warning, or will it stubbornly risk its audience on an outdated model already letting it down?
Follow @MichaelLamonato on Twitter during the season-ending #AbuDhabIGP weekend.
Michael Lamonato
Expert
Especially true in market where support isn't rusted-on, like in Australia, and doubly so when Formula One should be in the middle of a massive boost in support given Daniel Ricciardo's presence at the pointy end of the grid. It would be a shame for the sport to lose generations of fans to make a quick buck, but it seems that's where it's going.
mattatooski
Roar Rookie
I absolutely love my F1 but it so very frustrating that it is not aired on FTA anymore. I refuse to support Uncle Rupert in any way or form (especially at the prices currently offered) but if F1 offered an online streaming I would be all over it. I watch every race that is televised on channel 10 but it getting to the point of 'meh, I don't care if I miss the race'. I want to be able to follow EVERY race, every qualifying and be emotionally invested in the whole season, not just the glamour races that channel 10 tries to push. A $30 season access pass streamed over the internet would be perfect and I would jump at the chance. Until that does happen, you are quite right in saying formula 1 will be the loser. It is fast becoming irrelevent and it is such a shame because it was once the pinnacle of motor racing. Bernie really needs to put the consumers first, because without them the sport will not survive.
marfu
Guest
Yes F1 has not sold the new engines at all well when as you say it's own CEO has bagged them. Also they are costing nearly twice the price as the previous V8s from what I hear. On the Pay TV front, I don't think people are too keen to pay for what is currently an ordinary.product.. Do you know the current ratings for each as I think (but don't quote me) Ten used to get about 200k per race but now get about 100k with Foxtel at 50k and the other 50k deciding not to bother anymore? Good point about the Hamilton bias on Sky which is a shame as Martin is otherwise one of the best commentators ever. My issue with BBC is with Coulthard as I don't mind Edwards either.
LeeC
Guest
The danger for F1, is that FTA channel ITV4 is now offering a whole host of alternative motorsports, which could quite easily attract F1 fans who no longer wish to pay Sky and their extortionate charges. I quit Sky over two years ago and I would rather wait to see BBC highlights than pay to watch on Sky live. So if they cut out their only FTA coverage, it just offers up a whole new audience to those other sports. The BTCC is a fantastic championship, and proves that speed alone does not make great motorsport. ITV4 also gets Formula E, Moto GP, WRC etc... The only thing against it, is the way they pollute their coverage with adverts. You need to use timeshift on your DVR and start watching an hour after it begins. That way you can FFWD through any adverts that get shown. If the BBC loses all F1 coverage, then I'll simply not watch F1... it's no great loss to me.
Michael Lamonato
Expert
Thanks, mate. I think it all comes down to marketing. I see the new power units only as a failure in a marketing sense in that Bernie has spoken only negatively about them and no-one else has stepped up to explain why they're so great. Pay TV, on the other hand, is a massive marketing risk in any case, and the sport hasn't played it well. Eliminatingn most of your audience without giving them and alternative makes no sense. As for commentary, I personally couldn't choose between the two teams. I'm partial to Ben Edwards, but also a fan of Martin Brundle. The BBC's commentary, I'd say, is at least less Hamilton-centric...
Michael Lamonato
Expert
I think what's also interesting about the idea that sport relies on pay TV is that it's normally made in reference to domestic sport — like AFL, for example — the chief difference between domestic sport and Formula One being you can go to probably most AFL/A-League/rugby games with little difficulty, but getting to a grand prix is far more difficult, meaning the majority of your audience *relies* on television. If I'm into football and don't have Foxtel, I'll go to the game, but if I'm into F1, I'll just stop watching. Of course there's the further difference that most other sports aren't owned by private investment groups, so all that extra pay TV money goes back into the sport to keep it healthy. In F1, though...
Not convinced
Guest
I've said before that alienating the fans is the wost thing any sport can do and F1 just seems to be providing example after example of what not to do. Pay TV and sport have become intertwined with neither seemingly being able to survive without the other today so how did they survive for so long before pay tv? Why is it that the history of all sports seems richer in the period preceding pay tv? Exactly what has pay tv brought to sport other than money? My thoughts are that this dependence between sport and pay tv is not healthy. When the success of a competition relies so heavily on the tv rights, I think there's something seriously wrong. Especially when the vast majority of fans are not viewing their chosen sport through that medium. While I'm sure this is a long way off yet, a question that the broadcasters must ask themselves has to be at what audience level is it no longer worth it? When it gets to this point, surely it's almost over as what will F1 have to sell?
marfu
Guest
Thanks for an excellent summary of how ineptly F1 has handled the transition to the digital world. It is amazing to me that almost every decision by FOM, CVC, FIA re TV rights, V6 engines, cost control etc has been a disaster. It is only that the business was so lucrative at its peak that it is still alive and almost kicking today. In a way, I want the to BBC pull out as then hopefully Channel Ten will negotiate to use the far superior commentary of Foxtel's Sky F1. Ten may just think the current ratings (which I assume are well down for this season) don't justify I and we end up with no FTA coverage. I think Foxtel are only pulling about 40k viewers last time I looked half way through the season.