Branching out

Today their was a joint announcement from BBC, Sky and Bernie Ecclestone, owner of Formula One TV Rights. The BBC will no longer hold the exclusive contract for TV broadcasts of F1 races.

Now, Formula One is a sport which pins it's survival on substantial income from advertising/sponsorship - it wouldn't fundamentally matter if the circuits were half-empty most of the time, as television is the medium F1 needs to justify the advertising.

I will not go into the nitty gritty of F1 finances now, as much of it is veiled by offshore companies and the antics of it's ultimate owner, CVC Holdings, itself financed by many of the world's pension funds.

But.
The F1 teams should take note of Sky and BBC official viewing statistics, courtesy of the BARB. Between May and July 2011, BBC1 viewing figures for the live GP show were consistently between 4 million and 6.27 million. In stark contrast, the largest viewing figure (for any type of programme) on either Sky 1 or Sky Sports 1 was 1.48 million. That is nearly 4.8 million less than the BBC's F1 programme.

I would expect that sponsors and advertisers will feel the new BBC /Sky deal and it's resultant diminished audience coverage is the trigger to demand lower sponsorship deals or find another sport to invest in.

I know that once again, this will not be of interest to everybody here on Blipfoto (and why should it be), but I think it is something that needs to be aired for at least two reasons. One, is in many people's opinion, the BBC's mismanagement of funding and projects over the last 10-15 years, the danger to F1 as the sport we know and perhaps to question Mr Ecclestone's once reliable feeling for a subject. Does anyone else think he look's a little tired?