I can certainly manage. Recent years many races start too early so I end up watching the re-run or even at night on the iplayer and just avoid the sports news. Quite enjoy it that way now and rarely watch TV in general when it's broadcast. Can easily watch more races later on if needed.
Less coverage will probably do me a favour so I can do other things.
For basic cable users they want £30 a month extra on your bill to access the F1 channel, you need to buy the whole lot even though you just want F1. For like ten races, shown at odd times, not worth it at all.
BBC certainly did some great coverage though, fun while it lasted. They had the F1 forum show and built up a good relationship with the teams/drivers etc. Wonder what happens, do BBC still have the F1 forum program after its live races? Part of the enjoyment was the personal feel of it, will we get Sky and BBC trying to capture these moments and standing on each other toes after races.
Ultimately its quite sad how Football and F1 racing can gain 4-10million viewers on terrestrial TV but after all the years of hype, matches only receive around a million viewers and often 500k on Sky. F1 will probably be 500-1.5 million viewers, would say nearer to 500k at current pricing.
There's a big service problem here that will be overcome by technology one day. Till then, 5 million viewers gone isn't a problem for F1's 500million audience but a shame how 500k viewers can make it worth while because a rich few pay so much. Most of the 10million Sky subscribers have the full monty don't utilize it, so many of them don't watch the matches even though they paid for them. The Sky subscriber base is a static 10 million. I wouldn't mind if Sky grew its user base, I'm not anti business but for ten years its like that and the live football is able to survive on low figures when millions would watch if possible, quite like F1 on the beeb has just shown. After all that time hidden away on Sky, nobody extra interested apart from that default 10miilion who happily pay and don't watch, just see it as a trivial amount for another service to the home, some ethics and principals have to come into play, I'd be embarrassed hoarding a sport away for years and years. A cheaper service of tiers of some kind needs to put in.
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