Bernie Ecclestone, the controller of Formula One’s centrally-sold commercial rights, has hinted that the motor-racing series could move coverage exclusively to pay-television in the UK in the near future.
“We will never move all countries to [pay-television] only though it wouldn’t make any difference here in the UK,” Ecclestone said, according to The Guardian newspaper. He said that of the 25 million households in the UK, “Sky reaches over 10 million. We don’t get 10 million on the BBC, normally about six million or seven million.”
UK public-service broadcaster the BBC is currently in the first year of a new deal which sees it share the UK’s Formula One rights with pay-television broadcaster BSkyB. Sky is broadcasting all races live while the BBC is televising half of the races live, and showing delayed highlights of the others.
Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia this week acquired the Italian rights to Formula One in a deal beginning next year, with the agreement marking another shift from the sport’s traditional focus on obtaining free-to-air coverage in major European markets. Sky and Formula One plan to do a deal with a free-to-air broadcaster for live rights for half the races, creating similar coverage to that in the UK.
Regarding the appeal of delayed highlights, Ecclestone added: “The thing that TV stations want to buy most is live sport. People don’t want to watch delayed stuff because nowadays it’s hard not to know the result if you don’t want to.”
Sky’s launch of a dedicated Formula One channel has allowed it to broadcast around three times more hours of the sport than the BBC does. Ecclestone said that “Sky have done a super job,” and added that the BBC lost its complete live rights due to its complacency. “The Beeb were sure we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere else,” he said.