Formula One chief executive Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that the NBC Sports Group arm of US media company NBCUniversal has signed a one-year extension to its rights deal for the motor-racing world championship.
NBC began broadcasting live coverage of Formula One in 2013 under a four-year rights deal that was due to expire at the end of the current 2016 season.
Ecclestone has now confirmed in an interview with the Autoweek.com website that NBC will continue to broadcast Formula One in the US for the 2017 season.
However, despite the extension, Ecclestone said that he is already in talks with other broadcasters about Formula One's US rights contract from the 2018 season onwards.
“NBC’s contract was meant to be up at the end of this year but we have given them another year,” Ecclestone said. “We are in talks with several stations so we will have to wait and see.”