Carey says F1's pay TV trend will continue
Liberty Media will continue to push Formula 1 off free-to-air television.
The latest news from Italy is that pay broadcaster Sky could be set to give up the rights, with the free-to-air Rai interested in picking them up.
It is believed a meeting will take place between a Rai delegation and Chase Carey in September.
But more generally, F1 CEO Carey seems keen to maintain the trend away from free-to-air television coverage, because "that is where the world is going".
Writing in Forbes, F1 business journalist Christian Sylt says the sport's television ratings have crashed by 18 per cent over the past 11 years.
Deals with pay networks are more lucrative for Liberty Media, but as a result the audience shrinks.
Carey doesn't deny that, admitting the 2019 audience is down "a few percentage points" so far this year. But he said of that decline: "I'd say it has been ok."
At the same time, Liberty has been pushing its new internet streaming service, even though a new report by Bank of America Merill Lynch predicts that F1 TV will make "no revenue" for the next few years.
F1 TV has also been woefully unreliable, but Carey insists Liberty has actually made "good strides" with the service.
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If F1 moves to a pay TV format it will be dead in the US.
Agree with rulon black. In addition, I could see joining F1TV but not paying to see individual events.
F1 should be available free, not everyone can afford to pay for Sky.
Get a vpn, torrent it all, laugh at them.
Who the hell is Rai? Certainly I have never heard of it in Australia or New Zealand. Free to air would be great as it used to be but that is unlikely. I have Foxtel/Sky and have to pay a large amount just so I can get Sport. However I can accept that but only if Foxtel/Sky keep it.
Moving to pay to view F1 TV will diminish the already shrinking interest in F1 in the USA and strengthen
entertaining Indycar audience. US audiences want a show and are less interested in the nuances and politics of F1.
ALL Sports should be available to ALL their fans. SKY is expensive for the average fan. The TV fan base would DEFINATELY incease if it were broadcast on Terrestrial TV.
Yep pay TV is killing most sports ( ? ) business .
Its all about so much money for shareholders in companies.
The current F1TVpro scheme is a halfassed combination of Sky sport tv and video coming from the race producer. Much of the commentary is not relevant to what is being seen and the video quality is poor. I live in the USA where ESPN broadcasts the SKY broadcast with a quality picture and commentary that is relevant to what is seen. For instance the segments where Martin Brundle is commenting from key parts of the track is not seen on F1tv but his comments are audible and it persists probably for the rest of the season.
I have been bringing it up in all of their surveys from F1 so at this point in time they don't care.
Thank you SATY for your comments re: F1TVPro being poor... was planning on getting it since my wife wants to trim our budget and cancel cable however, you comment plus others I've read about F1TVPro has me reconsidering keeping cable.
In the U.S. F1 broadcasts are on ESPN which you can't get unless you pay for cable/satellite so it's already pay TV in the U.S.. If it's made its own channel the price would probably be added. Liberty Media is about the growth of revenue not growth of the sport.
Good pint!
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