WWE Network/Netflix style service for F1?

WWE Network/Netflix style service for F1?

Author
Discussion

F1GTRUeno

Original Poster:

6,512 posts

224 months

Wednesday 4th January 2017
quotequote all
First of all, I am right in understanding that even though the images we see from each race (especially in the past) are broadcast by local providers, the FIA or Bernie or whoever is in charge owns the rights to the footage correct?

I was thinking about this when trying to scour YouTube for old races as there's a limit to how many you can watch on F1fullfraces.com

Maybe it's something Sky would have to do whilst they own the broadcast rights for F1 in this country but why isn't there such a service whereby you can watch all the old seasons race after race with qualifying/practice thrown in and perhaps some of the old additional content or new content separate to races (like the stuff on Senna and team-mates etc).

Surely the rights holders would make an absolute mint from it?

Whatever you think about 'professional wrestling' or 'sports entertainment' as it's now called, having access to every show the company produced (and also rival companies because they own the rights) going back to 1993 for the weekly episodic content and older for the PPV events, plus additional shows and unique content for £9.99 a month is fantastic if you're a fan. I grew up as a kid watching it so I get enjoyment out of the nostalgia of seeing things I used to watch. Sad, certainly, but we all have our things to entertain us.

F1 could really do with having a similar thing.

Those of us who long for the days of V10 or V12's and better looking cars with iconic liveries and drivers who want to watch old races and reminisce with rose-tinted specs can't be in the minority right?

Maybe the new American people in charge will look at doing something like this?

Chris77

942 posts

200 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
I Like the Idea of that1 UFC do Fightpass, an idea they probably got from WWE, they have more than just UFC, there is grappling/K1/other MMA events than UFC.

If the FIA could get something going and have all FIA events then even better smile

CraigyMc

16,854 posts

242 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
F1GTRUeno said:
First of all, I am right in understanding that even though the images we see from each race (especially in the past) are broadcast by local providers, the FIA or Bernie or whoever is in charge owns the rights to the footage correct?

I was thinking about this when trying to scour YouTube for old races as there's a limit to how many you can watch on F1fullfraces.com

Maybe it's something Sky would have to do whilst they own the broadcast rights for F1 in this country but why isn't there such a service whereby you can watch all the old seasons race after race with qualifying/practice thrown in and perhaps some of the old additional content or new content separate to races (like the stuff on Senna and team-mates etc).

Surely the rights holders would make an absolute mint from it?

Whatever you think about 'professional wrestling' or 'sports entertainment' as it's now called, having access to every show the company produced (and also rival companies because they own the rights) going back to 1993 for the weekly episodic content and older for the PPV events, plus additional shows and unique content for £9.99 a month is fantastic if you're a fan. I grew up as a kid watching it so I get enjoyment out of the nostalgia of seeing things I used to watch. Sad, certainly, but we all have our things to entertain us.

F1 could really do with having a similar thing.

Those of us who long for the days of V10 or V12's and better looking cars with iconic liveries and drivers who want to watch old races and reminisce with rose-tinted specs can't be in the minority right?

Maybe the new American people in charge will look at doing something like this?
I think the rights to the footage and associated commentary are held with the original broadcaster.
Bernie's archives at Biggin Hill probably have a copy of everything, but sorting out rights would likely involve the original broadcasters (for example, if you wanted to put together a clipreel of "Martin Brundle commentary through the years", you'd need to talk to Sky, BBC and ITV as he's worked on productions that they've all paid to have made).

MitchT

16,161 posts

215 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
I'd love to be able to access historic race footage but Formula 1 seems to be in the dark ages where such things are concerned. For example, it's is very quick to pull spectator footage from YouTube when it should encourage content sharing and fan participation. The world has changed and if F1 doesn't change with it it will vanish because it doesn't engage the new generation of viewers via the channels that they use to consume content.

CraigyMc

16,854 posts

242 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
Chris77 said:
I Like the Idea of that1 UFC do Fightpass, an idea they probably got from WWE, they have more than just UFC, there is grappling/K1/other MMA events than UFC.

If the FIA could get something going and have all FIA events then even better smile
It's not the FIA, it's FOM and the related Bernie companies. (Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_Group)

The FIA sold the TV rights to FOM years ago for not much money.

As for permitting internet broadcasts to any device in any location, that won't happen without a lot of other deals being renegotiated. Exclusivity in territories has already been granted.

In Germany, RTL have been broadcasting F1 for years and are currently in the middle of one of the deals for free-to-air broadcast rights in Germany. How do you suppose they'd feel if Liberty Media sold the rights for internet broadcasting to (for example) Google/YouTube, and then some/many of the German viewers went over to that?

F1GTRUeno

Original Poster:

6,512 posts

224 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
CraigyMc said:
I think the rights to the footage and associated commentary are held with the original broadcaster.
Bernie's archives at Biggin Hill probably have a copy of everything, but sorting out rights would likely involve the original broadcasters (for example, if you wanted to put together a clipreel of "Martin Brundle commentary through the years", you'd need to talk to Sky, BBC and ITV as he's worked on productions that they've all paid to have made).
Sky provide the original BBC/ITV broadcasts whenever they do the Classic F1 programmes so it can't be too hard.

It's a shame that you can't get the old races on demand on your Sky box really because they play the same ones over and over again and usually only in and around a race weekend too.

CraigyMc

16,854 posts

242 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
F1GTRUeno said:
CraigyMc said:
I think the rights to the footage and associated commentary are held with the original broadcaster.
Bernie's archives at Biggin Hill probably have a copy of everything, but sorting out rights would likely involve the original broadcasters (for example, if you wanted to put together a clipreel of "Martin Brundle commentary through the years", you'd need to talk to Sky, BBC and ITV as he's worked on productions that they've all paid to have made).
Sky provide the original BBC/ITV broadcasts whenever they do the Classic F1 programmes so it can't be too hard.

It's a shame that you can't get the old races on demand on your Sky box really because they play the same ones over and over again and usually only in and around a race weekend too.
It's not so much difficulty - the footage exists. It's price, and contracts.

Eric Mc

122,699 posts

271 months

Thursday 5th January 2017
quotequote all
Pre 1981 footage i.e. the best stuff, is not owned by FOM. And there's more and more of it appearing on youtube.

ukaskew

10,642 posts

227 months

Friday 6th January 2017
quotequote all
F1GTRUeno said:
Sky provide the original BBC/ITV broadcasts whenever they do the Classic F1 programmes so it can't be too hard.
If I remember correctly having current F1 rights in a territory also gives you the archives (back to a point, presumably). This is why you will no longer see F1 clips of old on the BBC sport website like you used to. Just because the BBC broadcast, say, Canada 2013 with their own commentary team, they don't have ongoing rights to show it.

The original BBC/ITV broadcast (i.e. feed + commentary, and some on screen graphics in the earlier days) is usually the reference broadcast retained by FOM (the 'world feed'), that's why you'll get BBC commentary on archive races now shown on Sky.

As others have mentioned a separate FOM online package would no doubt require a renegotiation of broadcast rights globally, it would also give broadcasters a good (and valid) excuse to push for a much cheaper deal as they would essentially be losing exclusivity. I doubt subscription fees from the online thing would make up that shortfall.


Edited by ukaskew on Friday 6th January 01:41

rscott

15,200 posts

197 months

Friday 6th January 2017
quotequote all
At the time of the Sky deal for 2019 onward, there were mutterings of an OTT streaming F1 service launching at around the same time and as part of the same deal.

It'd make a lot of sense - Sky have the infrastructure in place already with NowTV (and they recently offered one of their boxing PPV events via streaming for the first team) .

F1GTRUeno

Original Poster:

6,512 posts

224 months

Saturday 7th January 2017
quotequote all
The main thing with the WWE Network is that the PPV's are streamed live but the midweek main shows (RAW and Smackdown) aren't. The archival footage for them is at least a month to three behind wherever they are in real time which I presume is due to the current contracts with licence holders.

For F1 I'm not too fussed about any Network style app streaming the current race online because we have the existing broadcasting deals with Sky or C4, same for in any other country.

It's more the archival seasons that I'd be interested in. I hate that they take down full races and clips uploaded by random people on Youtube and so on but don't offer their own full race archives for people to watch. Like I said, I can't be the only one who'd love to go through past seasons race by race by watching the practice/qualifying/races and the accompanying additional programmes too. That's the stuff that can't be hard to put out surely.

Store all the race weekend footage on a bunch of servers, set up a website and code an app (use existing stuff if possible to make it easier) and give us long time F1 fans the historical races to watch at our leisure. I'd gladly pay money for that. It's only like splashing out for the season review DVD's but with full races and other sessions as opposed to short highlights.