[Formula Audience] March 8, 2013 - On this occasion I would like to talk to you, especially, television and Formula One things that I see quite involved. Rai, as you may have heard and read about in the interview F1P Ezio Zermiani Maurizio Losa, eventually reached an agreement worthy of the name Sky.
The issuer of State shall transmit a part of the Formula One World Championship races live and part deferred. Rai to give you this service in 2012, paid 39 million euro. For 2013, Sky Italy has offered the Fom 55 million euro and Ecclestone did not think twice. Something more, € 65 million (from memory) offered BSkyB English to rip the exclusive on the BBC at the end of 2011.
At the end of last season the old Bernie has been particularly active in the TV market in France and the Netherlands has relied exclusively on pay TV for the transmission of races of the Circus in 2013 (curious, especially compared to France can now provide three pilots transalpine and a half as the team Lotus Renault, as well as engineer, always Renault, which supplies engines to the team tricampione the world, the Red Bull), while in the United States has taken a historic agreement to Speed TV, for rely on the giant NBC. In the latter cases no figures, but I'm willing to bet that the Fom took more money than in years past.
Despite the crisis prevailing Mister E was able to secure greater income, that that means more revenue for the teams (who are now ready to grab 65 percent of these revenues). The problem is very simple, is that more Formula One goes to the TV and pay less is seen. A case for all, that the BBC - BSkyB in Britain. Data in hand, considering eleven Grand Prix 2012 (but the outcome of the 19 races overall should not be very different), the state broadcaster and the private Murdoch have put together a little over 3 million 700 thousand viewers of media competition, about 400 thousand less than he could make the BBC, exclusively, in 2011. More than ten percent less viewers to race, not just peanuts.
It is possible that something like this happen this year in Italy, and should go even worse in the Netherlands and in France, where the TV public, for now, has been completely excluded from the possibility of transmitting the races of the world. Eric Boullier, Lotus team manager, just a few days ago launched his cry of alarm: not even 3.5 million viewers overall, followed by the GP live, about 500 million are those who watch them on television, but with the gradual transition from public service to private pay, the numbers are likely to be scaled down considerably.
Let me be clear, Boullier has not spit on the money that Ecclestone has the guaranteed (guaranteed to Lotus Renault) at a higher price by selling the rights to pay television to see the world of Formula One. However, since the TV are now paid primarily to accaparrarseli, the risk is to lose double-digit rates of viewers, and not just in old Europe. As they say, the game is worth the candle? Difficult to know.
Formula One is the amount of calcium that you can afford - in Italy - to rejoice when Sky gets a listening equal to one and a half million viewers for a lot of sign (over 4 and a half million subscribers, this is the data estimated, since Sky Italy does not provide precise figures), when such a meeting would not less than 7-8 million viewers if you could send it in the clear, so do not pay.
The sponsors are happy about this downsizing of visibility? It's easy to say that the paying public is a chosen audience, more focused companies that advertise their brands on the bodies of the cars ... They suck, sponsors, ten million general (and more) that you look at the RAI public the Sanremo Festival, playing the national or the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi?
I do not want because of my job position, siding with one or another of the contenders for the TV public or private life. I just want to put a flea in his ear: with this acceleration (there is evidence that the majority of countries in the world pay to watch Formula One on TV), the octogenarian Ecclestone wants to ensure a secure future in his Circus or simply want to ensure the latest money available to them and their teams? Series, take the money (the latest available) and run?
In many ways Ecclestone has managed in recent years to transform the Circus into something more and more elitist. The car racing in Europe were, and are, an elitist sport (if you have no money, no run, a saying that seems always true in recent years), but the progressive closure of the paddock has removed more and more viewers by circuits.
When Ezio Zermiani tells me paddock atmosphere of the seventies and eighties, seems to tell me all about another film. Women and engines with a contagious passion, so to speak. Now there are paddock (China, Bahrain, just to name a few) that look like cemeteries. Curiously, last year one of the Grand Prix paddock and liveliest was to Austin, Texas. A new track, but true (coincidentally the usual Tilke had little to do), and as healthy enthusiasm, that of a country that has never considered motorsport movement elitist, indeed.
And then, provocatively, to someone like me who works in television, I ask you, would not be right to think also, occasionally, to those (few remaining) 3.5 million viewers that the 19 races see them live? I do not mean to think of living as they are unnecessary quota Abu Dhabi and Singapore, but a new spa, a new Monza, with a greater number of giant screens, the best in comfort, without reducing the number of viewers, rather aiming to increase ? And more open paddock, where the riders return to be leaders in the public?
So, perhaps, you should not only follow the road disproportionate increase in the cost of rights (which, one day, will necessarily have a stop), returning to a more equitable solution that will enable the public service to be so: if c ' is a sports event of international level should be seen by the majority of the population without pay. And those who will want to have an ancillary service (on-board cameras, virtual graphics, special comments, etc.) will pay it, but not go as far these days. So, perhaps, will turn less money and also the teams will be forced to spend a little less. But there will be those few who will return to have a real value, with viewers 'real'. And even with real pilots, all 22.
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In relation to my article in the February 18 on the closure of the Alfa Romeo Historical Museum in Arese, I will return to the office for you to see the Bendidio there within that exposure, closed by early 2011. In the meantime, I thought I would go to hear the opinion of the former mayor of Arese, Gianluigi Fornaro (it was he who asked the Cultural Heritage to put the bond to the museum, in real fear that the precious models were sold off to who knows who), Michela gym, a girl who is trying to do something good for this town that in recent years has been through all the colors, and the Superintendent of the same region. Soon more news and news on the matter, as the press office of the Fiat Group promised there would soon be a clarification in this regard.
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