Faced with the need to reduce its spending, the BBC may need to drop live coverage of F1.

The broadcaster, whose estimated £5bn annual revenue is largely made up of a compulsory tax on viewers courtesy of a licence, needs to cut £35m from its sport budget.

"Meeting this savings target will be tough, particularly given the high levels of inflation in the market," said the corporation's sports chief Barbara Slater. "We therefore anticipate this will lead to the loss of some existing rights and events.

"We have already made some tough choices which have contributed to the savings, for instance around the Open golf," she added. "However, we have also recently secured a series of important rights including Wimbledon, Premier League highlights, live coverage of Euro 2016 and 2020 football championships and Six Nations rugby shared with ITV."

Whilst no mention was made of F1 it is widely feared that this will be the case.

Having won the rights back from ITV, faced with a fall in revenue the BBC subsequently had to end its contract early, coming to a deal with Formula One Management that would allow it to show half the races live, whilst rival Sky, had all the races.

Those races which are not shown live by the BBC are transmitted later in the day as highlights, the deal understood to cost the corporation around £20m a year.

In recent years, much to the frustration of fans, the BBC has 'lost' a number of high-profile sports, not least The Open (golf), which it gave up in favour of Sky a year before its contract was due to end.

"I spoke to the BBC," Bernie Ecclestone told the Daily Mail. "They have got a bit of bother with their budget. They’d like to deal with it in another way and restructure it and give us a little bit less. But they can’t really do that. They’ve got a deal with us."

Indeed, he subsequently told the Daily Telegraph that the current contract has three years left to run, until the end of 2018.

"They don't have a lot of choice," he said "They're there for another three years."

"What they would like to do is not spend as much money," he added. They want to know if they can schedule it different ways or pay a bit less now."

Fact is, F1 needs terrestrial coverage for whilst die-hards will pay for Sky's dedicated TV channel, casual fans will not.

Whilst there is talk of the BBC dropping all of its live races and merely featuring highlights - not an issue if the event is as soporific as last weekend's race in Brazil - there is also speculation that ITV could yet step into the breach.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Spindoctor, 20/11/2015 14:16

"I've been an F1 fan since the late 1950's. For much of that time it was available Free to Air (FTA) and like much of the past was in Black & White too.

Since Bernie was "gifted" the rights to F1 by Max Mosley, the quality of the Sport has increasingly been in inverse proportion to the cost of watching it: the more is paid, the worse it gets. A more generous-spirited person might consider this a correalation, but not causality. Not me.

Personally, despite years of fandom, I'm hoping BBC ditches Formula 1. I further hope that the majority of fans on BBC don't switch to Sky. Maybe this will have the effect of Sky having to renegotiate (downwards) what it's currently paying Bernie\CVC, as it won't be being subsidised by the BBC.
I for one will not be enriching either Messers Murdoch nor Ecclestone, and my Racing "fix" provided by alternative series,. Maybe Formula E?

Maybe BBC will continue its coverage, or a deal done with BT\ITV\???? Whatever. If it is FTA I'll stay: otherwise not."

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2. Posted by gct320, 20/11/2015 12:30

"Whilst I agree with nnails that modern F1 is in a mess it currently costs £11 per GP weekend to watch Sky F1 on Now TV."

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3. Posted by nnails, 20/11/2015 10:22

"As an f1 since 1988. I want to watch f1 live , there is no way i am going to pay £50+ to watch f1 a couple times a month and i will certanly just walk away if i cant watch any more.

Having said that modern f1 is in such mess in terms of silly engine , tyres rules , butched race tracks in silly places i just dont care as much any more.
"

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4. Posted by Jonno, 19/11/2015 21:37

"My phone bill is going up. You know why? Because Sky and BT have been at war, fighting over football. It ended with the Premier League getting a monsterous amount of money (£5 billion) that Sky users will have contribute towards, whether or not they watch football or even subscribe to Sky Sports.
I suggest this site doesn't describe the BBC licence fee as a tax, all the time idiotic BT and Sky are spending my money on bloody footballers.
"

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5. Posted by Kkiirmki, 19/11/2015 21:18

"At least James Allen no longer works for ITV"

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6. Posted by karel, 19/11/2015 13:44

"First of all I like to say that the coverage of BBC 1 is one of the best coverages I know.
Cost cutting is not new and it will be there for a long time. F1 drops in popularity and in order of that it's logical that BBC doesn't want to spend huge money on this. Maybe they can reduce to just broadcast the race and that's it. On the other hand Bernie must be aware that keeping on this high rights reduces even more fans. Cause with no coverage there is no commercial for F1 neither. And just because all of this F1 is sick, sick from regulations, sick from money, sick from any tension. But for BBC, Coulthard, Jordan, ... are realy doing a great job
"

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BBC to lose F1?

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