What the Sky deal really means for F1

The dust has yet to settle on the announcement that live Formula 1 coverage in the United Kingdom will be shared between the BBC and Sky Sports from 2012-2018.

The revelation, which came early Friday morning, took many involved in the BBC's coverage by surprise and understandably internet forums and comments sections on news stories have been ablaze with complaints about the partial loss of free-to-air F1.

The implications of the deal for F1 fans in the UK and beyond are far reaching, but first it's important to differentiate the facts from the hearsay. The BBC will show 10 of the scheduled 20 races in 2012 live, which will include the Monaco and British Grands Prix, as well as the season finale. It will also broadcast what it calls "extensive" highlights of the races that it does not carry live. There will also be practice and qualifying coverage for every race on the BBC.

Alongside this, Radio 5 Live will continue to broadcast coverage of every race.

Sky Sports will cover every race live, which will include comprehensive coverage of practice and qualifying. It has also promised coverage outside of the races on both Sky Sports and Sky Sports News.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh put it best when he said: "I don't think anyone should be immediately reacting to say this is good, bad, or indifferent."

The natural reaction of F1 fans in the UK is to shout about the loss of live coverage of half of the races to those who cannot afford, do not want to afford, or cannot even receive Sky for whatever reason. But the nub of the issue is not the consequences, but the reasons for what has happened. This did not happen in a vacuum.

It has been clear for some time that the BBC's F1 coverage was in grave danger of getting the axe.

Criticism about conspicuous spending made the expense of covering F1, with the broadcast-rights contract alone reportedly costing as much as £60 million per year, a very obvious number to put a red line through. Regardless of the cost-effectiveness, the viewing figures and the real economics, this move was as much about PR for an organisation that is a very easy target.

Jake Humphrey has become a household name in the UK thanks to BBC's award-winning coverage © LAT

After all, if you don't like F1, you will inevitably regard the small slice of your licence fee that you pay as wasted money and get on with enjoying the Antiques Roadshow. Complain all you like about the rationale - but you can't blame the BBC for having to make such a conspicuous cut. Its unique financial status means that it is very much a political entity. Most likely, it should be praised for ensuring that half of the races remain live rather than simply dropping the coverage altogether, although it's conceivable that the cost of the break clauses for ending its deal two years early would have made that a more costly exercise.

Either way, it's harsh for UK viewers to blame the BBC for abandoning F1 when a) it hasn't and b) is reacting to outside forces.

Whether the BBC will continue to show live coverage of half the races throughout the seven-year deal is another question. Some have jumped to the conclusion that it's the start of a controlled withdrawal that will make Sky Sports the sole proprietors of F1 coverage in the UK a few years down the line. This would likely suit Sky, but as it stands the BBC's commitment through to 2018 can only be taken on faith.

What's more, if it runs extended highlights in a prime-time slot in the evening, it will still be available to plenty of fans. It's not perfect, but it's something.

As for Sky, it has been eyeing up F1 for some time now. The possibility of a consortium involving News Corp, which owns 39 per cent of Sky and recently put on hold its attempt to acquire the rest, buying the commercial rights to F1 from CVC Capital Partners is well-known.

While it would be a mistake to conclude that this Sky/BBC shared-coverage package means that this is a done deal, it suggests that the long-term strategy of gaining control of F1 remains high on the agenda. With the current Concorde Agreement no longer including any cast-iron guarantee of live free-to-air coverage, Bernie Ecclestone is perfectly within his rights to sanction this deal.

The bottom line is whether this will be bad for F1.

Naturally, the Sky-less viewer will assume that no one will watch it and the sport will shrivel and die in the UK. This is as crude a conclusion as Sky arguing that all eight-or-so million viewers who watched the Canadian Grand Prix will be on the phone booking a dish installation on Monday. The old model of free-to-air terrestrial TV is dying and viewers are going to have to get used to paying for what they want to watch. It's simple, economic reality. You get what you pay for. And with Sky trying to harness the Freeview platform to increase the potential reach of its sports broadcasts, it's possible that watching F1 might not be as expensive as everyone assumes.

Within that framework, it's down to the sport to ensure that it remains popular and relevant rather than relying on the viewers simply being there.

What is vital to remember is that Sky will not invest in F1 for it to fail and no one to watch it. Sky could take F1 coverage into the 21st century, harnessing the potential with the kind of multi-platform offering that fans of sports expect today. On a straightforward broadcast rights basis, this will be tough, as FOM is notoriously restrictive in terms of what broadcasters can and cannot do with their footage. But if this is a step towards the sale of F1's commercial rights to perhaps the most progressive broadcaster in sports, it could lead to big things.

While the comparison with Premier League football is very limited, for the sport was on its knees in the UK before Sky picked it up at the start of the Premier League era, it is an illustration of how a sport with a subscription-only viewership can thrive.

When Sky picked up coverage of football, everyone decried the inevitable inclusion of adverts during matches. This never happened. Crucially, Sky has already pledged to not run adverts during race coverage, so it's probably fair not to hang Sky for the format of its coverage when we don't know how it will shake up. After all, its coverage of sports such as football and cricket is far better than any of its rival channels can deliver.

As for the financial health of the sport as a whole, teams with a strong British following might express concern about home fans missing out on exposure to their sponsors. But this new deal safeguards a decent pot of gold for the teams until 2018 and doubtless some will regard that kind of medium-term security as a good thing.

The bottom line is that rather than this knee-jerk reaction, everyone needs to take a breath and actually listen to what Sky is proposing. After all, the BBC clearly had to reduce its financial commitment to F1, and it's a mistake to assume that if Sky wasn't showing it, Channels 4 or 5 would have done so.

Bernie Ecclestone has struck a deal until 2018 with Sky and the BBC © LAT

Casting Sky as a malignant, predatory force that has snatched F1 away from British fans is a crude oversimplification of a vastly more complex issue.

While this halfway-house coverage share is unsatisfying (although not unknown, with the likes of Germany already doing so), it's clear that if you want a broadcaster with the freedom, the money and the vision to commit to F1, it's going to be Sky. Like it or not, the BBC is being watched too closely to do so and ITV forsook F1 several years ago.

We'd all like free-to-air coverage of the races, uninterrupted by adverts with hours of build-up and post-race analysis. But somebody, somewhere has to pay for it or else no one sees it. That's the way of the world.

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