F1 and Speed channel splitting after this season

[swatson830]

F1 and Speed channel splitting after this season

By JENNA FRYER | Associated Press – 12 hrs ago

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The cable sports channel Speed will no longer air Formula One races after this season, ending a 17- year partnership.

Fox Sports Media Group, which owns Speed, confirmed Friday that the partnership will end after this season. The network indicated it was outbid for the U.S. broadcast rights.

"It's disappointing to learn that F1 has elected to move forward with a different media partner," Fox Sports Media Group said in a statement to The Associated Press.

F1 was in talks with NBC Sports Group for U.S. broadcast rights, according to two people familiar with the negotiations who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement.

NBC Sports spokesman Chris McCloskey declined comment, as did F1's governing body, FIA, which noted that TV deals are handled by Formula One Management. The series is in South Korea this week for the Korean Grand Prix.

"Speed has been the U.S. voice of F1 since the mid '90s, and it is a passion for many people at the network," the Fox Sports statement said. "Fox Sports Media Group made what we believed to be a fiscally responsible bid based on the sport's current viewership levels, but F1 has elected to go in another direction. We wish them well."

It's not clear what NBC Sports would do with F1.

NBC Sports Network currently broadcasts the bulk of the U.S-based IndyCar Series, and announced last month a deal with Robby Gordon to televise the inaugural season of his Stadium Super Trucks. Gordon inked a deal that gets 12 races televised — seven of them on NBC. The television contract for IndyCar is split between ABC, which owns the network broadcast rights, and NBCSN, which only has the rights to air races on cable.

The departure of F1 comes as Fox Sports moves closer to rebranding its motorsports network into a broad-based national sports network. Fox has not commented on the rebranded channel, expected to be called Fox Sports 1, but it is expected to be heavily utilized in the eight-year television contract announced earlier this month with Major League Baseball.

Speed partnered with F1 in 1996 in the network's first full season on the air. Speed moved to live coverage in 1997, and has expanded to live coverage of qualifying and practice sessions of the most popular motorsports series in the world.

Broadcasting from a studio in Charlotte, the booth of Bob Varsha, Steve Matchett and David Hobbs is considered by many fans to be the best in motorsports. The excitable trio breathes excitement into often single-file racing, and closely follows storylines and strategy despite being halfway around the world from most of the tracks.

[Trevor Jones]

The Devil you know?

Sent from my lovely 64G iPad

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "F1 Refugees" group.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/f1-refugees/-/yE5Io-dzJEkJ.
To post to this group, send an email to f1-re...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to f1-refugees...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/f1-refugees?hl=en-GB.

[JMCP...@aol.com]

Good riddance Rupert, year by year programming has been slipping towards the lowest common denominator, Truck U, Pinks, Nastycar race day, Dumbest thing on wheels, not saying the previous programs did not make this program redundant. Tape delayed races on Fox network, P1 and P3  streaming instead of broadcast. Hope NBC picks up Hobbs, Varsha, Matchett, and Posey for coverage.   

[swatson830]

NBC Sports Group gets US rights to Formula One

By JENNA FRYER | Associated Press –  14 hours ago

NBC Sports Group signed a four-year deal with Formula One for the exclusive U.S. media rights to the world's most popular global motorsports series.

The deal, which begins next season, will provide over 100 hours of programming across NBC and cable channel NBC Sports Network.

Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBC Sports Network, told The Associated Press on Sunday night it gives the network content to grow its motorsports presence. NBC Sports Network owns the rights to the bulk of the IndyCar Series schedule.

"This is an opportunity for us to get further engaged in open wheel racing and really acquire some great live first run content," Miller told The Associated Press on Sunday night.

"This gives us quality events to put on our air, and this is a sport with a huge following around the world that we feel we can grow in this country."

The agreement between NBC Sports Group and Formula One Management brings an end to the 17-year run cable channel Speed had as the U.S. rights holder to F1. A spokesman for parent company Fox Sports told The AP on Friday that Speed had been outbid by another network during contract negotiations.

Miller said only that NBC Sports Group had made "a significant financial commitment" and that a dialogue that began several months ago with FOM rapidly came together in this four-year agreement.

"NBC and its various media assets have a huge profile throughout the United States and I am obviously delighted to have concluded this agreement," Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One Group CEO, said in a statement.

"I feel that they will promote Formula One to a level not seen before in the United States."

NBC will air four races — the Canadian Grand Prix in June, and the final three races of the season in November — while the remaining 16 races will air on NBC Sports Network. All practice and qualifying sessions will also be on the cable station.

Miller said the intent is to broadcast everything live, but the network is working through a small number of scheduling conflicts. All 20 races will be live streamed on NBC Sports Group's live-stream platform.

The addition of F1 could also help NBC Sports Network with its IndyCar coverage, Miller said. There are four 2013 dates in which the F1 race be televised before the IndyCar race on the network.

"We think there's real upside for IndyCar and this super-serves the open wheel racing fan," Miller said.

"There will be days we have a Formula One race at 9 a.m. and an IndyCar race at 1 p.m. — we walked the IndyCar people through that on Friday and they are excited about the opportunity."

Miller said NBC Sports Group will use F1's world feed, but is still ironing out its production details. The network will likely use a reporter on site at every event with a booth based in the U.S. — the same way Speed covered its races — but Miller indicated there was possibility of having an expanded on-site crew at certain events.

[swatson830]

Fox strikes new long-term deal with NASCAR

By Joe Flint

9:43 AM PDT, October 15, 2012

News Corp.'s Fox is putting the pedal to the metal and renewing its rights deal with NASCAR at a sizable increase in cash.

Despite some ratings declines, Fox has agreed to an eight-year, $2.4-billion contract to keep NASCAR on its broadcast network through 2022, people with knowledge of the pact said. That averages out to about $300 million annually -- a 33% jump over the $225 million Fox is currently paying for stock car racing. The new deal takes effect in 2015.

As part of the agreement, Fox will now be able to offer NASCAR races on mobile devices including tablets and phones. However, fans will already have to be subscribers to a pay-TV provider to access that content. The digital aspects of Fox's new contract with NASCAR go into effect in January.

Fox's accord comes just a few weeks after the network agreed to pay nearly $500 million a year for rights to regular-season and postseason baseball, which is about twice as much as it had been paying.

The other rights holders for NASCAR are Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN and Time Warner Inc.'s TNT.

Though ESPN is expected to try to hold on to NASCAR, it is less certain that TNT will seek a new deal, people close to the matter said. Like Fox, ESPN's and TNT's deals expire at the end of the 2014 NASCAR season.

Fox could end up bidding for additional NASCAR races that it could run on the national sports cable network it is planning to launch next summer. The channel, tentatively called Fox Sports 1, will likely carry baseball in 2014. (Formerly the SPEED channel?) NBC is also eager to secure a NASCAR property for its NBC Sports cable channel.

Separately, NBC struck a four-year deal for the TV rights to Formula One racing for both its broadcast network and its cable channel. Formula One had previously been on Fox and Fox's Speed Channel.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, Formula One is not nearly as popular as NASCAR and the annual rights fees Fox was paying were under $5 million annually.