Rob31

thinking about dumping cable tv altogether
Speed programming

John Shiels

Mercedes could lobby for Ecclestone removal

(L to R): Mokhzani Mahathir (MAL) Sepang Circuit, Ross Brawn (GBR) Mercedes GP Team Principal, Bernie Ecclestone (GBR) CEO Formula One Group (FOM) and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak (MAL). Formula One World Championship, Rd 3, Malaysian Grand Prix, Race, Sepang, Malaysia, Sunday 4 April 2010.Oct.13 (GMM) Mercedes could push to have Bernie Ecclestone removed as F1′s chief executive, the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports on Saturday.

The report said that even though the German carmaker has signed up for the 2013 Concorde Agreement, it is still concerned about the investigation into Ecclestone’s alleged involvement in the bribery of jailed banker Gerhard Gribkowsky.

If the 81-year-old Briton is prosecuted, Mercedes would apparently push fellow teams and sponsors to band together and demand that Ecclestone step down.

“We would not wait for a months-long process, but would act,” a Mercedes source is quoted as saying.

But an official Mercedes spokesman replied: “Please understand that we do not comment on speculation.”

Another rumour is that in the event Ecclestone is formally charged, he would travel to the 2012 finale in Sao Paulo with his new Brazilian wife, and then not return to Europe where he could be arrested.

A friend of Ecclestone’s is quoted as responding: “Nonsense.”

Zoxxo

The F1 "news" media needs to quit trying to parody "The Onion."

Mercedes would lose. Bernie has been "bribing" the teams and manufacturers for years - to the tune of over half a $Billlion per year (at least) of payouts from the TV rights intake. That's why, despite all the loony BS that Bernie says and all the loony things he does, ultimately the teams back him up (or simply keep quiet until the latest "Bernie event" blows over.)

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John Shiels

Even the slightest chance of court and jail at his age I would stay in Brazil with my new wife and bundles of money.

el es tu

what car guy doesnt love watching people ruin perfectly good cars in a competition to "pimp" them out, watching others guess what drag "racing" times will be for cash, and guidos finding parts for their uncle's 88 buick.
and you cant forget the nascar pre race shows, the pre prerace shows, the post race shows, and post post race shows. It seems like they can get an entire day worth of programming from one event these days...

Zoxxo

Classy

http://jalopnik.com/5951335/this-spo...13501710502031

I wonder what the Barrett-Jackson folks think about losing Speed and Varsha.

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Zoxxo

NBC Sports Group gets U.S. rights to Formula One

Updated: 10/15/2012 02:16am

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 will 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.

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93Polo

If you do a google search various sources have Varsha under contract to Speed for '13.

Hopefully Varsha will take over Grand Am from Leigh Diffey.

I hope atleast qualifying is broadcast as well.

MJM

When was the last time you were in Austin?

The Austin metropolitan area has a population of 1.8 million and sits inside the "Texas Triangle" of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio with a population of 14 million including 5 of the 20 largest cities in the nation.

If quantity doesn't do it for you, how about quality? Austin keeps placing on almost every top list for best cities.

http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/ar...xt-decade.html


http://www.regentpg.com/why-austin.php

Zoxxo

It will be Lee Diffey, David Hobbs, Steve Matchett, and (probably/maybe) Will Buxton.) So only Varsha is left out.

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David Hobbs dishes on Formula One, Speed and the move to NBC

By Dave Kallmann

Nov. 15, 2012

As there is no such thing as a brief conversation with David Hobbs, I found myself with way more than I could use from our chat Thursday afternoon regarding Formula One, the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, and the move of coverage from Fox and Speed to the NBC family next year.

Hobbs, who was on his way out of Austin when we spoke, expects Fernando Alonso to stay in the championship for another week before Sebastian Vettel (who leads by 10 points) collects his third consecutive title.

He offered a few parting shots at his current employer, says he likes the move to NBC and the people he'll work with and will miss Bob Varsha.

But enough from me . . .

On his expectations for the weekend:

I think there’s every chance we’ll have a championship when we go to the final. At this point, Lewis Hamilton, who has been fighting for the championship all year, can now be a spoiler. If he was to win the race and get 25 points and then Vettel would finish second and Alonso would finish as well as fifth he would still be in the championship at Brazil. I think it will go on. If Vettel wins this week and something happens to Alonso, well, obviously it’s all over. And I do think Vettel has a good chance of winning. It looks like a Red Bull track in the way it sweeps; high-speed curves are very suited to the handling and aerodynamics of the Red Bull. There’s no doubt about that. I think Ferrari will be struggling again a little bit for ultimate pace, but Alonso always somehow seems to finish up somewhere close to the front and score himself a bunch of points. So unless something happens to Alonso, I expect the championship to go down to the wire at Brazil.

On NBC: (The network secured the rights last month and on Thursday announced Hobbs would join Leigh Diffey and Steve Matchett on broadcasts)

I think the change to NBC will be another hopefully brick in the wall of trying to cement Formula One in this country. From what they’ve said to me they’ve really gone all out. They’re going to make a bigger show of it than Fox did the last few years. I think we’ve been kind of definitely suffering from being second-tier to NASCAR; all their real interest is in NASCAR, and I don’t think they were just outbid, I think they were outbid on purpose. I don’t think they particularly wanted it. They overspent big time on baseball and NASCAR and they need all the programming they can get to try and recoup some money with advertising. Speed channel will go away at the end of next year. It will be Fox Sports One. And there will be no Speed channel.

I spoke to the NBC bigwigs in New York about 10 days ago and they seem very pumped. They’ve talked about doing more shows and a lot more promotion. It always disappointed me with Fox. They never promoted our Formula One races on Fox whereas we all throughout Formula One shows promoted other sports on Fox, especially NASCAR. So I think that will be good. Obviously they’ll be here next year and make sure this is a big event. They’re going to go to Canada live, so that will be a big event. We may do Monte Carlo, and they might do one other like Monza or some other race. And I think they’re going to make every effort to really grow the sport.

They’re really excited about doing Formula One. I spoke to their top man, Jon Miller, last week. He just popped in the office while I was there. And he did the negotiations with Bernie when they were over there in London for the Olympics. They seem to be very excited in what they say and I think we’re going to have a lot of positives for Formula One in the States. They seem to be very keen on having me and Steve back. Bob Varsha can’t come with us; he’s got a contract at Fox. Leigh Diffey, who does a lot of work, obviously, is going to be the play-by-play. It should be a pretty strong team. With one if not two races in this country, NBC are going to milk that for all they’re worth. They’ll make sure those races are going to be something. And they may well help with Bernie negotiating a different date. It’s not a good idea to go up against the last NASCAR race of the year.

On not working with Varsha:

I’ve worked with Bob now for . . . he and I did Formula One together on ESPN first and I moved to Speed and he followed me. So yes. I’ve worked with Leigh quite a lot. I like working with Leigh. But yeah, I’ll miss Bob. I don’t know how many races we’ve done but it’d have to be hundreds, I’m sure. I’ll miss him, but of course you know things change, the world goes on . . . all the old clichés.

When I heard the news I thought for sure NBC would have their own coterie of commentators. You know, young, spiky-haired kids. But no, they got hold of me straightaway. I was to say the least extremely pleased.

On pit reporter Will Buxton, who was not part of Thursday's announcement:

I think will Will come. I did a big selling job for Will when I was at NBC, and they didn’t not like him, they just weren’t sure. But our old (executive) producer, Frank Wilson, should be able to lobby pretty hard and the executive producer for NBC is going to be here tonight and tomorrow. And of course I’m going to miss him because I’m going back to Charlotte. But Will will be here and I think he’s going to see Will tomorrow. I hope Will comes. He’s really good. I like Will.

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el es tu

Im guessing we're going to have to pay for an entire sports package just to get the one channel....

MJM

I was proudly rocking my Speed VISION hat at the F1 practice today.

That was a Motorsports channel. I say good riddance to Speed Channel and their crap programming.


Matt