Race Start Times in Europe to change.

[NathanOlder]

Basically Liberty media are looking to put the start times of the European Races back 70mins. So they would start 3.10pm in central europe or 2.10pm in the UK.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/16719

Some rubbish about an extra hour for build up and an extra 10mins to appease commercial broadcasters.

I hope this doesn't happen, I know it will suit some people and some countries and i understand that, but F1 for me is lights out at 1pm!

Im starting to dislike this lot more and more now. Bernie was golden.

[zac510]

Seems OK to me, I'll have more of the morning and lunch to do stuff.
When I lived in Asia the race was in the evening after dinner. It was perfect time to settle into the couch and watch, except for qualifying being on Saturday night!

[marmer]

doesn't really matter to me the hard core wake up at all hours to watch i love waking early watching p1 and p3 but thats just me lol

[Manoah2u]

doesn't bother me, i download it anyway because i'm not gonna pay a 30-50 euro more expensive TV channel decoder contract just to watch f1 and obligate myself to watch it at the live times.
I don't watch television period, i only watch tv through my connected computer.

[FrukostScones]

WTF. This Liberty takeover is becoming a real farce now. Also fluent starting times for FP now? More Replays Düring the races , music overlay. WTF. RIP F1 and not to speak of videogames cars soon .

[FrukostScones]

Seems OK to me, I'll have more of the morning and lunch to do stuff.
When I lived in Asia the race was in the evening after dinner. It was perfect time to settle into the couch and watch, except for qualifying being on Saturday night!

Asia and Australia will have fun with those New starting times. Not.

[NathanOlder]

WTF. This Liberty takeover is becoming a real farce now. Also fluent starting times for FP now? More Replays Düring the races , music overlay. WTF. RIP F1 and not to speak of videogames cars soon .

Totally agree. F1 is so good but now its getting the American touch, is heading in the wrong direction.

[Manoah2u]

don't you think you guys are exxegerating quite a bit?

[Moose]

Basically Liberty media are looking to put the start times of the European Races back 70mins. So they would start 3.10pm in central europe or 2.10pm in the UK.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/16719

Some rubbish about an extra hour for build up and an extra 10mins to appease commercial broadcasters.

I hope this doesn't happen, I know it will suit some people and some countries and i understand that, but F1 for me is lights out at 1pm!

Im starting to dislike this lot more and more now. Bernie was golden.

As someone living on the west coast of the USA, trying to follow F1... --- YES! Starting at 6:10am is *way* more civil than 5am. I'd bet heavily getting (at least the east coast of) the US semi-reasonably able to watch the races is part of the goal here.

[NathanOlder]

don't you think you guys are exxegerating quite a bit?

Yeah it just depends how many more things like this continue. Before 2020 we could end up with 1 practice session, a bingo type game for pole position, and 3 sprint races on a sunday.

I thought the only thing that needed changing was maybe the cars to help overtaking. Tradition/History means a lot. don't blow it all out the window because someone feels it needs to change. F1 is 90% (possibly more) European, Maybe if we get some American wins, drivers, success we can maybe consider a change to suit the American fans.

Like most things in life, its all about getting new customers, Fook the loyal fans they already have, they give no Sh!t about them.

[bauc]

doesn't really matter to me the hard core wake up at all hours to watch i love waking early watching p1 and p3 but thats just me lol

AGREED!

[notsofast]

I don't know what to think about the extra hour, but the extra 10 minutes are fully understandable. TV programs in the US begin on the hour or on the half hour. In cases where it was not deemed attractive enough to have a 30-minute pre-show, the race sometimes would be shown on a 10-minute delay basis while tricking the audience into believing it was live.

[NathanOlder]

Sky sports in the uk give us 90mins of build up. In the states the program starts the same time as lights out ??? No wonder not many people follow it. Surely getting a tv station onboard is better than moving the start time ????

[notsofast]

You're not going to get US TV stations to deviate from the standard schedule for something as insignificant as F1. (Sorry to say, but yes, it's still insignificant compared to the major sports programs.) Commercial breaks are mostly synchronized. You can flip through 100 channels, and they will all be showing commercials at the same time.

It is my understanding that ESPN will be showing F1 in 2018. ESPN has about six or so different channels, not all of which are available to all viewers. It wouldn't surprise me if they made a deal with Liberty whereby F1 is limited to 2 hours total when a race is shown on their major channel. Something like, "hey Liberty, the choice is yours, we're happy to give you 2.5 hours on ESPN6, but if you want to be on ESPN1, you need to figure out a way to fit the show in 2 hours."

[Zynerji]

You're not going to get US TV stations to deviate from the standard schedule for something as insignificant as F1. (Sorry to say, but yes, it's still insignificant compared to the major sports programs.) Commercial breaks are mostly synchronized. You can flip through 100 channels, and they will all be showing commercials at the same time.

It is my understanding that ESPN will be showing F1 in 2018. ESPN has about six or so different channels, not all of which are available to all viewers. It wouldn't surprise me if they made a deal with Liberty whereby F1 is limited to 2 hours total when a race is shown on their major channel. Something like, "hey Liberty, the choice is yours, we're happy to give you 2.5 hours on ESPN6, but if you want to be on ESPN1, you need to figure out a way to fit the show in 2 hours."

I have to believe that they bid on it, like the networks do for all US sports. You don't pony up and bid unless you have some sort of plan that the exposure will pay back in ad dollars.

Lets see what ESPN has to offer. If its horrid, I just download the Sky coverage when I wake up.