tubechallenge.com

As Sky have said that this is a dedicated channel, one can expect to find archive races on there. I hope they go back to the '70s and '80s with those.

tubeguru wrote:Quote from the story:

"The F1 channel will also come at no extra charge to all Sky TV customers who take both Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 or the HD pack of channels."

And we have the HD pack, so we get it free too! Woot.

What I meant to say was....

I also have HD but didn't feel the need to boast

hopeful traveller wrote:I HAVE to start nagging my Dad now that the Beeb have said what they'll be showing. Barcelona - 1, yes, 1, recorded on-track pass in 2002 (Coulthard on Fisichella). Valencia - ONE on-track pass in 2009.

Jesus, that's a lot of money.

It is a lot of money. The cheapest package that includes Sky Sports 1 and 2, which are required for the F1 channel, is £40 per month and £30 for set-up. If you want HD, it's £50.25 per month and free set-up. Multi-room viewing is another £10.25 on top of that. Considering the minimum contract is 12 months, that means spending at least £510 to watch something that has been free up until this point. If you get Sky only to watch the F1, take the standard package (no HD or multi-room), continue to watch on the BBC when you can, and if Sky only show nine races next year (I think it's quite likely one or both of Bahrain and USA will be dropped from the calendar), it works out at nearly £57 per race.

Personally, I could never afford that, I wouldn't want to give my money to News Corp anyway, and I wouldn't want to show support for taking even more sport off free-to-air TV. I've been watching the BBC's online coverage up until now, but I'll have to pay the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 to watch it next year. At least that'll only be ~€70 for the whole season, not much more than the Sky rate for a single race!

Also, I agree that the BBC's choice of races is pretty uninspiring. They got the first three picks, after which Sky got three, and then they alternated. So they went for Britain, Monaco and Brazil first - fair enough - but of their remaining seven races, only Belgium really stands out. And I really think they should have gone for one of the first two races if possible. As it stands, the season will be a month old by the time the BBC finally start showing it.

Root wrote:

hopeful traveller wrote:I HAVE to start nagging my Dad now that the Beeb have said what they'll be showing. Barcelona - 1, yes, 1, recorded on-track pass in 2002 (Coulthard on Fisichella). Valencia - ONE on-track pass in 2009.

Jesus, that's a lot of money.

It is a lot of money. The cheapest package that includes Sky Sports 1 and 2, which are required for the F1 channel, is £40 per month and £30 for set-up. If you want HD, it's £50.25 per month and free set-up. Multi-room viewing is another £10.25 on top of that. Considering the minimum contract is 12 months, that means spending at least £510 to watch something that has been free up until this point. If you get Sky only to watch the F1, take the standard package (no HD or multi-room), continue to watch on the BBC when you can, and if Sky only show nine races next year (I think it's quite likely one or both of Bahrain and USA will be dropped from the calendar), it works out at nearly £57 per race.

Personally, I could never afford that, I wouldn't want to give my money to News Corp anyway, and I wouldn't want to show support for taking even more sport off free-to-air TV. I've been watching the BBC's online coverage up until now, but I'll have to pay the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 to watch it next year. At least that'll only be ~€70 for the whole season, not much more than the Sky rate for a single race!

Also, I agree that the BBC's choice of races is pretty uninspiring. They got the first three picks, after which Sky got three, and then they alternated. So they went for Britain, Monaco and Brazil first - fair enough - but of their remaining seven races, only Belgium really stands out. And I really think they should have gone for one of the first two races if possible. As it stands, the season will be a month old by the time the BBC finally start showing it.

Sky will show everything though, to further complicate matters.

Root wrote:

hopeful traveller wrote:I HAVE to start nagging my Dad now that the Beeb have said what they'll be showing. Barcelona - 1, yes, 1, recorded on-track pass in 2002 (Coulthard on Fisichella). Valencia - ONE on-track pass in 2009.

Jesus, that's a lot of money.

It is a lot of money. The cheapest package that includes Sky Sports 1 and 2, which are required for the F1 channel, is £40 per month and £30 for set-up. If you want HD, it's £50.25 per month and free set-up. Multi-room viewing is another £10.25 on top of that. Considering the minimum contract is 12 months, that means spending at least £510 to watch something that has been free up until this point. If you get Sky only to watch the F1, take the standard package (no HD or multi-room), continue to watch on the BBC when you can, and if Sky only show nine races next year (I think it's quite likely one or both of Bahrain and USA will be dropped from the calendar), it works out at nearly £57 per race.

Personally, I could never afford that, I wouldn't want to give my money to News Corp anyway, and I wouldn't want to show support for taking even more sport off free-to-air TV. I've been watching the BBC's online coverage up until now, but I'll have to pay the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 to watch it next year. At least that'll only be ~€70 for the whole season, not much more than the Sky rate for a single race!

Also, I agree that the BBC's choice of races is pretty uninspiring. They got the first three picks, after which Sky got three, and then they alternated. So they went for Britain, Monaco and Brazil first - fair enough - but of their remaining seven races, only Belgium really stands out. And I really think they should have gone for one of the first two races if possible. As it stands, the season will be a month old by the time the BBC finally start showing it.

The way I read that article, you don't need to be a Sky Sports subscriber to get this F1 channel. You could just take their basic package without sports and add the HD pack for £10.25/month. I'm not gonna a look at what that brings it down to, but it's not as expensive as you make out. Besides, it's not like if you paid all that for Sky Sports you'd just be getting F1. Their selection of sports is huge now. You may not be interested, but their NFL coverage is great now, I love the Redzone channel.

That is right. I don't have Sky Sports, but I have the HD pack, so doing it via HD is the cheapest way to do it.

I hadn't noticed that, but it seems you're right. Bizarrely, that means it's cheaper to watch F1 in HD than SD!

So the cheapest option falls to £30.25 per month, or £363 for the year. I know there are plenty of other sports on Sky, and lots of other channels besides, but I was just considering the cost for someone who only wants to get Sky for the F1, and who has happily lived without their other programming until now.

Of course there are some sports which will only ever be shown by a subscription broadcaster, but shouldn't there be some that will always stay free-to-air as well? There is a protected list, maintained by the government, but they keep choosing not to add F1 to it, even though it gets far more viewers than many other sporting events which are protected.

But I've been watching on the BBC with a UK Proxy up until this point, so I don't have any legitimate grounds for complaint as long as I am living abroad.

That's it for the 2011 season. A pretty anticlimactic race to end with - after talk of lots of overtaking and a high chance of rain, neither materialised.

And guess who won this round in the predictions game? No, it wasn't tubeguru, but scrxisi. He also takes the overall championship, with a sixty-point margin at the top, and a very impressive six round victories over the course of the season - nobody else has more than three. Well done, Matt! You could have won last year if you had entered all the races, and you definitely deserve it this time around.

Here are the full results and standings.

Further congratulations to greatkingrat, who finished second, and mullardo and hopeful traveller, whose scores per race would have been good enough to win the competition outright, had they continued over the whole season. It's not a completely fair comparison, as some races were easier to predict than others, but I still think it's interesting to note.

Finally, big thanks to everyone who has played at any part of this season. It's been a lot of fun to run it, and I hope it's been fun to play as well. It's been a fair bit of work for me, but I think it'll be much easier from next season, both to run and to play. I'll be explaining how it works next year, so look out for an announcement around February. In the meantime, I'd love your thoughts on how it worked this season and any ideas on how to improve it for next season.

Cheers

The way this season has gone, a "reserve" driver did win today, so do I get points for that?

Nice try, but no The rules state that the "Other (reserve driver)" pick only covers drivers who aren't on the list of options - in other words, those making their first appearance of the season. Webber drove in all 19 races.

He did all 19 races? You'd never know would you ... ?

I just thought of an interesting side-competition for F1 for next season, but I can't tell you what it is yet.

It doesn't encroach on Ollie's prediction thing at all, by the way.

tubeguru wrote:I just thought of an interesting side-competition for F1 for next season, but I can't tell you what it is yet.

It doesn't encroach on Ollie's prediction thing at all, by the way.

Oh, tubuguru you tease!
Is it about guessing what colour Eddie Jorden's shirt will be?

Sounds good - I'd love to hear about it. PM me if you like?