If im not mistaken they own all the video going back a long time, how hard would it be to hire a few people to edit together and do a race analysis cometary for each race and just sell past season sets... I know I would buy (at a reasonable price) just about all I could get my hands on. What is the point of sitting on all that footage forever?
Posted Jun 11, 2014, 3:59 AM UTC
Cos FOM owns the recorded material. They are the rights holder.
semantics aside, its still a good question.
i would probably buy them rather than torrent them, especially if its HD of older seasons
I find it really annoying when people mix up the FOM and FiA on this sub. It does seem that the FiA gets a lot of stick here for things they don't have authority over.
As for HD footage of older seasons, pretty much impossible as the source material isn't high def.
If it's analogue they could easily recode it from the original tapes in HD
Except its not HD resolution to begin with. It will look just as shitty (case in point, see the bluray of 28 Days Later). Its not like with old movies where you can just do a high res scan of the 35mm film.
They had HD cameras for a couple seasons before they broadcast in Hd. Why? Because they waited until the TV companies paid more. Like everyone else the FOM doesn't give a damn about their product, they only care about how much they can charge for the least they can give.
Interesting. I was of the impression that the HD cameras they had was a test run.
i also find it annoying, i was more saying its still a good question.
I've never really understood it, they could generate alot of additional revenue from sales of season boxsets.
I suspect part of the reason is having to do the commentary, getting commentators right is a pretty hard thing to do, and your kind of rolling the dice if your going to have them do entire seasons at a time. If the public don't like your team then you wont make sales.
They already have commentators at the circuits, and via the F1 App.
Why not just do a deal with bbc/sky to use their commentary and get a cut of the sales?
That's not necessarily accessible to the full 450 million who watch F1, so it's abit more complex than just picking a commentary team.
They would have the exact same problem if they had their own commentary team....
I'd guess most people that watch f1 can speak English as it's such an English dominated sport and if not and there was a big market such as maybe in Italy or Brazil etc they could always just do similar deals with local commentary teams there. It really would be hard to do at all.
But this is what I mean, to pick the right commentary team they have alot to consider, are they going to localise it? If not then you can just go down the English route sure, but if they are then which languages do you pick? How many people should you hire?
It's not that simple when you have an audience this wide.
Ahah - perhaps you've not experienced the awe and wonder of the great Murray Walker's commentary. I suggest finding some older seasons and watching them. I grew up listening to Muzza and, frankly, I still miss his enthusiasm. In short - there's no need to re-do the commentary...it would almost be a sacrilege to do so.
Now get off my damn lawn.
I grew up listening to Murray too, but your talking about them buying the rights from the BBC to his commentary, they wouldn't consider that since they own the footage themselves, cheaper to do their own if they wanted too.
Surely they'd just do a deal...who would lose from it? Maybe its the Bernie factor. Meh, let them eat cake.
I would love for them to do a deal, but despite the fact that FOM has existed for so long and despite the fact that there is a demand for reruns of old races and box sets of season, they have never showed any sign of embracing either. Which is infuriating to me, perhaps when Bernie is gone F1 will catch up with the 21st century in that regard.
I asked myself the same thing. FIA could arrange a deal with every country broadcasters and release their DVD with localized commentary or just trackside recording.
I still don't know if online streaming will be an option in the future. TV broadcasters pay millions to get races on their channels, why they would go on if viewers prefer (probably) cheaper live streaming on formula1.com?
I would love this. I have been a fan for 3 years but have always been a casual follower as a result of my dad. I would love to see the older GPs from the Schumacher era.
It would really do well for the sport to release the box sets especially classic races from the 70s/80s/90s which would really help newer fans understand the mythos and history behind the sport and why some of the drivers of the past were so good.
If you talk to a new fan about Donington '93, they have no idea and there might some stream or torrent out there floating on the internet but that is an opportunity for FOM to capitalize on that they are really missing out on. They really should host a large online digital archive of previous races and just host them in the main languages where F1 racing is popular, let's say English/German/French/Spanish and and then offer the same for season boxsets (with the same language sets). It's definitely possible with Blu-ray technology these days to include all that data in a small set collection. They would make fantastic gifts for F1 fans.
I'm just wanting F1 to adopt the Moto GP model. Flat fee for the whole season. Live streaming, timing data, special features, VODs, onboards, everything. All for like $100 a season.
Me yesterday. Pretty much same question.
They make season review DVDs from it but thats it.
Many broadcasters hold rights to the footage for a number of years in their contracts which they use for replays. When those years are over the footage is free to use by FOM but they do nothing with it.
F1 for such a futuristic sport is so far behind in such things mainly due to Bernie being a dinosaur that it isn't even funny. We have to wait for someone born in the current era to make F1 available worldwide without just having to go through tv channels, a streaming service where you get past races out of contract and live races.
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Yeah somebody who leaves his partner and six month old daughter to date Ginger spice will be a great figurehead for the sport. Less integrity than Bernie.
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People question Bernie's integrity, Max Mosley lost his job because of his personal life. I don't think Horner is much different. I think having a child with someone and then ditching them 6 months later shows a lack of commitment that might worry some investors/business partners.
Just to be the devil's advocate I don't know how much of that is due to Bernie being a dinosaur and how much of it is because the current model simply makes the most money for now. Its like HBO's situation. Yes, they are highly aware that there are plenty of people who would pay for HBO GO ala carte, but at this point in time their current model simply works better financially.
It only works because they force it. They've got many potential customers that are more than willing to pay for HBO separate from a cable bill, but they won't offer it because they're scared they'll get paid what their content is actually worth rather than what they think it's worth. HBO is not worth a cable bill that's over $100 a month just to have the option to pay more for than channel, and people have turned to a better product by either torrenting or using someone else's HBOGo login. The first major company that jumps away from the cable model and succeeds will destroy everything in their path.
I don't have the source with me right now but HBO claims that they make a lot more money for now by licensing to cable providers and/or hotel chains then they would by selling singular subscriptions to the average Joe. Netflix has more subscribers, but HBO generates more revenue and has far lower operating costs.
Yes, they have huge piracy on their shows, but how many of these pirates are actually a lost sale who would buy a hypothetical ala carte HBO Go? Probably not enough to make up for the loss in big money licensing to cable providers and hotels.
Of course, they are well aware that there may come a time when it makes more sense financially to leave their current model and IINM they claim they do have the capability to switch to Netflix-like model right now (or are close to it). Its just that the money simply isn't there yet. Their head honcho has said as much
EDIT: http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/hbos-richard-plepler-we-will-not-be-caught-without-the-ability-to-pivot-1201126003/
I'm not calling HBO liars, but trusting their data is what they want you to do. It's in their best interest to present the situation that way and no one can really refute numbers that aren't public. As far as pirates buying in if they changed their business model, I'll raise my hand and say I'd stop pirating the show if they offered it as a standalone deal. I buy the blu-rays when the come out, but I'm not paying almost two grand a year on a cable sub I won't watch just to watch that show. It's literally the only thing I watch besides formula 1. That's not worth $2k a year.
Actually HBO would be more than happy to offer HBO Go ala carte and the system itself actually supports this just fine. The major problem is that the multi-year contracts they are locked into with the cable companies forbid it. They are looking at either cable lock in OR an ala carte offering, and I don't think HBO is quite strong enough to go it alone quite yet.
I don't think they want to because they'd actually have to accept what people think is a fair price for entertainment these days. Being behind the cable paywall they have a nice buffer from what people think is fair compensation. They don't branch out on their own because the cable companies have complete market dominance on the entertainment business and they are locking other people out from competing with them, to include HBO. HBO won't go out on their own because the big media and telecommunications companies would stomp them into the ground. They could make it on their own but the cable industry is so fucked up and wealthy they probably wouldn't. I'd like to see them try and I'm pretty sure that they'd have an assload of customers literally overnight. The only reason I don't have HBO in any form is because I will not pay for cable. Since I won't, my internet provider, who is also the only cable provider here, punishes me with a bandwidth consumption cap. The problem is the cable companies, the very people that HBO are in bed with. Someone of their size could blow everything wide up if they would just grow a pair and fucking do something. That's why I don't trust their numbers, the harder it makes it look for them to strike out on their own the less they piss off their masters the cable companies. They could do it, but they won't because the money they are guaranteed is too good.