Gotterdämerung: bye SKY, it’s been real

It’s the Gotterdamerung – the Twilight of the Gods. Or is it? News that pay TV broadcaster SKY has somehow lost the bidding war for the 2019 Formula One season comes as only a medium-sized surprise and is mingled with déjà-vu – in this household at least.

New Zealand is an odd market for F1. With so many viewers passionate to the point of blind obsession about ball codes – and especially rugby – F1 occupies an uncomfortable position as a niche sport. It is a far cry from its international standing in the galaxy of major sporting codes.

Race times are geared to massive TV audiences across Europe. The NZ Herald speculates that the anti-social timing of much of the coverage counted against the championship because only the hard core fans would tune in. They may be right, and yet they may also have mis-read the sheer dedication of your average F1 race fan.

So that begs a question or two.

First, how hard did SKY try to win the renewed rights? Unless there was an obscene price hike the costs are known to the incumbent rights holder and are budgeted years ahead by that organisation.

Second, having lost the Rugby World Cup to Free to Air TV, did SKY simply lack the capital ‘depth’ to secure the coverage – and then did it have the resources to go sell the advertising that recoups the hosting fee?

Third, who else was in the frame? We only have TV One and TV 3 able to reach the audience figures required by Formula One rights manager FOA. Both offering free to air audiences, they differ in one (TV3) having a motorsport ‘vehicle’ or brand with which to promote the rounds that fall in anti-social timeslots. TVNZ does not, although the situation was different last time this opportunity arose.

In the late 1990s, SKY fumbled the bidding ball badly and we missed the opening round of the season. The PPV organisation was about to learn a salutary lesson in the power of a passionate audience.

A group of Kiwis who had been emailing SKY to find out what was happening before the season actually began went postal on the issue, writing directly to Bernie Ecclestone (imagine!), copying their missive to FOM and FOA, who dispense the rights to the coverage. They formed a lobby group called FOG, Formula One Group, a pun on the PR smoke that was being blown around to hide the truth of the situation. They bombarded SKY with emails. Patronising ‘all is well’ emails from SKY staffers simply fuelled the fire – it was definitely not ‘well’, Kiwis had missed the opening round and nothing would ever be the same. Matters were not improved when a staffer sent an ‘update’ by email to lists of people who had emailed to complain – and used the ‘reply all button, sending a list of 1,500 ‘live’ addresses and another of 1,200 out to every name on those lists. Ooops.

Next, FOG contacted David Turner at TVNZ, who was producer of the long-running and award-winning Shell Helix Motorsport show. On TVNZ’s behalf, David had bid for the rights and heard nothing until race weekend – a carefully worded missive saying things were not yet decided With that ‘handle’ on which to hang coverage. He then started work on a proposal to buy the rights out from under SKY, whose ‘Death Star’ approach had now incensed several thousand F1 ‘tragics’ to the extent that they joined FOG and its efforts to force SKY to hurry up and sign.

This group in turn was joined – at FOG’s urging – by members of all of New Zealand’s car clubs. FOG went further, adding the Minister of Sport to its mailing list, and then creating a pro forma text for use by members and friends in emails and letters to the outgoing rights holder, which at the time still seemed to believe it would retain the rights.

The masses didn’t know TVNZ’s proposal was well along in the process. When several members of Motorsport New Zealand’s senior management agreed to put their names behind the endeavour SKY was ‘gone by lunchtime’. It happened so emphatically and so quickly that SKY sport programme heads were still issuing beige statements to media and to FOG members saying they were confident of a deal being struck in time for the next round.

Turns out a deal had been struck, just not the deal they thought. F1 went to Shell Helix Motorsport, and a multi-year partnership delivered free to air F1 to happy race fans New Zealand-wide.

Arguably, there is no need for a FOG this time around. Though media don’t know if any other organisation has bid for rights (TVNZ, TV3, are you listening?), F1 finally has its own very good and reasonably priced app offering an range of options to race fans.

Media pundits expect SKY to announce the ‘loss’ of F1 this weekend but to buffer that with an announcement of a couple of years of rights to Bathurst. Try to contain your excitement, race fans. For many outside Australia, Bathurst’s not the big show it used to be either – dropping wild card entries may mean lower costs for teams but it also puts an end to ‘real’ internationals coming down to race. It would be a brave person who bet against a van Gisbergen win this year.
As for F1, it looks at the moment as though we’ll be finding naughty hacks to watch it or buying the app for a year of squinting at our phones and tablets. Two decades after the FOG lifted, the growth of live streaming and enhancements to the F1 ‘app’ are well capable of stepping into the void and thus are likely to accelerate the decay. I wonder if the app is Chromecast-enabled?