How Foxtel failed F1 fans after the best race in years

This is a rant, don’t mistake it for anything else – I’m a supremely frustrated Foxtel customer right now and I’m not alone.  Tonight at Midnight following one of the best Formula One races in several years in Spain.

Tonight F1 fans witnessed some pretty amazing action.

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton – teammates at Mercedes were involved in a  stunning first lap crash which took them both out of the race and opened up the race for four top drivers with Red Bull and Ferrari.

That’s pretty amazing stuff.  The race continued, a whole bunch of strategy came into play and we had Ferrari’s and Red Bull’s racing for the top four spots.

From a Red Bull perspective there were two likely winners, one would be the youngest F1 driver in History, the other Australia’s own Daniel Ricciardo.

In either circumstance, this is not a race you’re flicking off after the trophies are presented.  A hundred thousand or more Aussies are up at midnight wanting to hear:

• The reaction from Mercedes to the big incident
• Analysis of the Mercedes Incident
• Top Three driver interviews, featuring either the youngest F1 winner ever, or Aussie Dan’s first win in a while!

Yet – what we viewers got was a Fox Sports logo and a cut to English Premier League coverage.

There are eight – count them – eight Fox Sports channels.  Six of them primary sports channels, one of them is Fox Sports News, the other is Fox Sports Plus.

The broadcaster also has the “Red Button” option to show more content again.

Yet, here we are, after midnight – nothing.  No F1.  Nothing.

Sky Sports coverage continues from the UK.  I know this because I googled “sky sports f1 live stream” and within 5 minutes found some illegal UK user streaming the coverage.

I’m doing the right thing, month in-month out, paying for Foxtel and Fox Sports.  But they slap me in the face with this.

Put the post-race on the Plus channel, not in HD, frankly, put it on Fox Sports News – there’s unlikely to be even 1,000 people watching any news there right now.

Do something – that’s my point.  have some foresight.  F1 Grands Prix are 2 hours maximum.  Sky Sports have post-race every race, plan for it.  Find a way to give it to us.

My household recently downgraded from a $130+ platinum multi-room package to just $60 for the basic, sport and HD package in a  single room.  I am literally ONLY a Foxtel subscriber for the F1 coverage.

While others might complain that Game of Thrones costs too much on Foxtel – I say suck it up and pay for it if you want it.  In this case, I am paying, and I’m being dudded.

Poor form Fox Sports, poor form.

Update: This afternoon, Fox Sports issued this statement following the audience complaints:

Last night we were unfortunately unable to show the 2016 Formula 1® Pirelli Spanish Grand Prix post-race show. The huge quantity of LIVE sport on Sunday created a unique scheduling issue, and as such the decision was made to stay true to our DNA and focus on LIVE sport as opposed to post-event coverage.

The decision was taken to allocate our airspace to eight simultaneous final round EPL games and the semi-finals and final of the Rugby 7s across FOX SPORTS’ channels. While we would love to show every minute of every sport we carry, pre, post and during the action, unfortunately that’s not always possible and on rare occasions the coming together of huge volumes of live sport from around the world forces us to have to make very tough decisions.

Despite this, we understand the disappointment felt by those passionate F1 fans in not being able to see post-race interviews and analysis, though given our commitment to fans of live sport we hope you can appreciate how hard these decisions can be and the need to make live action our top priority.

A full race replay of the 2016 Formula 1® Pirelli Spanish Grand Prix will be shown this evening (Monday 16 May) at 6pm AEST with post-race show in full at 8pm AEST all on FOX SPORTS 506.

 

No guarantee it won’t happen again lets be clear – but let’s also hope the fan reaction draws closer attention to our love of the post-race coverage!

If Formula One Management get into the 21st century and offer a subscription online streaming service via their F1 App – I’m there.  No doubt.  I’d easily pay $200 a year for that, perhaps more.  These are the moments which Foxtel cannot afford for people who are paying for their service.

Oh, and It’s not just me – just check the Foxtel Facebook page to get a sense of the feeling: