KartPlayRide
In response to James_0807
You'd have thought that NowTV and Sky would have worked out that charging £200 for an annual pass that people will buy, was better for them from a revenue point of view - rather than them not getting any money from people who are unwilling to pay for the full monthly sports pass price, or only day pass purchases.
They're going to make more money off the annual pass surely.
In response to KartPlayRide
It's still a fortnight before it starts. Inevitably there will be a £20/month email offer and a £25/month website offer. There is zero chance of an annual pass as the last time there was, Now had to refund everyone.
Kenjara
The difference though is that this year its very unlikely a single race will get cancelled.
So I wouldn't say that there is zero chance. I am still hoping for a pass myself.
James_0807
@KartPlayRide
My guess would be it's a game of chicken every year. They know if you watched last season etc. so they know if they have managed to dupe people into paying full price or not. If a large enough proportion of known F1 fans have already subscribed then I'd wager likelihood of even an offer is greatly reduced. However, if most known F1 fans aren't subscribed by the week the season starts then they likely don't have much choice but to have some kind of offer. They've paid so much for the rights they need a certain number of subs to even break even.
Exclusivity deals shouldn't be a thing at the end of the day. I refer to my earlier point. It's £6 a month in the US. I know sky sports is more than just f1, but still, it grates knowing how much we're over paying.
it grates knowing how much we're over paying.
Compared with what subscriptions cost in most of the EU and elsewhere in the world, the prices in UK and Ireland are exorbitant. Whenever I am in France or Portugal it costs far less.
All you can do is take up offers to reduce the cost. I pay £12/month for BT Sport and have a number of Sky Sports vouchers I got with sticks that effectively work out at around £16/month. And GAAGO for about €60/annum, At least with Amazon, sport does not cost extra, or as little as 99p/month for Eurosport for the Australian Open tennis.
Baarty
The dodgy IPTV services are getting very good these days with picture quality and reliability if you find a good one and they're generally about £10 a month. I prefer to pay for legitimate services nowadays as I can afford it but when I was struggling the pirates did just grand.
The best way to play the now TV game is cancellation. Whenever I cancel I usually get offered a deal to stay, a bit like what happens with Sky. Been on a 19.99 sports deal recently for a number of months. I cancelled that completely as I had some vouchers to use from ages ago. No doubt there will be a deal again soon enough.
Worth noting as well, for a while there have been £25 month passes available at the likes of Curry's. Not sure of it's still a thing today but last year I always got those as a last resort to avoid paying full whack.
In response to Baarty
No vouchers at Currys anymore. Some sticks with sport at Argos, but limited stock and retailing at £40.
I would sell my vouchers, but they are non-transferable.
Searlee
If you are on TalkTalk you can get a £20 per month voucher through your account. This is by far the best deal I've seen, even if you aren't on TalkTalk, if you know someone on TalkTalk they should be able to get you the voucher code.
Totally agree - it's a massive difference when you compare the price of F1TVPro to the cost of a monthly Sports pass at full price. It makes even the Day Pass look expensive.
I just refuse point blank to pay for a full price Sports Month pass just to watch F1.
If they offer an F1 Pass, I'd buy it and they'll make some money from me.
Failing that, I would rather watch it delayed on Channel 4 or get it on one of the foreign channels (Russia/Austria) over a VPN and listen to 5 Live for commentary. It's their loss if they refuse to offer a discounted pass for the F1 Season.
In fairness the F1 TV Pro isn't even in 1080p 50FPS yet meant be coming for start of season and it doesn't have any TV Apps so until it does have both of those it's not comparable for me yes it's cheaper but does it offer the same quality or ease of use no and regardless it doesn't matter Sky have the exclusive rights till 2024.
Yes, completely true - and for some they'll pay the high prices for the 1080 viewing etc..
The point is that a lot of other people will find alternate ways of watching F1 if that's all they're interested in, and are not that bothered about the 1080 - rather than paying for the full price monthly sports pass. Surely it's not difficult for NowTV to understand that.
In addition, Sky are actually only charging £18 for the F1 channel - but it assumes that you're already a Sky customer with other channels. Again, I'm not interested in a Sky package, so can't have that.
So if Sky can offer that price for F1, why can't NowTV offer the F1 channel for £18 rather than all the other sport channels included ? It's just greed.
This years debate is much the same as last years.
https://community.nowtv.com/t5/Everything-Sports/F1-2020-on-NowTV-What-do-we-want/m-p/550470#M3020
I still have an F1 season budget cap that Sky continue to exceed.
Mind you, 23 (19 max IMO) races plus the (silly IMO) sprint races, all with Croft's dismal commentary. Sky's coverage is stale too as are most of the presenting team - it has been for a few years.
Most importantly - RIP Murray.
Totally agree with the Crofty comments must be the worst commentator on tv far too shouty .I watch without the sound.
why can't NowTV offer the F1 channel for £18 rather than all the other sport channels included ?
Sky don't just offer the sports channels without having to buy an entertainment pack.
Reality is it costs £43/month to just watch F1 on Sky. With email offers it is only £20/month on Now TV. Just £2/month more and you get all the sports channels.
A year or so back, I tried to sign up to F1TV Pro in France (An allowed region) through a VPN but it insisted that the address of the card used to pay was registered in the country of purchase.
As a guess does it take PayPal?
Most services in the US take PayPal and I manged to create a US PayPal account for Hulu, Peacock TV and Paramount+ despite living in Scotland!
Seems if you sign up through the iOS/Android app the service doesn't know where your card is registered, so that one's solved.
VPN blocks are a constant game of cat and mouse, but server obfuscation techniques are getting better at masking VPN traffic these days. Guess whether it's worth the risk or not is a personal decision.
Thought about VPN but also read that F1 Tv are getting pretty good at detecting vpn connections and cutting them off...think that would maybe annoy me more half way through a race than not watching at all 🙂
Just if it helps anybody who already has Sky but not the Sports package, it looks like Sky are doing an £18 per month upgrade (no contract) for just the F1 channel...still a lot for one channel but maybe some Sky subscribers have been bolting on NowTV just watch F1 so this would be much cheaper over the season.
goggleKev
Look out for offers on the 25th march! a little birdy has told me there will be an offer of £25 pm for 6 months sports pass which they did last year after the F1 pass balls up!!!!!!!
Hi. I am with you on this...is either going to be a season pass (at good price) or not going to watch it...they have to understand this, nobody (or few) is going to pay for a season with little if none car changes probably going to be like the previous one.
italicBus
There's a thread on the F1 subreddit discussing options for the new season.
Assuming Now TV don't offer a F1 Season Pass, and you want to watch Q + R (but not every Friday practice session) you can cover all the races with 7 carefully timed month pass purchases.
Total of £237.93 or £258.93 with Boost.
Of course, keep in mind the calendar as set now is probably not the one that we are going to end up seeing this year...