Much like the political party conferences in Britain at present, Friday's press conference in Singapore witnessed much talking but little of worth actually being said.

Interestingly, however, just days after it was revealed that France is to get four races broadcast live on free-to-air next year, Honda's motorsport boss, Masashi Yamamoto, suggested the move to pay TV is damaging the sport.

The deal in France is a canny move by FOM, timed for the return of the country to the Grand Prix calendar and at a time the French team - albeit based in the UK - is showing signs of progress, not to mention home grown talent like Romain Grosjean, Esteban Ocon and possibly Pierre Gasly.

In a move similar to when free-to-air coverage was given to Spanish viewers, just as Fernando Alonso was beginning his meteoric rise up the grid, FOM will hope that the four free-to-air races, including Monaco, offered to French fans will eventually convince them to switch to pay TV for the entire season.

However, speaking at the weekend, Yamamoto suggested that pay TV is costing the sport fans, particularly in Japan.

"One important is that in Japan at the moment Formula One is not broadcast on free-to-air TV," he said. "We believe that the most important factor is that at the moment the fans can only watch through satellite/pay TV, so that is maybe the biggest issue to increase the number.

"Obviously, us as Honda, it would improve our promotional ways of improving our Honda F1."

His comments come at a time when fans in the UK have just one more season of free-to-air coverage before all live races are shown on pay TV only.

F!'s commercial boss Sean Bratches has made no secret of the fact that he wants to see a mixture of pay TV and free-to-air, however, for the most part the free-to-air coverage will follow the UK model of highlights only.

Fact is, FOM and the teams need the money from pay TV and as the sport moves forward there will be more of it not less.

Indeed, as the sport looks for ever more ways of parting fans from their money, one can say that amidst all the talk of reducing costs and spending, this clearly does not apply to the cash cow that is the F1 fan.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by MossMan, 02/10/2017 6:37

"@metalhead - I think you must be in the US and talking from a very US-biased perspective

Rest-of-world F1 has historically only been topped by Olympic coverage for viewership.

Your "fact" about university sport makes no sense since I don't even know what that is and I've never heard the term on BBC, BBC World, Sky Sports, TF1, etc. "

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2. Posted by metalhead, 22/09/2017 2:26

"Sorry to say this to readers but this is a fringe sport at best. This article assumes that there will be a massive drop off. Massive drop off from what? You have university sport drawing more viewers than some F1 races (fact). From changing rules in mid season (what sport does that?) to having tracks held hostage for more money (ie taxpayers) its no wonder F1 is scrambling to find new revenue streams. Unfortunately for F1 viewers have already made there choices and its not watching F1"

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3. Posted by ryanhellyer, 21/09/2017 12:54

"If they are going to do pay TV, at least make it accessible. Having to watch it on a TV is beyond stupid. We should just be able to go to f1.com and pay to access it there."

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4. Posted by @R1Racing71, 21/09/2017 10:07

"@Spartacus Motog GP moved from the BBC here in the UK to BT Sport as PPV only from 2014.
BBC figures for Race day were "Just less than 1m" while on BT sports now the are averaging 188k - apparently a hike in comparison to recent years.
The coverage that BT provide is actually very thorough and well presented, but BT Sport does lag behind Sky in subscriptions and Moto GP is seen here as something of specialist interest.
I think we have to accept that free to air coverage of all sport has or is coming to an end, the only way we can reverse this is simply to cancel all subscriptions and go and do something more productive instead."

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5. Posted by F1 Yank, 20/09/2017 16:09

"I think it would be great if the races were on local broadcast TV however the cable/satelite channels allow for extended broadcasts of the event where a standard channel would probably only allow for a two hour slot. On the NBC Sports Net they have the pre half hour slot and the post half hour during race day. I really like to watch MotoGP but two years ago they moved to BeInSports and also PPV which are only carried by a few pay tv providers. I am glad Formula One did not do this. I wonder where the MotoGP viewership is after this move. I think at one time Formula One was planning on moving to a PPV format which would have been a bad move. "

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6. Posted by Simon in Adelaide, 20/09/2017 3:18

"Do Honda really want Torro Rosso team radio "Sorry we are going to have to retire the car, the engine is !@#$%" being broadcast free to air in Japan?"

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7. Posted by BillH, 19/09/2017 18:56

"Interesting times. We in New Zealand have lost just about all live sport to the one (for now) pay operator. The disadvantage is that the sport we want to watch is included with almost all the other sport that we don't want (there is a ton of golf going on round the world) and we have to pay for that. The advantage is that there is a lot more coverage of F1 as pay TV only showed the races in the past, probably due to how much it cost. Now we get the full UK Sky coverage including the F1 show so it is very good.
One of the things Pitpass does very well is to fill the gap for those that don't get full coverage. The Pitpass practice, quali and race reports are a very good way to find out what happened.
The move to pay TV hasn't really hammered the sports followed here though I don't watch nearly as much cricket as I used to and a rugby test is repeated almost on continuous cycle till the next one."

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8. Posted by ClarkwasGod, 19/09/2017 16:27

"If that's the way they intend continuing to go (into Pay TV only), expect F1 viewing to continue to decline. Something of a Catch-22, but they (FOM/Teams) are shooting themselves in their feet long-term when sponsors decide they get better return elsewhere. What then?"

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Honda calls for pay TV rethink

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