Absolutely horrifying news for any UK MotoGP fans...
(Source - crash.net)
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Dorna Sports has announced that the 2008 MotoGP World Championship will be the last to be broadcast by Eurosport.
"After many years of successful collaboration, MotoGP rights-holders Dorna Sports would like to announce that coverage of the MotoGP World Championships will no longer be available on Eurosport from the 2009 season," read a statement from Dorna.
"Dorna would like to thank Eurosport for a partnership which has been of mutual benefit for several years, having helped take MotoGP to new levels of popularity and coverage whilst also offering the pan-European broadcaster impressive viewing figures.
"The decision is part of Dorna's new strategy of working with national network broadcasters around Europe, always focusing first and foremost on free-to-air coverage to bring MotoGP to wider audiences.
"This means that in the UK, the BBC will enjoy exclusive coverage of MotoGP next year, whilst in Spain and Italy, where MotoGP enjoys long-term agreements with TVE and Mediaset respectively, negotiations are ongoing about extending coverage to more hours during the weekend.
"In Germany, a deal has been signed with a privately owned free-to-air channel, giving the commercial network exclusive coverage for three years until 2011. Meanwhile, negotiations are ongoing in France and other major European territories with various mainstream networks; further details will be announced shortly."
The British Eurosport commentary line-up of Toby Moody, Julian Ryder and former 500cc star Randy Mamola is considered one of the best in the business, while Eurosport's extensive live coverage often includes all three days at each grand prix.
The BBC will be broadcasting both F1 and MotoGP next season, with F1 certain to be given preference in the event of a clash.
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Expect to hear more on this, as I'm absolutely appalled and, as things stand, have no confidence in the BBC to deliver anything approaching the coverage (particularly of 125 and 250 classes) or quality we have come to expect.
I'm going to be writing to them outlining all my concerns and asking for a response on their plans regarding coverage and scheduling.
If I get anything useful back I'll post it here.
Posts
5 comments:
i hope you get an answer from the bbc and that it might even dispel some of our concerns.
in germany it will be even worse than i thought. at first i thought that the ominous free-to-air channel would actually be a sports channel, because people were debating about it.
but by what it looks like right now it will be a normal private channel (more money), so it'll basically have the same problems as you with the bbc, maybe even worse - i don't see any coverage of the small classes at all and the channel also broadcasts f1, so goodnight motogp... :(
also: they tried that a few years ago already, broadcasting simultaneously with eurosport - the commentators have NO idea about what motogp is in the first place! i couldn't listen to that crap for a minute. :(
This is a real problem
I don't think Dorna realise what they will lose by losing eurosport coverage
there is a petition here:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/RCV212V4
and email addresses to contact
'mkt@dorna.com'; 'media@dorna.com'; 'dornauk@dorna.com'; 'tv@dorna.com'; 'tvproduction@dorna.com'
we need as many people as possible to do this, so spread the word
@ Anonymous - thanks ever so much for leaving those addresses.
I've written to BBC (just to let them know they'll have major issues if there coverage isn't up to scratch when it's our only choice!) and also to one of the Dorna addresses.
I'll spread the word on the petition and those contacts of course.
Thank you.
I just heard the news today and I am shocked, appalled and severely disappointed.
Thanks for all the contact details I will be voicing my concerns to those in high places.
What will we do without Julian, Toby and Randy????????? It will never be the same again, I am so so so p*ssed off right now (excuse my language).
I wonder if the team will mention it tomorrow at the Assen GP?
Thanks again
David
there's another petition online to at least replace the bbc commentator team with moody, ryder and mamola:
http://www.petitiononline.com/motogp09/
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