Quote:
Originally Posted by Car-Addicted
It's live and those of us addicted to F1 have been getting up or staying up at obscene hours for years. 
Who remembers the good old days of delayed programing when ESPN would display the winner of the race on the chyron before the race aired.  Dam near cost me a couple TV's  |
You're mis-remembering. Once Bernie took control, he only sold the TV rights to entities that agreed to broadcast the race live and in its entirety (gone were the days of ABC's Wide World of Sports only showing exerpts of the GP of Monaco). Rights holders could re-broadcast later, but were required televise the race as it ran. Ecclestone grew the sport globally by doing this. We certainly did watch in the good old days...many times staying up for those early morning Australia and Japan Grand Prix's...now we dvr it. SpeedVision (later Speed TV) would then continually show re-runs throughout the week. But the point Liberty keeps telling us is how they're growing the sport in NA...bringing in the new viewer...having a 1:00 am east coast start won't find new viewers.