Friday, June 27, 2008

Eurosport Loses MotoGP Coverage From 2009

Yesterday (26.Jun.08) Dorna announced

that coverage of the MotoGP World Championships will no longer be available on Eurosport from the 2009 season

The BBC will have exclusive coverage of MotoGP in the UK and this is very disappointing news for the following reasons:

  1. Currently the BBC only shows the MotoGP race on terrestrial TV (BBC2).  The 125 and 250 races are only shown on the BBC's BBCi service;
  2. In the past some races have not been shown live;
  3. The BBC does not show qualifying all the time, and when it does it is only available via BBCi;
  4. Unlike Eurosport, the BBC does not show any of the free practice sessions or the qualifying sessions for the 125's and 250's;
  5. From 2009 the BBC will also be showing F1, thus if a race clashes with a MotoGP then the F1 race is probably going to get preference;
  6. If the BBC increases it's MotoGP coverage then more than likely it will only be via BBCi.  The Problem is that you are not able to record BBCi on a SKY+ box.

Dorna have said that their reason for taking this action is to try and increase MotoGP coverage across Europe by giving priority to free-to-air television networks, but by taking this action they will actually be decreasing the coverage available to UK MotoGP fans.

If you are a MotoGP fan and want to petition Dorna against this action that they have taken then you might find the following e-mail address's useful:

Dorna UK :- Tony Partis - dornauk@dorna.com
Licensing :- Phaedra Haramis - commercial@dorna.com
TV Production :- Sergi Sendra - tvproduction@dorna.com

7 comments:

Unknown said...

In view of the response to this utterly disastrous news, a petition has been set up. Sign it here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/motogp09/

It already has almost 500 hundred signatures! Please pass it on to everyone you know, and post it on every forum.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mikey,

I want be signing the petition as it is to do with the commentators rather than the coverage, and personally I prefer the BBC team as Toby and Julian seem to be biased towards certain riders.

bob38 said...

In 96 Eurosport lost its F1 coverage wich had every session live. 97 had ITV with a ridiculous amount of advert breaks
The same is happening now with MOTO GP . It is not about expanding coverage,or a wider audience It is about the Fat cat companies making more and more money.PS I AM SO ANNOYED . IF YOU WANT TO APPEAL TO A WIDER AUDIENCE . EUROSPORT!!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

08) Dorna announced that coverage of the MotoGP World Championships will no longer be available on Eurosport from the 2009 season The BBC will have exclusive coverage of MotoGP in the UK and this is very disappointing news for the following reasons: Currently the BBC only shows the MotoGP race on terrestrial TV (BBC2)

Anonymous said...

bbc coverage is crap i have only watched the bbcs coverage once when my sky was down and have never watched it again since plus eurosport show the covegage in hd and full screen size none of this mini screen like the bbc shows

Anonymous said...

I have watched every motoGP race this season.....one more to go!!!.......Eurosport have been fantastic with there live coverages, I take my hat off to them. Looks like bbc aint going to be doing us any favours next season,very dissapointing.

Anonymous said...

What a sad day for MOTOGP fans and for MOTOGP full stop, we have watched from warm up to finish for to many years, will the good old beeb be doing that? I dont think so,so Dorna must have taken a wrong turn, and the big problem for us we now live in Greece, for us it was eurosports and we could get it on ET3 a Greek channel but who knows now?