19/09/2017
NEWS STORY
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.