I'm with you Ebby!
Not that fussed about the Olympics itself but I do sypathise believe me.
Not so long ago we moved to Thailand....
I am an avid F1 fan. In the good old days the good old BBC used to broadcast this every Sunday without adverts for the entire 2.5 hours of lead up, race, and post race drivers discussions.
Being a child of the UK we are accustomed to freedom. Probably more freedom than the US is supposed to have, even though we don't actually have a constitution or any rights... Bear with me this is not a political rant..
Now recently in the UK the BBC couldn't afford to broadcast F1.. I mean 20 million odd Brit households all paying on average £50 a year because we HAVE TO BY LAW even if WE DON"T WANT THE BBC, even if the tv is just a computer monitor and is not connected to an ariel was not enough money for them to broadcast it. Had to buy too many American and Australian Soaps and of course fund our own!! F1 Bernie and his cronies charged too much and there was a lot more money to be made from advertising revenues so it moved to ITV... So we had this crazy situation where you could still watch FOOTBALL LIVE!!!! on BBC (which is really cheap to buy the feed for - Right!) and SNOOKER (I ask you!!) and any other old crap... but F1 live had to be riddled with adverts right in the middle of Shuueey on a tight corner with Kimi right up his arse racing for the World Chmpionship in the last 10 minutes of the last race of the year... OOOPPS!! Sorry have to advertise Kellogs cornflakes now!! Hang on a minute... Oh sorry guys while you were away the whole world exploded and Jaguar won the world championship and world peace is declared everywhere and the Queen died... anyway have some more FRIGGIN ADVERTS NOW!!!
You get the gist!
Well we moved to Thailand... Not because of this at all... but because it is warmer and nicer that England.. Totally unrelated reasons, honest.
Anyway we got here and I decided OK buy a tv and watch F1 - That was the only reason.. Ireally didn't want a tv at all. Anyway, I presumed it would be on here... Always was when I was in Japan and everywhere else in the world... But that was a few years ago and it is fast becoming apparent that F1 has already gone the same route as all sports.. Not enough people turn up to the events in the flesh to make the millions and millions that all the bread heads need from ticket sales... so lets make people at home buy tickets too!! Wicked Idea!
So in Thailand it is tied up by yet another monoploy... So with two minutes to go and realising I am going to miss the first race of the season I start frantically searching for feeds on the internet...
It's going well. I have found the F1 page and got live stats. No pictures.... just whirling numbers... but thats a start... Off to find a radio feed... This will do we will buy cable next week... Just for F1 mind not for crap movies or sitcoms or soaps!!
Radio 5 in the UK has a live web cast of sports... Wicked here we go..
Radio and some numbers flashing on the screen will do... For this week.
15 seconds to go..
Radio 5 announcement... "F1 Live coming up next..."
Excellent!!!
3.2.1.....
RECORDED MESSAGE... "We are sorry Radio 5 does not have a license to broadcast F1 live on the internet.. please tune in later....This can be heard on our terrestial broadcast on FMblahdy blahdy blahh" REPEATS
FUCK!
So we watched the little numbers on the screen and I got UBC cable the following day. £500 for the year! Not bad... A decent ticket at an F1 race will cost you that... not including travelling and beer at inflated prices etc..
Now we have the dubious pleasure of two presenters sat in an office in Hong Kong and two has been racers who are really bitter bitches sniping at F1 drivers while they whistle round the track.
It is live, when the feed works... And there are more adverts than you could shake a cat at... every five minutes on UBC...
But wait it gets better.. UBC in Thailand won't show adverts for free and there is no incentive because people are poor here for advertisers to pay anyway!!! SO WE DON"T EVEN GET THE ADVERTS!! WE GET A RED SCREEN FOR FOUR MINUTES EVERY FIVE MINUTES WITH A CRAPPY TUNE AND A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
I have no hair left!
