F1: Bernie vows to protect free to air broadcasts. Sort of

Last year, Malaysian audiences were treated to F1 coverage (for most races) live (not delayed by two minutes), with BBC commentators and very few adverts - all on a free to air national TV channel.

This year they get delayed (by two minutes), ESPN Star commentators and levels of advertising that disrupt the racing.

The delay means that viewers cannot make use of the F1 website's live timing while watching the race. Steve Slater is a brilliant statistician and has an incredible memory of the history of the sport - and a very limited grasp of what is actually happening during a race. The adverts not only disrupt the race, frequently missing out as much as two whole laps, but they run, on occasion, only four or so laps after the previous adverts. Not only that, ESPN Star put adverts around the race screen - and then Slater breaks off from talking about the race and reads out the advert.

For 2011, the race is shown in High Definition so that's a bonus.

But it's not a free bonus - for this is no free to air channel. As a result of a deal done in late 2009, ESPN Star is the sole carrier of F1 across almost the whole of Asia Pacific. And ESPN Star is a paid for service.

For High Definition, users pay an additional fee.

So in addition to being bombarded with adverts that would cause an uprising if they were to disrupt soccer in the same way, F1 viewers in HD have to pay twice.

According to an article in the UK's The Guardian newspaper last Thursday, the paper asked Eccleston is free to air is still an issue. ""Definitely, 100%. If, and I think the chances are close to zero, but if Murdoch was to buy certainly he'd have to broadcast some free-to-air like it is now."

Not in Malaysia, it's not, nor across much of Asia - the region that Ecclestone has been so assiduously courting for the past decade or so with races in China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Australia. Most of that area is within the monopoly coverage granted to ESPN Star.

The BBC won the broadcast rights in a bidding war with advertising supported ITV which had, similarly, disrupted coverage with adverts despite a promise made before ITV won that viewers would not miss a thing. They did.

But the BBC is not permitted to show its coverage outside the UK - although lucky users of UK specification satellite dishes across much of Europe can receive a signal. It's probably illegal but no one seems to care much. Malaysian and other Asian viewers are not able to stream BBC's online coverage (because the BBC blocks it) - unless they can get a decent connection via a proxy server set up in the UK, which is not easy - and is also may illegal under UK computer intrusion laws which prohibit all access other than on the terms set up on the site.