Dear Axel,
We are writing to inform you of upcoming changes to F1 TV in France to ensure compliance with anti-tobacco advertising legislation in France and its territories. Live sessions for F1, F2, F3 and F1 Academy will still be available via F1 TV Pro. However, the following programs will no longer be available on F1 TV Pro from July 11, 2024:
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Replays, summaries, and pre- and post-race shows for the entire 2024 season.
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Archives of races from previous seasons.
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All shows and documentaries such as Tech Talks, Jolyon Palmers Analysis and F1 Icons.
Due to these changes, we are offering you two options.
Option 1: Continue your subscription and renew at a reduced price.
As an annual subscriber, we offer you F1 TV free for 6 months, after which your subscription will automatically renew (in accordance with our terms of sale) at the new reduced price of 49.99 EUR. This means that you can continue to use F1 TV without paying any additional fees until your next renewal on May 9, 2025. Please note that this will take effect from your next renewal after July 11, 2024. The price of your annual subscription previous one was 64.99 EUR.
Option 2: Cancel your subscription ย
If you are subscribed via our website, you can cancel your subscription viaย this link. You can also contact our customer service here.
Important :ย
The next time you log in to F1 TV, a window will appear asking you to consent to these changes to maintain your subscription. ย We understand that this change may cause inconvenience and we apologize for this.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our customer service.
Sincerely, The F1 TV team
How does this work? Why is it allowed for live sessions but not for replays? And I am guessing it's due to vaping sponsorships, since tobacco sponsorship isn't allowed in F1 in the first place?
My guess is that F1TV don't want to bother with blurring every tobacco and vape sponsors in live session and every replays like Canal+ does.
I guess it will be something like that, but you'd assume it's 1) less of an issue to blur a replay compared to a live session and 2) if you've already blurred it live, you don't have to do it anymore for the replay.
Either way, shitty that they just cut their offering. Sorry for the Frenchies.
Your assumptions are valid, but I think it does not make sense to put the resources do this only for a single market and not globally.
So you're suggesting they degrade F1 TV for the entire planet?!
No, not at all, just that it wouldn't make sense financially to put the resources to create a broadcast (and replays) exclusive to France, so they chose to not provide replays instead.
...oh. That makes sense.
Canal+ uses the the international feed though, live or replays. Tobacco ads are only blurred for highlights.
These laws have been a thing for decades now, and now just in France. it's really weird.