You will have read - No MotoGP On Sky !!!!!!
The following response to my email to a TVNZ spokesperson is a bit like losing the winning Lotto division one ticket in the gutter and then picking up the division two ticket.
BUT - it could be better than the big fat nothing that Sky have offered to date:
Dear Bill
Didn\'t know that news from Sky, interesting.
We are talking with the suppliers of Moto GP right now, but at this stage we would not have LIVE coverage due to the costs and then also the clashes with things like F1 etc. The joys of only having limited amounts of time.
What we are looking at doing this year is taking the whole review show that they make which will give us coverage from 125 / 250 and the main MotoGP, these should screen the week after a round has happened depending on the tape supply which we are also looking at right now. The tapes leave Spain where the show is edited in the middle of a week, so it is going to depend on how long they take to get here.
I know that you would like LIVE coverage but we also thought Sky had it so never looked at it when budgets etc were getting done.
Sorry it\'s only a bit of a help.
***********
TVNZ Sports.
My message read:
Hey *****
You have provided some very welcome coverage of motorcycle sport in the past.
Sky have pulled the plug on MotoGP coverage......
Is there any possibility that TVNZ could now lead a cavalry charge and rescue the droves of followers and fill that void ???
Regards
Bill W.
Meantime I got this message - the same message that everyone has received who has questioned the frustrating and bizzare decision by Sky (what a wonderful thing \'cut and paste\' is.....)
Thank you for your email and comments.
Once a contract for a sport has expired SKy puts in a bid for the continuation of rights.
Unfortunately our bid was not accepted by the distributor this year and they were unwilling to negotiate a price.
While we would love to continue showing the MotoGP, the asking price was prohibitive and since we don\'t have an unlimited budget we were unable to secure rights for this seasons races.
We will continue to put in a bid each season hoping to secure rights.
Regards,
Jill Dicken,
Programming Liaison Officer.
But don`t let that stop you continuing to rattle Sky\'s cage, for if you don\'t - we won\'t have live MotoGP in \'05 either !!!!!