APRIL 29, 2002

Hollywood threatens F1 money supply...

THE Kirch empire continues to amaze as it staggers on with only KirchMedia in administration. This company has no immediate influence on Formula 1 revenues or ownership but its sister company Kirch PayTV is important as it is the source of a large part of F1's income from pay-per-view television. This week a number of Hollywood film studios are trying to negotiate a deal in which they take over the business rather than claim the money that Leo Kirch promised to pay them. If the studios do take over it is unlikely that they will bother trying to make Kirch's Premier pay-TV channel a success. That would wipe out all pay-per-view income for F1 from the German market.