Any long-running soap opera reaches a stage where its storylines are all played out, viewing figures begin to sag, and sooner or later a new producer is hauled in to sort it out. At that point the regular cast begins to get twitchy, knowing that a catastrophic fire, a random murder or a hitherto unplanned "move to the city" may be coming their character's way.
This is the atmosphere in the Formula 1 paddock right now as the stakeholders, competitors and sundry hangers-on wonder what lies in the future - for their enterprises and their livelihoods as well as F1 itself - once the sale to Liberty Media goes through.
That's not to say that we might soon be welcoming back long-departed regular characters from times past (imagine: Flavio Briatore swipes through the paddock gates. Cut to close-up. "Ayyyy... Remember me?" Cue dramatic outro to closing credits), or meeting a new family with a mysterious past, or sharing Jean Todt's horror as he wakes up to find Max Mosley in the shower.
Heaven forfend that Lewis Hamilton is abducted by aliens in the season finale, although he'd probably post a video of it on Snapchat.
Few senior figures in F1 are willing to comment on the record about what they expect under the new ownership, bar the mouthing of vague platitudes.
"Hopefully for the US market it could be a great thing," says Red Bull's Christian Horner, "and some of the other platforms like the digital and social platforms could also be very interesting. So we'll wait to hear what their plans are in detail, but everything we have heard so far has been very positive."
"You probably don't need to reinvent the wheel," says Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. "F1 is one of the few very globally successful sports, Liberty is going to help us maybe tap new revenue streams, digital revenue streams and technology and then see if it's going to enhance the product."
If nothing else, statements such as these demonstrate that while plenty of people have opinions about what's wrong with F1, if you offer them an opportunity to set out a means of improving it, they'll just blither instead.
What will happen is that F1's business will be transformed from a murky fiefdom of handshake deals and offshore Russian-doll holding companies into something more modern, corporate and transparent. How long that process takes depends on how quickly the new owners usher the architect of F1's current labyrinthine commercial structure, Bernie Ecclestone, off the scene.
One of Ecclestone's most potent bargaining chips over the years has been the Byzantine nature of F1's many contractual arrangements.
It enables him to say that only he can run the business because only he understands it, and F1's present majority owner, CVC Capital Partners, has allowed him to stay on in the captain's chair for precisely that reason.
It's entirely possible that Liberty Media might do the same. But that's highly unlikely, since Liberty has already done what CVC never did, which is to install a chairman who plans to be hands-on. That man is Chase Carey, who until recently was a very senior executive within Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire.
Liberty Media is a different empire from Fox altogether, the domain of cable TV magnate John Malone, another of Carey's former employers. What unites these enterprises, apart from both having had Carey on their books at one time or another, is that they're facing the same problem of losing subscribers to cheaper web-based services.
The holy grail used to be (and for some companies still is) 'the bundle': upselling customers to expensive monthly cable/satellite/telephone/broadband/mobile subscription packages.
Live sport is just one of many forms of 'content' (as media wonks like to call it), preferably exclusive, that helps keep them locked in to a particular provider.
Formula 1's diminishing audience in territories where it has migrated to pay-TV platforms is evidence enough that there are some people who will never make this sort of addition to their discretionary spend.
Faced with the choice of paying to watch F1 live or not watching it at all, they choose the latter. And, increasingly, 'bundle' services are shedding existing subscribers who are beginning to balk at the monthly cost – media analysts have dubbed it "cutting the cord".
A recent Financial Times story about Carey's move quoted Rich Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG Research, and said: "For Mr Carey, a move away from a media company that used to buy sports rights into a sport itself is a logical step, according to Mr Greenfield. With commercial and distribution opportunities exploding on new platforms, owning sports themselves has become much more attractive, he says. Mr Carey has 'moved up the value chain... he is now at the pinnacle of the content itself'."
This phrasing makes it tempting to think of Carey, the one-time rugby player and famously tough deal-negotiator, as some sort of King Kong swatting biplanes atop the Empire State Building. What does it actually mean for F1?
Streaming is almost certainly on the table. Formula 1's present broadcast business model is rooted in the '50s, since it assumes everyone is sitting around a television watching it, perhaps in readiness for standing to attention when programming ends at 10pm sharp with the national anthem.
That's not how families consume 'content' these days. They don't sit together around the dinner table anymore, let alone a television, and they've become conditioned to expecting 'content' to be available on their phones, tablets or laptops. Even with a TV you can stream via devices such as an Xbox or an AppleTV (and with the latter, show web content on the big screen seamlessly using AirPlay).
Elsewhere in TV land, that venerable and conservative institution the BBC is getting digital platforms enshrined in the terms of the TV licence because it recognises that not everyone is watching its shows on a TV with an aerial or a satellite dish.
In the coming years, people who use the word 'broadcast' are going to sound as fuddy-duddy as those who talk of 'setting the video' or 'listening to the hit parade on the wireless'.
One of the main challenges in bringing this kind of approach on stream, as it were, is that F1 is heavily reliant on large media companies paying through the nose for the right to, er, broadcast it.
But this tap won't flow forever as the media landscape changes. In the past decade alone two UK terrestrial broadcasters – ITV and the BBC – have given the coverage up because they can no longer afford it.
Let's not forget, also, that one of the reasons we're pondering the ownership of F1 is that a controlling stake was sold in 2001 to a German pay-TV mogul who promptly went bust, leaving that stake in the hands of his creditor banks.
So what needs to change is the commercial rights holder's aversion to doing deals with anyone who doesn't approach with the proverbial suitcase full of cash. Liberty's modus operandi in its other sporting interests has been to try to widen the reach, and therefore the commercial appeal, of whatever sport it's promoting… rather than telling punters they aren't important if they can't afford a Rolex.
One suggestion floating around the paddock last weekend was the notion of doing more live events outside of grand prix weekends, and perhaps even outside the season. Apart from Red Bull, which is only in F1 to market its product, very few teams trouble themselves to do this unless a sponsor is paying for it. Kaspersky Lab, for instance, runs Ferrari events worldwide.
It doesn't happen now because there's no appetite within Formula One Management for anything that carries a risk without cash upfront. One reason for this, of course, is that the current ownership has burdened it with so much debt that it has to operate this way.
Even for someone as astute and decisive as Carey, it will take time to understand the nuances of the business, so change will not come about immediately. That will come as a relief to the legion of old Bernie chums and hangers-on who enjoy permanent honorary access credentials, many of whom looked palpably fraught last weekend as they faced the reality of the gravy train entering the terminus.
Ecclestone has said he expects to stay on for another three years to manage the transition, but insiders say the new owners will want to wrench his hands from the tiller before the current contracts with the teams end in 2020. Privately there are a number of individuals interested in taking his position, but all are wise enough not to show their hand too early.
Martin Whitmarsh has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Bernie as chief executive, but those close to him say he has not put himself forward. Most likely he is being used as a stalking horse, like Sir Anthony Meyer's minor role in the fall of Margaret Thatcher.
The smart money is on Zak Brown, founder of JMI, the marketing agency responsible for roping many of the sport's most recognisable sponsors. Practically every single logo apart from the 'speed mark' and the large 'H' on the McLaren MP4-31 came to Woking via JMI.
He has long been second only to Bernie himself as F1's pre-eminent commercial mover and shaker, and therefore knows better than to out himself as a candidate for the number-one spot before the time is right.
A brief but telling scene on Saturday in Singapore said much about the shift in power and the changes to come. Unexpectedly – since it was understood none of them was planning to attend – Ecclestone, Carey and CVC chief Donald Mackenzie arrived in town and took a walk down the paddock. The scene rapidly descended into chaos as all the photographers and cameramen in the world jostled to capture the scene.
Seasoned Bernie-watchers then looked on in horror as one of the lensmen actually laid a hand on Ecclestone and pushed him out of the way to get a better shot of the other two.
Extraordinary.
Perhaps it's a sign of things to come? "Get the old man out of the picture…"
Any long-running soap opera reaches a stage where its storylines are all played out, viewing figures begin to sag, and sooner or later a new producer is hauled in to sort it out. At that point the regular cast begins to get twitchy, knowing that a catastrophic fire, a random murder or a hitherto unplanned "move to the city" may be coming their character's way.
This is the atmosphere in the Formula 1 paddock right now as the stakeholders, competitors and sundry hangers-on wonder what lies in the future - for their enterprises and their livelihoods as well as F1 itself - once the sale to Liberty Media goes through.
That's not to say that we might soon be welcoming back long-departed regular characters from times past (imagine: Flavio Briatore swipes through the paddock gates. Cut to close-up. "Ayyyy... Remember me?" Cue dramatic outro to closing credits), or meeting a new family with a mysterious past, or sharing Jean Todt's horror as he wakes up to find Max Mosley in the shower.
Heaven forfend that Lewis Hamilton is abducted by aliens in the season finale, although he'd probably post a video of it on Snapchat.
Few senior figures in F1 are willing to comment on the record about what they expect under the new ownership, bar the mouthing of vague platitudes.
"Hopefully for the US market it could be a great thing," says Red Bull's Christian Horner, "and some of the other platforms like the digital and social platforms could also be very interesting. So we'll wait to hear what their plans are in detail, but everything we have heard so far has been very positive."
"You probably don't need to reinvent the wheel," says Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. "F1 is one of the few very globally successful sports, Liberty is going to help us maybe tap new revenue streams, digital revenue streams and technology and then see if it's going to enhance the product."
If nothing else, statements such as these demonstrate that while plenty of people have opinions about what's wrong with F1, if you offer them an opportunity to set out a means of improving it, they'll just blither instead.
What will happen is that F1's business will be transformed from a murky fiefdom of handshake deals and offshore Russian-doll holding companies into something more modern, corporate and transparent. How long that process takes depends on how quickly the new owners usher the architect of F1's current labyrinthine commercial structure, Bernie Ecclestone, off the scene.
One of Ecclestone's most potent bargaining chips over the years has been the Byzantine nature of F1's many contractual arrangements.
It enables him to say that only he can run the business because only he understands it, and F1's present majority owner, CVC Capital Partners, has allowed him to stay on in the captain's chair for precisely that reason.
It's entirely possible that Liberty Media might do the same. But that's highly unlikely, since Liberty has already done what CVC never did, which is to install a chairman who plans to be hands-on. That man is Chase Carey, who until recently was a very senior executive within Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire.
Liberty Media is a different empire from Fox altogether, the domain of cable TV magnate John Malone, another of Carey's former employers. What unites these enterprises, apart from both having had Carey on their books at one time or another, is that they're facing the same problem of losing subscribers to cheaper web-based services.
The holy grail used to be (and for some companies still is) 'the bundle': upselling customers to expensive monthly cable/satellite/telephone/broadband/mobile subscription packages.
Live sport is just one of many forms of 'content' (as media wonks like to call it), preferably exclusive, that helps keep them locked in to a particular provider.
Formula 1's diminishing audience in territories where it has migrated to pay-TV platforms is evidence enough that there are some people who will never make this sort of addition to their discretionary spend.
Faced with the choice of paying to watch F1 live or not watching it at all, they choose the latter. And, increasingly, 'bundle' services are shedding existing subscribers who are beginning to balk at the monthly cost – media analysts have dubbed it "cutting the cord".
A recent Financial Times story about Carey's move quoted Rich Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG Research, and said: "For Mr Carey, a move away from a media company that used to buy sports rights into a sport itself is a logical step, according to Mr Greenfield. With commercial and distribution opportunities exploding on new platforms, owning sports themselves has become much more attractive, he says. Mr Carey has 'moved up the value chain... he is now at the pinnacle of the content itself'."
This phrasing makes it tempting to think of Carey, the one-time rugby player and famously tough deal-negotiator, as some sort of King Kong swatting biplanes atop the Empire State Building. What does it actually mean for F1?
Streaming is almost certainly on the table. Formula 1's present broadcast business model is rooted in the '50s, since it assumes everyone is sitting around a television watching it, perhaps in readiness for standing to attention when programming ends at 10pm sharp with the national anthem.
That's not how families consume 'content' these days. They don't sit together around the dinner table anymore, let alone a television, and they've become conditioned to expecting 'content' to be available on their phones, tablets or laptops. Even with a TV you can stream via devices such as an Xbox or an AppleTV (and with the latter, show web content on the big screen seamlessly using AirPlay).
Elsewhere in TV land, that venerable and conservative institution the BBC is getting digital platforms enshrined in the terms of the TV licence because it recognises that not everyone is watching its shows on a TV with an aerial or a satellite dish.
In the coming years, people who use the word 'broadcast' are going to sound as fuddy-duddy as those who talk of 'setting the video' or 'listening to the hit parade on the wireless'.
One of the main challenges in bringing this kind of approach on stream, as it were, is that F1 is heavily reliant on large media companies paying through the nose for the right to, er, broadcast it.
But this tap won't flow forever as the media landscape changes. In the past decade alone two UK terrestrial broadcasters – ITV and the BBC – have given the coverage up because they can no longer afford it.
Let's not forget, also, that one of the reasons we're pondering the ownership of F1 is that a controlling stake was sold in 2001 to a German pay-TV mogul who promptly went bust, leaving that stake in the hands of his creditor banks.
So what needs to change is the commercial rights holder's aversion to doing deals with anyone who doesn't approach with the proverbial suitcase full of cash. Liberty's modus operandi in its other sporting interests has been to try to widen the reach, and therefore the commercial appeal, of whatever sport it's promoting… rather than telling punters they aren't important if they can't afford a Rolex.
One suggestion floating around the paddock last weekend was the notion of doing more live events outside of grand prix weekends, and perhaps even outside the season. Apart from Red Bull, which is only in F1 to market its product, very few teams trouble themselves to do this unless a sponsor is paying for it. Kaspersky Lab, for instance, runs Ferrari events worldwide.
It doesn't happen now because there's no appetite within Formula One Management for anything that carries a risk without cash upfront. One reason for this, of course, is that the current ownership has burdened it with so much debt that it has to operate this way.
Even for someone as astute and decisive as Carey, it will take time to understand the nuances of the business, so change will not come about immediately. That will come as a relief to the legion of old Bernie chums and hangers-on who enjoy permanent honorary access credentials, many of whom looked palpably fraught last weekend as they faced the reality of the gravy train entering the terminus.
Ecclestone has said he expects to stay on for another three years to manage the transition, but insiders say the new owners will want to wrench his hands from the tiller before the current contracts with the teams end in 2020. Privately there are a number of individuals interested in taking his position, but all are wise enough not to show their hand too early.
Martin Whitmarsh has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Bernie as chief executive, but those close to him say he has not put himself forward. Most likely he is being used as a stalking horse, like Sir Anthony Meyer's minor role in the fall of Margaret Thatcher.
The smart money is on Zak Brown, founder of JMI, the marketing agency responsible for roping many of the sport's most recognisable sponsors. Practically every single logo apart from the 'speed mark' and the large 'H' on the McLaren MP4-31 came to Woking via JMI.
He has long been second only to Bernie himself as F1's pre-eminent commercial mover and shaker, and therefore knows better than to out himself as a candidate for the number-one spot before the time is right.
A brief but telling scene on Saturday in Singapore said much about the shift in power and the changes to come. Unexpectedly – since it was understood none of them was planning to attend – Ecclestone, Carey and CVC chief Donald Mackenzie arrived in town and took a walk down the paddock. The scene rapidly descended into chaos as all the photographers and cameramen in the world jostled to capture the scene.
Seasoned Bernie-watchers then looked on in horror as one of the lensmen actually laid a hand on Ecclestone and pushed him out of the way to get a better shot of the other two.
Extraordinary.
Perhaps it's a sign of things to come? "Get the old man out of the picture…"
