The F1 digital service was housed at each Grand Prix in a huge tented complex covering 2,000 square metres, which was dubbed Bakersville after Eddy Baker, the man Ecclestone trusts to direct the TV feed. It began broadcasting in 1997 but has never really taken off.
According to the Daily Mail, Ecclestone decided to close the venture after reviewing the first season of Sky's pay-per-view coverage.
In an interview with The Guardian at the start of November, Ecclestone expressed surprise at the lack of interest in pay-per-view, telling the paper: "I still don't understand why people won't pay what has been asked of them. It's not just the UK, it's worldwide. It's quite incredible that pay doesn't work. I sat down with [Rupert] Murdoch a few years ago and we thought, the two of us, that all major sports would be on pay-per-view eventually. It just hasn't worked. Baffles me."
The digital feed ran for the three days of each Grand Prix, and allowed viewers to select different views ranging from in-car shots to pitlane cameras and access to some of the telemetry from the cars, showing speed and the G-forces experienced by the drivers. It was available in the UK on Sky Digital at a cost of £12 a Grand Prix weekend.
The broadcasting set-up will now be used by Ecclestone to improve terrestrial TV coverage, which had not been given access to many of the camera positions used by the digital service. Terrestrial viewers were given a taste of the digital feed during this year's US Grand Prix, when no local broadcaster could be found to provide terrestrial coverage.
It proved popular with viewers, who saw a lot more mid-field action and less of the race leader Michael Schumacher who was, as he was in most of the 2002 season, in a race of his own.
F1 has had a dismal year in 2002, with the overwhelming dominance of Michael Schumacher and Ferrari hitting TV ratings hard. The sport is also going through financial difficulties. At the start of the season, the Prost team went bankrupt, while the Arrows team has attempted to go into administration after missing most of the second half of the season and losing title sponsor Orange.
Last week, Jordan Grand Prix announced that it had lost £16m of sponsorship funds when DHL and Deutsche Post pulled out of being title sponsors.
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