Happy 2nd Birthday!

On April 24th, 2012, I launched The F1 Broadcasting Blog. As you’d expect, things began with a standard ‘Welcome‘ piece. Two years later, this site stands at 555 posts and counting. Below are some of the statistics so far surrounding the blog…

– Total of 460,000 hits
– 44,000 unique visitors in March
– Over 3,500 followers on Twitter
– Amassed over 1,900 comments since inception
– Average of 800 views per day
– Visitors from 174 countries
– Connections with members of the F1 paddock and beyond

I’ve said it before, but it needs to be said again. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, shared and helped the growth of this site, without you, the site would not be what it is today. It has also in some ways, been an experiment for me. When I started two years ago, I didn’t know how popular the site would become. Which was some of the fun of it, not knowing where it would end up. I think its probably one of the best decisions I’ve made launching the site, it definitely has been enjoyable along the way. So, what has been the most popular content since the launch? Below are the most viewed articles from the past two years.

10. Are Sky going to withdraw F1 channel from old ‘HD Pack’ subscribers this month? – September 1st, 2013
Trying to update readers on the status of Sky’s legacy ‘HD Pack’ wasn’t easy. This is not the only entry on the subject inside the top ten…

9. Dissecting Georgie Thompson’s decision to leave Sky F1 – February 25th, 2013
I attempted to look at Georgie Thompson’s decision to leave the Sky Sports F1 team. No official comment was ever made on this matter, but Thompson turned up as presenter on new American talk show Crowd Goes Wild on Fox Sports 1.

8. Doing the sums: the cost of viewing Sky Sports F1 this year – January 31st, 2013
Unsurprisingly, a popular article last year involved people looking for the cheapest way to view Sky Sports F1 legally. The popularity of that article spawned a 2014 version focussing on both Formula 1 and MotoGP, the latter no longer live on terrestrial television.

7. A few thoughts on Jake Humphrey leaving the BBC – September 18th, 2012
In September 2012, it was announced that Jake Humphrey would be leaving the BBC. In typical style, I published my reaction to his departure and speculated about who would replace him as F1 presenter. In all cases here, I was wide of the mark with my guesses.

6. Predicting BT Sport’s MotoGP team – October 24th, 2013
I should have learnt my lesson with number seven to not bother predicting things, sadly I didn’t learn and decided to predict BT’s MotoGP team. Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone predicted who the presenter would turn out to be!

5. Italian Grand Prix records highest rating since 1998 – September 10th, 2012
I can thank Jake Humphrey for this one. Another ratings related article, except in this case Humphrey decided to share it via Twitter. To date, September 10th, 2012 remains the most viewed day in the blog’s history, which shows how much power Twitter has.

4. Are current Sky ‘HD Pack only’ customers with Sky Sports F1 set for a shock? – June 1st, 2013
Any money related articles are popular. This, the first ‘HD Pack’ rumour falls into that category. I don’t envisage any future articles on this particular train of thought, the consensus for Sky subscribers is “switch from the legacy HD Pack, and you will lose Sky Sports F1”.

3. ITV4 win rights to screen MotoGP highlights – March 8th, 2014
The big news from last month was that ITV4 were going to screen MotoGP highlights on Monday evenings, following BT Sport winning the rights to screen the series exclusively from this season onwards.

2. Georgie Thompson leaves Sky’s F1 team – February 15th, 2013
In a surprising move, Georgie Thompson left the Sky Sports F1 team after only a year in the role, with Natalie Pinkham taking over her duties. The news was broken exclusively on this blog, with mainstream newspapers picking the story up a week later.

1. Gary Anderson to leave BBC’s Formula 1 team – January 13th, 2014
Another person leaving, one year after Thompson. This time it was Gary Anderson, as he parted company with the BBC team.

So, what lies ahead? One thing I do want to do, where possible, is more behind the scenes pieces, and hopefully that has been noticeable in the past few months, with a look at The F1 Show, a trip of my own to Silverstone, and also an interview with former FOTA secretary general Oliver Weingarten. Alongside that, there will be the usual ratings pieces, scheduling pieces and all the latest news snippets from the world of motor sport broadcasting. It needs to be noted that from October the joys of a dissertation to complete will be heading my way, but as I have done in previous years, the blog should continue rolling along.

Thanks for reading!
Dave,
Owner of The F1 Broadcasting Blog