The Twitter outlook

So, then. What happens when one driver moves from a midfield team to a front running team, and another driver moves from a front running team to a front running team? The answer, is here…

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,155,790 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,123,104 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,100,489 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 498,191 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 442,369 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 300,415 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 269,231 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 202,488 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 180,199 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
10 – 180,141 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 23,535 – Sergio Perez
02 – 15,097 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 13,238 – Jenson Button
04 – 12,547 – Fernando Alonso
05 – 5,599 – Bruno Senna

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 333 – Charles Pic
02 – 514 – Timo Glock
03 – 619 – Jean-Eric Vergne
04 – 622 – Daniel Ricciardo
05 – 1,043 – Kamui Kobayashi

Moving to McLaren not only gained Sergio Perez an extra 23,000 followers, clearly his highest yet in this series of blogs, but it also sent him above 300,000 followers. Fernando Alonso’s fourth place is the lowest he has been ever in the increases chart, whilst Lewis Hamilton did not gain many more followers compared to Jenson Button or Alonso.

Outside of the top few positions, Nico Rosberg went over 200,000 followers, possibly a side effect of his new formed partnership with Hamilton and Pedro de la Rosa overtook Heikki Kovalainen for ninth place.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 343,334 – Ferrari
02 – 241,072 – McLaren
03 – 161,889 – Red Bull
04 – 153,836 – Mercedes
05 – 139,676 – Lotus
06 – 87,539 – Caterham
07 – 82,780 – Marussia
08 – 80,728 – Force India
09 – 78,719 – Sauber
10 – 76,455 – Williams

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 5,092 – McLaren
02 – 4,062 – Mercedes
03 – 2,909 – Ferrari

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 504 – Toro Rosso
02 – 594 – Caterham
03 – 599 – Williams

McLaren recorded clearly the highest gain in the past week, again thanks to Perez. Mercedes had their highest gain yet since I started this series, although before that, it is quite possible that they gained higher than 4,000 followers in a week when Rosberg won the Chinese Grand Prix.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 1st October 2012.

Blog announcement

This past April, after spotting that the F1 Broadcasting WordPress URL was free, I decided to press ahead and create an F1 Broadcasting website. When creating it, to be brutally honest, I had no idea whether people would be interested, let alone choose to read it. There were two ways the blog could have gone, it could have turned into a desert with no one reading, or it could climb up to bigger heights. Thankfully, the latter has happened. As of today, 500 people follow this blog on Twitter, and over 26,000 hits have been recorded since the end of April. For what is essentially a broadcasting site that, for me, is a big achievement.

The main reason for creating it also, was because I was about to have a lot of spare time given that back in April I was close to finishing my first year at University. As of tomorrow, that spare time will decrease, because tomorrow I begin my second year at University. Some people may have thought that I have worked in broadcasting before, that is untrue. Like you guys reading this, I am a fan with an interest in broadcasting, hence why I pressed ahead with the site. Starting my second year at University means though, that inevitably the time I will be able to dedicate to this website will be less than what it has been for the past few months.

I don’t plan to close the blog down, this blog is staying, given how far it has come in such a short space of time, it would be nothing short of madness for me to close it down. The timetable that I have is favourable though in that only Tuesday’s and Thursday’s are very busy, meaning that I should still be able to blog occasionally. The regular pieces (Scheduling, Ratings and Twitter) should stay, but the opinion pieces may decrease depending on how much University work I have!

In any case, I thought I should let you guys know in case the blog activity declines in the forthcoming weeks.

Thanks,
Dave
Owner of The F1 Broadcasting Blog

More details about “Britain’s Next F1 Star” revealed

With a former World Champion one is on the move, today seems like an apt day for talking about future British World Champions. With that in mind, and as first noted on The F1 Broadcasting Blog this past Monday, I can now confirm scheduling details for “Britain’s Next F1 Star”. The programmes, to be broadcast on Sky Sports F1, will profile six up and coming stars as they attempt to climb the ladder to Formula 1.

Each of the six episodes will air on the Thursday before a Formula 1 race weekend, and as thus, the scheduling is expected to go as follows:

– Episode 1: Thursday 4th October, 19:30 – Seb Morris
– Episode 2: Thursday 11th October, 19:30 – Jordan King
– Episode 3: Thursday 25th October, 19:30 – Joshua Hill
– Episode 4: Thursday 1st November, 19:30 – Alice Powell
– Episode 5: Thursday 15th November, 19:30 – Dean Smith
– Episode 6: Thursday 22nd November, 19:30 – Alex Brundle

The programmes have been produced by USP Content, and will be sponsored by Scalextric, with Henry Hope-Frost narrating. Repeats of the programme will air throughout the respective race weekend, so there will be ample opportunity to catch the episodes. Each episode profiles that particular driver from birth to current status, while going behind the scenes with them at various events.

A full synopsis of each episode will be up on the blog early next week.

Pay TV station Sport1 expected to win exclusive live Formula 1 rights in Netherlands

In a case of “it is a good day to bury bad news”, over in Netherlands today, it is being reported that pay TV station Sport1 are expected to win the rights to screen 18 races exclusively live, with the other races being shared with a terrestrial television free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster. In summary:

– 18 races: Sport1 exclusively, FTA broadcaster highlights
– 02 races: Sport1 and FTA live

As thus, the current broadcaster RTL7 will lose their current rights, with the FTA broadcaster next year either them or SBS. Netherlands are the latest country to switch to a pay-TV approach for Formula 1, with Britain and Italy the first countries to head in that direction. I’ve noted before that here in Britain, ratings have dropped since last year, that could be attributed to the new deal in place and/or the tough sporting competition this past Summer.

This past Sunday’s coverage of the Singapore Grand Prix had less than 356,000 viewers on RTL7.

Musical chairs from a broadcasting perspective

The news today that Lewis Hamilton will join Mercedes next season is not a particularly surprising story, given that Eddie Jordan revealed it a few weeks ago. Perez moving to McLaren though is the surprising half of the story, and one that was unexpected a few weeks ago. Firstly, a well done to BBC and Eddie Jordan for being first to the punch by reporting it, and pursuing the story further. It seems they were right by saying Hamilton would go to Mercedes, unlike Sky who in the days after appeared insistent that Hamilton would remain at McLaren.

From a 2013 broadcasting perspective though, it will make one particular person very happy. That person being Bernie Ecclestone. Formula 1 thrives on changing driver line-ups, and the media do love it. Changing driver line-ups means more stories, it means more rivalries, it means the potential to develop fan bases and therefore drives up TV coverage and hopefully television ratings at the end of it. The move for Sergio Perez to McLaren, one would expect, will therefore boost Formula 1 popularity in Mexico substantially, especially if he wins a Grand Prix, the first Mexican to do so since Pedro Rodríguez in 1970.

The reason that the driver changes are good for Formula 1 though is because, had the driver line-ups stayed the same, the product put out to fans could, potentially become stale. Yes, the racing may be at its best in a long, long time, but if there are no emerging talent coming through, then the worldwide television audience may decrease. Hence, why Perez moving to McLaren is a good move for all concerned. Had Hamilton stayed at McLaren, we could have been left with an unusual situation where Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have the same line-up for the fourth consecutive year. You can see why Ecclestone would consider that line-up stale for the product put out to fans. The staleness then resounds to the stories that are told during a particular season, it would be a case of “same old, same old, we’ve been here before”. New talent brings with it new stories, new backgrounds and a new audience to bring to Formula 1.

This afternoon, the FIA World Council is expected to confirm what I spoke about on the blog last week, that being the 2013 Formula One calendar. Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if New Jersey was dropped with the Mexico Grand Prix? Now that would be fantastic.