Formula 1 soars to 18 year overnight race high in USA

I knew the numbers over in the USA for the Malaysian Grand Prix were excellent when I posted them on Twitter last night, but I didn’t realise just how good they were.

Today, NBC Sports have issued a press release stating that the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix recorded the highest rating for an overnight race in the USA on cable in nearly 18 years! I find that frankly astonishing considering the trend for Formula 1 in general appears to be heading downwards across the world. From the press release:

Malaysian Grand Prix in the USA
2013 – 121k
2014 – 248k
2015 – 384k

Where the growth stops, I don’t know, but F1 is definitely tapping into a new market in America, which can only be a positive for the sport.

News round-up: Australia gets 50/50 split; F1 website roll-out coming

Before I get into the round-up, a quick update on the status of this blog. As regular readers may be aware, I am currently in the final year of my undergraduate degree. This means that, especially in the last few months, I have been spending less time maintaining the blog, which is why the news round-up’s have turned up sporadically, so I can bundle what would be three or four separate articles into one succinct post.

On some days, time is limited to just University work (or relaxing!), meaning that writing new content for the blog is an afterthought. The reduction in content will continue for at least the next month, but should pick back up as we head into April. In the mean time, this is what has been dominating the agenda during the past week.

Australia gets a BBC/Sky style deal
It was rumoured late last year that Australia would be heading towards a shared coverage deal from 2016. Critically, the structure of the deal would be different to that of BBC and Sky, with Network Ten and Fox Sports sharing coverage every race, but Fox Sports would broadcast every practice and qualifying session exclusively live.

The shared deal between Fox and cash-strapped Network Ten has now been confirmed. Unfortunately for Australian readers, there were two big surprises. The first is that the deal between Fox Sports and Network Ten will be structured in exactly the same way as the BBC and Sky deal in the United Kingdom. Secondly, the deal comes into effect from this season. Yes, that is the season that is less than a month away!

Reading around, it looks like Fox Sports will be taking Sky Sports F1’s UK commentary. Some people have interpreted this as meaning that Australian viewers will also have access to content such as Ted’s Notebook and Sky’s pre and post-race coverage. I don’t believe that is the case. Australian television has taken the UK commentary for years, going back to the late 1990’s, perhaps even earlier, and never was it accompanied by the extras that UK viewers get.

The new F1 website gets closer
A teaser banner promoting the new Formula 1 website has been posted on the current Formula 1 website, with the tag-line “All the action, anytime, anywhere.” The images in the banner clearly show that the new website is mobile ready and configured for different types of devices. It looks like the new website will arrive before Australia, although no date has been confirmed. Presumably it will be the same date as the new 2015 Formula One app, but nothing has been made official.

You would have to squint to decipher anything else from the four screens, but a member button is clearly visible in the top right of each screenshot, which supports previous comments made by Marissa Pace, Formula One Management’s Digital Media Manager. In an article (£) this week, Jonathan Noble, AUTOSPORT’s Group F1 Editor, said that Formula 1 needs YouTube, a thought I completely agree with, as it would help immensely in introducing F1 to the next generation. Pace mentioned that YouTube will happen with regards to F1, but when? Well, that’s the million dollar question. Beyond the membership area, there is nothing else to say about the screenshots, but good luck to anyone who wishes to try…

Changes elsewhere
Speaking of AUTOSPORT, there is a fair bit of movement happening over there, almost like the F1 media has its own transfer window! Pablo Elizalde left AUTOSPORT to join Motorsport.com as of February 1st. Elizalde was not the only journalist heading out of AUTOSPORT’s doors, earlier this week, it was announced that Jonathan Noble will be joining Motorsport.com from May. Both of them are huge gains to Motorsport.com’s portfolio, as it becomes increasingly clear that they are looking to become a major player in the digital world. With Charles Bradley leading the ship, it will be fascinating to see where things head from here.

With exits, there are arrivals. Lawrence Barretto jumps ship from BBC’s F1 online team to AUTOSPORT as their new F1 reporter. That in itself is a big move, not only do AUTOSPORT gain a talented writer, but BBC’s F1 online output is once again sliced. At this point, Andrew Benson must be the only permanent F1 writer that BBC have.

More pre-Australia scheduling news
The special Formula 1 edition of A Question of Sport will air next Friday (27th February) at 19:30 on BBC One, it has been confirmed. I’m a bit surprised that this wasn’t held back until the Friday before Melbourne if at all possible to help build-up to the new season. The edition features McLaren test driver Kevin Magnussen and Red Bull boss Christian Horner alongside BBC F1 team members Suzi Perry and David Coulthard.

Elsewhere, the Australian Grand Prix Qualifying programme will be broadcast live on Sky Sports F1 as usual, but also Sky Sports 1 and Sky1, which is an unusual occurrence! The benefit of it being on Sky1 is that Sky1 has a +1 service, for anyone who wishes to have an extra hour in bed. The race will still be exclusively live on Sky’s F1 channel.

Looking at NBC’s Road to Mercedes

The F1 Broadcasting Blog tends to only focus on the programming that BBC Sport and Sky Sports produce in relation to Formula 1. Given that the blog is UK-centric, that’s perhaps not surprising. However, over in the States, one broadcaster produced some top quality content in 2014 that is definitely worth reviewing on the blog. Enter NBC Sports.

It was announced in October 2012 that NBC Sports would be taking over the rights to cover Formula 1 in America, succeeding the SPEED Channel in covering the sport. NBC’s coverage, plus the return of the United States Grand Prix, has meant that viewing figures have surged in the States. Whilst numbers are still relatively small, and have yet to break into the millions, the rise can only be seen as good news for the sport, which looks to exploit the American market further.

One aspect outside of the NBC F1 team’s control is the number of commercials, however what they produce is of course in their control. Alongside its usual Off the Grid programme, which goes behind the scenes during a race weekend, NBC have also produced two documentaries under the Road To strand. This began with the Road to Ferrari, and has since been followed by the Road to Mercedes. The Road to Mercedes documentary premièred on NBC Sports during the 2014 United States Grand Prix weekend and, as with Off the Grid, it was presented by Will Buxton and producer Jason Swales. Immediately this is a striking difference compared to other Formula 1 programming that readers may have watched: Swales is normally a producer, yet he presents some of NBC’s programming alongside Buxton.

Will Buxton and Jason Swales at Reims for the Road to Mercedes documentary.

The title of the programme might give a clue about what it is about, a journey from Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix to Hockenheim, the home of Mercedes and home to the German Grand Prix (for 2014, at least). The journey, done aptly in a Mercedes GL63 AMG, takes Swales and Buxton through several motor sport hotspots. After going over the ferry (which was not Buxton’s favourite point!) from England into France, the two take a trip to Reims, the first of several trips down memory lane. The imagery at this point is simply stunning, looking down the old, disused pit lane at Reims. Some of the shots really help put things into context between the modern and ancient. It beggars belief that the old pit lane is still standing after nearly fifty years, but it is.

As night dawned, France turned into Germany, and quickly Reims turned into the Nürburgring. “When I think of the Nürburgring, I don’t think of this,” says Swales. Of course, Swales is comparing the current Grand Prix circuit to the Nordschleife. Before going around that beast though, Buxton and Swales take the Mercedes road car around the modern Nürburgring along with a visit to the Kiemele museum in Ditzingen. The Kiemele museum aims to restore old Mercedes cars back to a usable state. Buxton notes that it takes the museum 3,000 hours to restore one car, a mammoth effort just to get it into working condition. It was not long before Buxton ended up behind the wheel of one of the many cars that Kiemele had restored!

Will Buxton as a passenger. Going round the Nordschleife. In the rain... — Will Buxton as a passenger. Going round the Nordschleife. In the *rain*…

Next up, Buxton and Swales head to a Mercedes factory, in which we learn that producing a V8 engine takes only three and half hours – simply ridiculous and shows how sublime the work that Mercedes do is. A programme called the Road to Mercedes would not be complete without heading to Mercedes’ homeland: Stuttgart, which is where the Mercedes-Benz Museum is located. Buxton describes it best as “heaven”, with many classic motor racing cars on display. It was simply amazing to see the wide range of machinery. If you ever go to Germany, I get the impression that this is one place that must be on the ‘bucket list’ of places to visit.

The journey concludes at Hockenheim during the 2014 German Grand Prix weekend, in which Buxton gets a rare interview with Dieter Zetsche, the Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. Following a recap of the race, it was clear that Hockenheim was not the final stop. Instead, it was back to the Nürburgring, except this time it was the Nordschleife in a Mercedes SLS. In the rain, with Nico Bastian driving Will Buxton around the monster of a track. Typically, Flight of the Valkyries can be heard in the background as Bastian tackles the beast and Buxton hangs on as best as he can! Again, like at Reims earlier, this produced some fantastic imagery as the Mercedes SLS snapped sideways on a few occasions.

“I feel sick,” Buxton exclaims as he gets out of the SLS. The programme is just one of many excellent programmes that the NBC Sports have produced in the past two years, showing that it is not just BBC and Sky that produce good Formula 1 programming.

Nearly six million watch Rosberg’s title defeat in Germany

Whilst a peak audience of 7.9 million viewers watched Lewis Hamilton win Formula One title number two in the UK, over in Germany, viewing figures were solid, but not spectacular.

According to Quotenmeter.de, an average audience of 5.74m (34.2%) watched the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from 14:05 German time on RTL. A further 180k watched on Sky Deutschland, bringing the combined audience to about 5.9 million viewers. That compares with the 4.35m (25.3%) that watched the Singapore Grand Prix on RTL in September, so the UK and German uplift was broadly similar.

As widely documented, the TV ratings in Germany have sharply dropped this year by about 30 percent. In fact, that 5.74 million number above is identical to the number that watched the 2013 Belgian Grand Prix, which shows how much the numbers have dropped. In the context of the season, the number is good, but year-on-year, its not been a great year for Formula 1 numbers in Germany.

It will be interesting to see whether the numbers increase again in 2015 with Sebastian Vettel heading to Ferrari…

The gradual move to pay TV continues for Formula 1

There have been two pieces of news concerning Formula 1 broadcasting rights in Australia and South America, and sadly for the paying consumer, both pieces of news will leave their pockets lighter.

Beginning down under in Australia, it looks like Network Ten will be sharing their rights with pay TV group Foxtel from the 2016 season. That is according to Speedcafe and AFR. The deal, however, will not be the same as BBC’s deal with Sky in the UK. Instead, Foxtel will broadcast every practice and qualifying session exclusively live, but crucially Foxtel will share live coverage of the race with Network Ten. So, every race in Australia will still be available live for free to air viewers.

At the end of the day, the race is the main event, and in countries where qualifying does not appear on the radar too much, the above is definitely a more viable option in my opinion compared with the current UK deal. If you like to watch every session and do not currently have Foxtel, you’re going to be pretty annoyed though, so its a two way street. There’s positives and negatives depending on how often you watch practice and qualifying.

Over in Latin America (excluding Brazil), a new Formula 1 channel is being launched by Mediapro. The channel, which is being distributed by Direct TV, will broadcast every session live, with ten of the weekends shared with Fox Sports. Slowly but surely, it looks like the shared model pioneered in the UK is taking over where Formula 1 is concerned. I don’t claim this list to be exhaustive, but the following countries/continents have recently switched to either a exclusive pay TV model or half free-to-air and half pay:

– UK (from 2012 – shared)
– Netherlands (from 2013)
– Italy (from 2013 – shared)
– Czech Republic (from 2015 – full pay TV)
– Slovakia (from 2015 – full pay TV)
– South America (from 2015)
– Australia (from 2016 – shared tbc)

Whilst you can point figures and blame certain things on track that have changed this year, the fact of the matter is that, as soon as you enter these deals, you limit your audience immediately. It depends of course on the pay TV penetration, but it is not good from a viewer perspective seeing Formula 1 behind a pay wall.