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

2013 has been a fascinating and intriguing year in the motor sport broadcasting world, with several stories which will only firmly take shape in 2014. With nearly 300,000 views, there has been significant interest in some angles as the year has progressed. BT Sport. World Rally Championship. IndyCars. Sky Sports. Just some of the buzz words that have got you talking this year. However, there can only be ten in the top ten and here is a look back at those more popular blogs from 2013.

10. The status of IndyCar’s UK broadcasting rights – January 8th
As we headed into 2013, the location of IndyCar’s whereabouts was unknown. I attempted to put forward a few possibilities, as Sky Sports stopped covering the series. In the end, they went ESPN, which turned into BT Sport, until 2015.

9. BT Sport secure exclusive MotoGP rights – May 9th
Probably the biggest motor sport broadcasting story of the year, without a doubt. This had been rumoured in the week beforehand, but it was still a shock to the system. How well will MotoGP do on BT? Time will tell.

8. Tom Clarkson added to BBC F1 TV team – March 6th
In the week before the new Formula 1 season, it was announced that Tom Clarkson was going to become a permanent member of the BBC F1 team. With not much known about him, readers turned to this blog post to find out more.

7. Sky confirm Sky Sports F1 pack changes from April 1st – March 6th
Given the way Sky’s prices have gone in the past few years, this was not a surprise. Let’s hope that Formula 1 fans get to save a few pennies where television subscriptions are concerned in 2014.

6. Doing the sums: the cost of viewing Sky Sports F1 this year – January 31st
I would normally advise readers to read blog articles, but there is not much point in reading the above, as it is now outdated. A follow up post was published in May. Still, a lot of people clearly wanted to know the cheapest method for consuming Formula 1 in 2013.

5. The ratings picture: The 2013 Verdict so far – August 20th
The picture half way through 2013 looked positive, what we didn’t know was just how much Sebastian Vettel was going to dominate!

4. Dissecting Georgie Thompson’s decision to leave Sky F1 – February 25th
One of the mysteries of the year! She eventually went to America, although the timing of it is still one that confuses me considering the decision appeared to have been made late by herself. What was once a mystery, remains a mystery.

3. Are current Sky ‘HD Pack only’ customers with Sky Sports F1 set for a shock? – June 1st
A recurring story throughout the year, once in June and once in September. The line, most of the time, was that nothing was changing. Unless you decided to change your package of course, then you would you lose access to the channel. One to continue in 2014, I feel.

2. Predicting BT Sport’s MotoGP team – October 24th
Despite liking motorcycle racing, I won’t claim to know a lot of pundits and experts in that area. Nevertheless, I thought I’d roll the dice and start predicting who would be part of BT Sport’s MotoGP team. As of writing, the team is still to be announced.

1. Georgie Thompson leaves Sky’s F1 team – February 15th
Written before number four, this can be best described as a disappearing act, given that no official statement was released. A large amount of interest in the news, given her long term stay with Sky!

The next few months look set to continue in the same vein as 2013, with BT Sport beginning their coverage of MotoGP.

Since launching in April 2012, The F1 Broadcasting Blog has accelerated quicker than I imagined. And with it, the blog now gets hits from many different places on Earth, some perhaps more surprising than others.

With nearly 300,000 views, people from 152 countries have visited the blog in 2013, 16 of those countries have visited the blog only once, so if you happen to live (or have lived!) in Fiji or the Bahamas, then consider yourself lucky. It is perhaps unsurprising that nearly 82 percent of visitors are from the United Kingdom.

Top 10 Countries – Percentage of all hits
01 – 81.8 percent – United Kingdom
02 – 3.3 percent – United States
03 – 2.3 percent – Ireland
04 – 1.4 percent – Canada
05 – 1.1 percent – Australia
06 – 1.0 percent – Italy
07 – 0.9 percent – Netherlands
08 – 0.7 percent – France
09 – 0.6 percent – Germany
10 – 0.4 percent – Spain

Despite having social media channels on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, in terms of where people are referred from, search engines are still king by a very wide margin. 114,000 hits clicked through from elsewhere – 64.8 percent of that was from search engines, and as the below shows, Twitter is still a fair bit away from search engines in that respect.

Top 5 Referring Website
01 – 64.8 percent – Search engines
02 – 22.2 percent – Twitter
03 – 4.7 percent – F1Fanatic.co.uk
04 – 2.3 percent – Facebook
05 – 1.3 percent – Digital Spy Forums

It will be interesting to see how the dynamics above change in 2014, I suspect that Twitter traffic will go up, whilst there will be more overseas visitors, although obviously that depends on what sort of stories break in 2014, both here and abroad. We’ve established that quite a few people have entered the blog via a search engine, but what phrases have they typed in?

Top 10 Search Queries
01 – f1 broadcasting blog
02 – georgie thompson
03 – f1 broadcasting
04 – tom clarkson f1
05 – sky f1 team
06 – f1 sky broadcasting blog
07 – tom clarkson
08 – lee mckenzie
09 – has georgie thompson left sky f1
10 – georgie thompson f1

Before the season, a lot of attention was on Thompson, with no official announcement on her leaving the Sky team, hence many people ending up on this blog as a result! In a similar sense, not many people knew who Tom Clarkson was, as there is no profile for him on the BBC’s F1 website, so web users ended up here.

The top ten blog posts for 2013 will as usual on New Year’s Eve, but I thought you guys would like a look inside the blog and see just how people landed on the blog!

Statistics compiled and correct as of December 27th, 2013.

My second year running The F1 Broadcasting Blog is coming to an end, which also means that 2013 is coming to an end. Today though, there will not any other content other than to say Merry Christmas! I hope all readers, and lurkers alike, have a safe, relaxing and sound Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The blog has gone from strength to strength in 2013, and, in a similar manner to that of a current four time Formula 1 champion, records have been toppled constantly. Nearly a quarter of a million hits alone this year, whilst social media traffic has increased exponentially too. Thanks to each and every one of you. By reading and commenting, you play a part in the site’s success.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Cheers,
Dave
Owner of The F1 Broadcasting Blog

Yes, it is that time of the year again, where The F1 Broadcasting Blog makes a blog announcement. Which can only mean one thing. I am afraid that blog activity from tomorrow will be decreasing. However, the reasons behind the decreasing activity are slightly different this year. Instead of going to complete my University degree, I will be heading onto an industrial placement for the next nine months. Before I get asked, it is not a broadcasting or motor sport related placement, I hasten to add! Although I am very much looking forward to it.

What this does mean is that I will not be blogging as much, and I’d expect blog pieces to be restricted to scheduling and ratings. I will try and get an opinion piece in here or there, but it may not always be possible, we will have to see how it goes, and in some cases where I have written opinions, I’ll schedule them to go in ‘gaps’. I have written a few pieces over the weekend, which will be going live on the blog in the forthcoming weeksa. The blog will keep running, just at a slower pace compared to the past few months. As always, I am astounded by the amount of interest in the blog, and it is a pleasure to hear that the blog is being read by figures within the paddock and by experts.

Since April 2012, the blog has amassed nearly a quarter of a million views with over two thousand Twitter followers. I’ve said it before, but those are staggering numbers for what is an F1 Broadcasting blog. Thanks for reading!

Dave,
Owner and Writer of The F1 Broadcasting Blog