The F1 App ramps up video content

Since launching a few weeks ago, the F1 App is already growing, and adding new content. For 2014, there are two versions of the app: a free (lite) version and a premium version for £7.49, the latter of which contains exclusive team radio, live timing amongst other things. The app also comes with BBC Radio 5 Live commentary for the entire race weekend. The app has been brought in house by Formula One Management (FOM) over the Winter break. Having been developed by Softpauer for 2013, this year, a company called ‘Formula One Digital Media Limited‘ (FODM), under the FOM umbrella has taken over the app.

So, what does this mean? To put it simply: FOM can do a lot more with the app, they have more control. And by creating a new company, it means that anything concerning the app can fall under this company. An aspect FOM also promoted was ‘video’, but they never specified what video. Why is this a point of interest? Because already one and a half race weekends into the year, FOM are already increasing what they are offering on the app. The first sign of video content popped up on the official Formula 1 website a few days prior to Australia, with an eleven minute insight into the regulation changes for 2014. That video is also notable for archive footage being featured, the first occurrence of that happening on the website. Video content continued into Australia: a pit lane insight with Gary Anderson, following him parting company with BBC and also an eight minute interview with Felipe Massa and his race engineer.

We’re not even half way through the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend and already there is more video content than Australia. There was a video with James Allen talking about the heat added, whilst a video was uploaded from Thursday with Caterham’s Alexander Rossi doing the track walk accompanied by Bob Constanduros, finishing off with Anderson interviewing a member of the Caterham team. At eleven minutes in length, the amount of detail it has to be said was more than your typical BBC or Sky feature which is normally snipped down to three or four minutes for TV, whereas an app doesn’t have any such restrictions. The best thing about the videos already mentioned is that FOM are utilising Anderson! If a technical row breaks out at all this year, you may find that the best analysis is not on BBC or Sky… but in fact on the official F1 App, which would be quite a turn around considering this is completely new territory for FOM.

The most interesting thing is that a round-up of practice two was uploaded, and not geo-blocked. I’m not sure whether that is surprising or not. At the end of the day though, it is FOM’s footage so they are free to do what they want with it. I don’t think the broadcasters will be too happy if FOM start throwing a lot of World Feed footage onto the app, however it is a very clever move by FOM where the app is concerned, start from the ground up, and then gradually add more videos each race weekend. Arguably this is better than doing everything all at once: see what the customer likes and work from that base point onwards and upwards. I don’t know whether this is the plan for the entire season, but it seems like smart marketing to me.

I’m going to be fascinated to see where we end up with the app come Abu Dhabi, whether they stick to a certain amount of videos per weekend, or whether it will be a constant work in progress. I’ve criticised FOM a lot for failing to see the digital age for what it really is. But this is a brilliant step in the right direction. Yes, social media, Twitter, Facebook needs to be worked on significantly (@F1 has only retweeted once, and it is clearly not fully human yet), as always though you need to start somewhere. And who knows, maybe live streaming via the official Formula 1 website and app could happen sooner than you might expect…

MotoGP viewership drops without FTA live coverage

A new era in the broadcasting scene began for MotoGP this past weekend on BT Sport and ITV4, with diminishing returns, as the sport found itself being watched by less people than the previous BBC and Eurosport deal, unofficial overnight viewing figures show. In 2013, the race was screened exclusively live on BBC Two from 19:30 to 21:00, the race starting an hour later in 2013 compared with this season. The programme averaged 1.67m (6.9%), peaking with 2.12m (8.4%) at 20:40.

Compare that to last weekend. BT Sport’s programme, from 15:00 to 20:30, averaged 126k (0.8%). When comparing with the equivalent BBC slot for the MotoGP race last year, from 18:30 to 20:00, that averaged 187k (0.8%), peaking with 230k (1.1%) at 19:05. ITV4’s hour long highlights show last night average 492k (2.2%), peaking with 603k (2.6%) according to unofficial overnight viewing figures, including +1. This brings us to a combined average of 679k, and a combined peak of 833k. For both years, viewing excludes anyone who viewed via the internet, so all viewing via the BT Sport app or their website is excluded, whilst the same also applies for anyone who viewed MotoGP in 2013 through BBC iPlayer. I would hazard a bet that the latter figures would be higher than the former, meaning that the overall effect is negligible.

So, are the figures any good? I said previously that if BT’s average, for the MotoGP part, was around 200k to 250k, then that would be acceptable (250k being their rumoured expectation), with ITV4’s highlights adding a further 400k. That would bring a combined figure in the 600k region, with a peak realistically near to 1 million. I’d say the figures are positive, but also a tale of two halves. Given the amount of promotion that they have done, BT’s figures are lower than I expected. On the other hand, ITV’s highlights deal came with little fan-fare and no promotion in comparison to BT. Yet, despite being on 24 hours after the original race, it brought nearly half a million viewers. BT Sport will claim to increase the sports popularity, except the viewing figures show completely the opposite. In many ways, the ITV4 viewership number has ‘saved face’. It is one of ITV4’s highest ratings of the year, only behind football and numerous repeats of Storage Wars.

I think you could run around this subject a lot, but the fact is that, thanks to Dorna taking the money and not the viewers, the viewership has halved. Julian Ryder said on Twitter last month that without BT Sport’s money, some teams would not have been on the MotoGP grid this year. I have no reason not to believe Ryder, and trust what he is saying. But instead of going to pay TV, surely MotoGP should have had a look at itself and say how do we make ourselves marketable to the wider public in the UK? If it wasn’t for the ITV4 deal (which Dorna themselves did not promote on the MotoGP website, with a press release, like they did twice for BT Sport), then MotoGP would have been turned into a niche sport.

So, will the declines continue? I think they will, be not to the extent we seen in Qatar. If ITV4’s highlights stays around half a million viewers, with BT Sport adding say 150k for the European races, then it won’t be a million miles away from BBC’s ratings. I think Dorna would have perhaps been hoping for a higher BT figure and a lower ITV4 figure. The gap, and how the viewing changes over the season will definitely be one to watch. If I’m a betting man, I’d say MotoGP will lose viewers this year, but thanks to the ITV4 deal, this has definitely been a better deal for Dorna than many people may have expected…

Scheduling: The 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix

Whether it is noise, fuel or just, you know, the racing that gets you talking, there is plenty on the agenda as Formula 1 heads to Sepang for the Malaysian Grand Prix. The Malaysian circuit is highly regarded by Formula 1 fans, this year is its 15th anniversary on the calendar having joined in 1999. The race will be the first of nine races to be screened live on both the BBC and Sky Sports F1 this season. Before getting into the main details, the most important point for all of those in the UK is that the clocks go forward one hour in the early hours of Sunday morning. So, just be wary of that if you plan to put your alarm on. If you want to jump to the schedule, click on the links below…

– Thursday 27th March
– Friday 28th March
– Saturday 29th March
– Sunday 30th March
– Wednesday 2nd April
– Classic F1

Based on comments in Australia, I don’t believe that Eddie Jordan will be with the BBC team in Malaysia, so expect to see Allan McNish alongside Suzi Perry and David Coulthard for the build-up and post-race reaction. Over on Sky Sports F1, ahead of ‘Senna Week’ at the end of April to mark the 20th anniversary of Ayrton’s death, Bruno Senna will be making his first appearance with the team in Malaysia. I did at the time say that Bruno would be a good addition to the Sky team, nothing more, nothing less. Whilst we don’t have concrete details, I think it is fair to assume that he will be playing a significant part in the Senna programming coming up, which was probably the main reason for Sky getting him on-board in the first place.

The F1 Show from Malaysia will be a Williams special, which should be good. I assume the entire show will be from location in Malaysia, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some of it was coming from the studio in London if they are going to showcase some of the old Williams cars. As I have done in the past, again in 2014 I will include non-F1 content of my choice, in other words, if I plan to watch said motor sport, I’ll add it below. This week, the IndyCar Series is back on BT Sport, albeit on ESPN, whilst the BTCC returns to ITV4, with Steve Rider fronting the coverage and David Addison and Tim Harvey in the commentary box.

Thursday 27th March
07:00 to 07:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
20:30 to 21:00 – F1: Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
20:45 to 21:00 – F1: Gear Up for Malaysia (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 28th March
01:45 to 03:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
01:55 to 03:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
05:45 to 08:00 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
05:55 to 07:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Two)
08:00 to 08:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
10:00 to 11:00 – The F1 Show: Williams Special (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 29th March
04:45 to 06:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
04:55 to 06:05 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
07:00 to 09:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
07:00 to 09:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
13:15 to 15:30 – F1: Qualifying Replay (BBC One)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

NOTE: Clocks go forward one hour, with the change from Greenwich Mean Time to British Summer Time. The times below are BST…

Sunday 30th March
07:30 to 12:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 07:30 – Track Parade
=> 08:00 – Race
=> 11:30 – Paddock Live
08:00 to 11:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
10:30 to 18:00 – BTCC: Brands Hatch (ITV4)
11:15 to 12:15 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
13:45 to 15:45 – F1: Race Replay (BBC One)
20:00 to 23:00 – IndyCars: St Petersburg (ESPN)

Wednesday 2nd April
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
An addition to the Sky Sports F1 line-up starting this week is some classic season reviews from the 1970s coming out of the Brunswick Films archive, which is really good as Sky have not shown much content from that era, their ‘GP Uncovered’ strand has tended to focus on the 1950s and 1960s, whereas of course material owned by FOM is 1980s onwards. 2001 Malaysia was included in the provisional schedule, but again failed to make the final cut, which suggests that the copy FOM has is incomplete, or without UK commentary.

27/03 – 21:00 to 23:45 – 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix
28/03 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2002 Malaysian Grand Prix
29/03 – 09:45 to 10:45 – 1970 Season Review
29/03 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix
30/03 – 12:15 to 13:15 – 1971 Season Review
30/03 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix
31/03 – 21:00 to 21:35 – 1982 Austrian Grand Prix Highlights
01/04 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2012 Canadian Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
02/04 – 21:00 to 00:00 – 2012 Singapore Grand Prix (Sky commentary)

As always, if anything changes I shall update this blog if necessary.

A look behind the scenes at FOTA: Part 2

Last week, I had the chance to talk to the former secretary general of the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA), Oliver Weingarten. In part one, Weingarten spoke about a series of subjects, including how he felt the FOTA fan forums went and whether Formula One Management (FOM) is behind the times where new technology is concerned.

In the second and final part, I quizzed Weingarten about the current state of Formula 1, and also about whether Formula 1 moving to pay television is really the right thing for the sport. Part 1 can be found here.

The F1 Broadcasting Blog: Formula 1 is all about politics. Do you think some teams wanted FOTA to fail without thinking about the greater good?

Oliver Weingarten: There were factions in the sport that wanted [us] to fail, and there were those who perceived it [FOTA] no longer had relevance. However the majority of teams were in favour of FOTA, and recognised the benefits of having an organisation which could conduct matters on their collective behalf, and also provide an infrastructure where they could coalesce as and when needed, and also have the ability to respond in a swift manner with a unified voice. The fact is that FOTA conducted matters also on behalf of teams that were not members of FOTA, such as testing agreements [with circuit owners], and negotiations with Pirelli, whilst most generally wanted to be involved in fan forums. Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso [in 2013] was the star of the UK fans’ forum!

F1B: We’re seeing more often than not motor sport going down the pay TV route, of course the BBC and Sky deal from a few years ago and more recently, MotoGP to BT Sport. Whilst I know that you’re not part of the two wheeled paddock, do you think eventually we will see Formula 1 in the UK and the other territories go pay TV only? Do the teams feel that pay TV is the way forward in order for the sport to flourish? [note: I asked OW this question before it was announced that MotoGP was going to have a highlights show on ITV4]

OW: In my opinion, and those of the teams when I was at FOTA, the belief may not have matched the market reality. Free to air has its inherent benefits, in respect of generally obtaining more eyeballs and exposure for sponsors, but there has to be a recognition that the trend for sports rights over the years has seen a migration to pay TV. Public service broadcasters have seen severe budget controls imposed which has impacted on their ability in markets to obtain sports rights.

F1B: …even with the BBC budget cuts though, for example, that doesn’t mean we should completely forget the free to air viewer. I’d argue that a bit of both [free to air and pay TV] may be the best solution.

OW: A mix of free to air and pay TV can work well. In the UK, arguably more people watched the [2013] Malaysian Grand Prix via a mix of Sky Sports F1’s excellent live coverage and thereafter BBC highlights, as opposed to if it had just been on the BBC in the early hours of the morning. The competition amongst broadcasters has also improved the offering for consumers. Accordingly I believe sponsorship deals are not conducted anymore in F1 just on the basis of the amount of exposure on free to air. Sponsors are becoming a lot more sophisticated and understanding of the business model.

F1B: Lastly, do you have any regrets from the past few years, and what do you think Formula 1 has learnt about itself as a result of FOTA, if anything?

OW: My biggest regret is not achieving what I was hired to achieve, or at least provide assistance to achieve. The landscape changed dramatically within two months of my employment commencing. Teams had resigned, were arguing over cost control, the Geneva office was being closed down, and most significantly teams struck individual deals with the Commercial Rights Holder (CRH), meaning that the idea of collectively bargaining to achieve a better commercial position, was made redundant. The perception of FOTA became negative, and whilst there were a lot of positives, these were never championed loudly, and sometimes not even publicly. A lot of ideas I had from my previous role, were therefore never utilised. The teams recognise that whilst there is so much competitiveness and self-interest across the paddock, it makes it difficult for FOTA to operate on contentious issues, particularly when the structure of the CRH is as it currently is.

A look behind the scenes at FOTA: Part 1

One of the biggest Formula 1 stories to occur over the Winter break was the disbanding of the Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA). The association aimed to “promote the development of Formula 1 and enhance its worldwide image and reputation” whilst also promoting a united front towards the FIA when debating future rules, sporting and technical regulations.

Sadly though, after nearly six years, self interest soon got in the way of the greater good, and on February 28th, FOTA announced its intention to officially disband. So what good, if anything, came out of FOTA? I caught up with Oliver Weingarten, who was the secretary general of the Formula One Teams’ Association, and is currently in the process of trying to dissolve FOTA. Weingarten previously worked for the Premier League, where he was General Counsel responsible for commercial and IP issues for 7 years. Over two parts, Weingarten talked to me about social media, the controversial double points plan and whether FOTA did really make any change for the better, amongst other subjects currently surrounding the world of Formula 1.

I began by asking Oliver about the FOTA fans’ forums and his opinion on how they went.

The F1 Broadcasting Blog: One of the success stories of FOTA were the fan forums that were held periodically. How easy were these to set up, and also did any broadcasters ever show an interest to televise these forums?

Oliver Weingarten: If I am honest, these were very stressful generally to organise. From finding a date that suited the teams, to ensuring there was the right mix of team personnel and ex-F1 personalities, to finding the correct venue, advertising and managing the registration process, seeking funding, and liaising with broadcasters, procuring branding for the forum, organising AV (audio/video) companies were all very time consuming.

F1B: Sounds like that you were very glad then when the day itself came around!

OW: To be fair, on the day, I was always concerned namely in respect of two issues. Will the teams turn up? How many fans will attend? I was always relieved when they concluded, and the feedback from teams and fans alike was generally very positive, which provided a genuine sense of satisfaction and achievement. My aim was to bring the fans closer to the sport, therefore [that was] the reason for introducing live streaming, and the Twitter interactivity, where on numerous occasions, we had #FOTAFORUM trending worldwide on Twitter, and fans watching on-demand after the Forum.

F1B: It’s funny you mention Twitter, because from an outsiders point of view, it feels like Formula 1 is behind the bend with new technology. The move to high definition was several years later than other sports including the Premier League, whilst Formula One Management (FOM) are still in 2014 running an automated Twitter feed. Do you think some within the paddock are ‘old school’ and don’t appreciate the value of social media?

OW: I can see why that might be the view, but [I] actually believe that F1 has tried to keep up and satisfy the broadcasters’ demands, and you only need to look at Sky’s output to see this. The second screen has become a phenomenon, and the use of virtual advertising is at the heart of technological developments to enhance revenue via tailored territorial advertising. I do not disagree that FOM should be more embracing towards social and digital media, and inevitably this will have to evolve, but concentration on the live output is the core principle that is enshrined, and anything else has to complement that and ensure the broadcasters and consumers receive the requisite offering.

F1B: Whilst on the subject of social media, I want to ask about double points. Over the past few months we have seen the backlash concerning double points, however it feels that fans view points are being ignored. If anything the loss of FOTA has meant that one of the last bridges between the paddock and fans has disappeared.

OW: During my tenure, when there were issues affecting all teams, we would generally try and discuss them in a cordial manner ahead of the respective meetings. Sometimes there was an agreed position, and often there was not. Unfortunately double points was presented by the Commercial Rights Holder (CRH) initially to the Strategy Group and thereafter to the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC). The reasoning was presented to the teams and they had their own reasoning for voting in favour. This was not an issue we discussed at FOTA level, given the status of FOTA at that point in time, when most discussions were focused on the requirement (or otherwise) to retain an association. Time will tell if the reasoning to introduce double points is strong enough to outweigh the fans’ voice, which as you point out, was a severe rebuke for the Teams. There was a plan for a series of fan “surveys” to be conducted globally online in 2014 under the auspices of FOTA, and this is certainly one issue which could have been addressed.

F1B: If we may just for a second go back to the new technologies point above, video sharing websites such as YouTube have been around for a decade. MotoGP has a YouTube channel, the IndyCar Series has a YouTube, yet Formula 1 doesn’t.

OW: Why don’t they have a YouTube channel? I know from my Premier League days that they wanted to prevent their content being uploaded and this was to protect the value of the broadcasters’ rights. There is an argument that there should be more tailored content available, whether that is on FOM’s website or YouTube. You have to also remember how the broadcasting deals are structured.

Interestingly, since I chatted with Weingarten, there have been a few interesting developments concerning FOM. The premium version of the official F1 Timing App includes exclusive team radio and English commentary. Furthermore ‘Formula One Digital Media Limited‘ was registered as a new company at Companies House on February 27th, whilst a video explaining the rule changes and giving a season preview was uploaded to the official Formula 1 website on March 10th, with archive footage included. Are FOM finally beginning to realise that the digital future is here, and now? I hope so.

In part two, myself and Weingarten continue chatting about Formula 1, as our focus switches towards the current television broadcasting model and whether FOTA was doomed to fail from the get go.