Putting F1's TV ratings decline in context

Analysis: Putting F1's TV ratings decline in context

Interesting article on motorsport, and some shocking figures. The answer to the following is rather simple, however!

First of all, people these days are ****ing cheap, especially the under 25s they lost so many of. Free internet streaming, with slightly rubbish commentary and split screen adverts. Paying means ZERO adverts, choose commentary team, choose cameras etc.

Secondly, and a pretty important point...the racing has to excite again. No double standard steward rulings and my comment on how cars should be to improve racing and spectacle are well known here but in a nutshell: Simplified aero to allow cars to follow each other, cheaper and better sounding engines. I know a few people will come and say that these engines are the future of CARS, but with the ever declining numbers of F1, the future of Formula 1 will not be here much longer, so we can actually save the sport before it's too late.

 

I know this sounds like going backwards. If you take off all aero, and go back to metal brakes the racing could be closer. And lets hear some hi reving multi cyl. engines! OK my rant is over, back to boring normal programing.

 

Agree 100% on the metal brakes. Short braking distance of the carbons ALMOST made an outbrake a thing of the past

 

Also the split screen commercials piXXes me off. Something interesting always seems to happen during a commercial and the incident is not always revisited. Sound of the cars sux too.

 

I don't think it's necessary to take off all aero, just reduce the ridiculous stuff we have going on now. The thought behind it and what guys like newey can do is amazing, but factually speaking it's killing racing as cars can't be followed. If we take a look at the front wings with 30+ elements on it, all steering bits of aero to parts that need it to get more downforce (add it all up and the downforce they get from it is amazing, frankly). As soon as they get into the dirty, unstable air (depending on track, but around 7 tenths to 1.5 seconds behind another car), the car behind loses tons of downforce, which in turn means he has to work the tires more aggressively to try and get passed the car in front, which of course eats the tires up at an incredibly rate. Drivers realistically only have a couple of laps before the tires start getting serious issues.

If we go back to the early 2000s, up till maybe 2003 or thereabouts, there may not have been much more overtaking, but cars followed each other closely (as in within 3 tenths!) for lap after lap after lap...The pressure was huge back then. Of course, with refueling back then strategy came into play, which meant drivers wouldn't take such a huge risk at overtaking another, if they where within the pit window it'd be easier to just box and fuel a second longer and try and overtake that way.

The aero was much simpler on cars back then.

Screaming engines of course help, and I dearly want that back. But if at least the on track action is much closer, I could almost forgive the sound (And sort it out later ).

 

The cable companies are quickly becoming a thing of the past... When MotoGP started offering their subscription package, I thought they were crazy, fast forward a few years and MotoGP is on the verge of surpassing F1 in terms of viewership. With the subscription I get the entire race weekend from Thursday interviews to Sundays post race, all the practice sessions, qualifying, races in all 3 classes. I can customize how I watch and listen, I can choose to stay onboard with one rider if I wanted. I can watch live or I can watch any session whenever I want, plus I can go back through some 30 years or racing if I wanted. No commercials or split screens. Most importantly it means I am in control, I can watch when ever and how ever I want.

 

My [problem with the F1 coverage I get is "Too many friggen commercials".

When I record the show on Mexican TV, there are only 3 <rather short> commercials during the whole RACE !!! {If I only spoke Spanish this would be my preferred version.}

There are 3 commercials in the last 20 minutes over here <bad><bad><bad>. It seems there is a commercial every time something actually happens on track!

I could go into the incessant announcing, but that is a story for another day.

 

People under 25 have less money than ever before. They don't *have* the money to spend on luxuries like expensive TV packages. It's utterly amazing that commercial rights holders don't undertand this. You increase the financial barrier to participation, you decrease that participation. Every payfer broadcast sport is experiencing large declines in viewership.

When you have large declines in viewership, a decline in revenue from sponsors also follow. Look at all the big teams in F1 now....they have sweetheart deals not available to anyone else. MB punches its own ticket. So does Red Bull. Marlboro punches Ferrari's ticket. McLaren? No big sponsors. Same for Williams, same for every other team. Even Honda couldn't find sponsors. Honda.

Why? Who would pay a premium price for a less than premium product? The answer is no one. How long can F1 survive from extorting large premiums from tracks? How long can F1 survive on the back of increasing costs and decreasing ads revenues?

 

The other difference with MotoGP is there is actual racing and the outcome is not known before the race starts. One has to watch the entire MotoGP race because you never know what could happen and who will really end up winning until the last lap is over. Spoiler alert, one of the Mercedes will win in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

 

Chuckle chuckle, here in far east, we have zero commericial for the whole fp, quali, and race. Zero, nada, nil.
And its free as long as you have internet. full 6 channel synchro broadcast of race/pit,

 

+1

I've made my feelings clear in the past on cost cutting and why it's absolutely necessary to do something before it's too late. Engine cost (due to complexity) is just completely insane.

If teams like Sauber, Manor, Force India fall, F1 has to go to 3 cars per team. Who can really afford that apart from Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari? Williams can't really ring up Martini and ask for 20+ million for another car, as martini simply doesn't get it in return. Mclaren can't ask for more money they aren't already getting. Remember that Toro Rosso is owned by Red Bull, their costs will increase significantly as well.

We may have hated the Nazi sex loving lawyer, but his points regarding cost cutting are completely correct.

Tobacco sponsoring is not allowed anymore, and few companies are making the kind of excess money they did and that can still piss it all away...Facebook, Youtube, Google, Apple...they could easily afford it but zero reason, so why should they?

I'm going to put myself on repeat but this time I'll try not to get into the same argument why ''it will never happen because the manufacturers don't see the point''.

F1 needs to go back to simple engines. Direct injection, NA V10/V12 (choose whatever), 4000cc, rev limited to ~15000. Add a KERS engine to put a smile on the environmentalists. Engines still have to last ~3-4 races, and will be able to. Less complicated, unit cost is MUCH less, companies like Cosworth can come back to F1 and supply teams. Back in the V10, tobacco sponsored era, when engines got developed continuously, an engine was £180-250k. Imagine how much cheaper engines could be now than that, let alone the V6 Hybrid engines.

Further cost reduce is by limiting front and rear wing elements. They are ****ing crazy. The amount of money to develop them is absolutely crazy. Stupid. They ruin racing. It's a no brainer fix.

Personally I'd like to see F1 go back to manual gearboxes again. There are no mistakes anymore. I can remember one mis-shift in the last 10 years, and that was Alonso doing a double up shift on the exit of parabolica during qualifying in 2006. Now, software prevents them downshifting to early or making a double upshift. We don't need 5000 different combinations of ratios, either. 3 pedals, gearstick. If you want to change your ratios, that's fine...swap out the ring & pinion on the final drive.

We have seen some incredible cars with the crazy development over the years, truly, wonderfully fast cars. But the racing is not good. Fans are leaving. Sponsors are leaving. There is still a recession going on and that will remain for a good while yet. Teams can't afford it anymore. I don't give a flying **** if Mercedes will leave if simplified engines are re-introduced, who says they're staying beyond 2018 anyhow?

I honestly believe with the simplified rules, racing will improve substantially. This, and the noise, will bring fans back. In turn, that will bring sponsors back. That means teams can remain, jobs are saved. Exciting F1, we may have Mercedes and Renault leaving in a strop because of the hybrid engines, but in turn we'll have engines builders coming back, hell, we could even see some manufacturers come back as an engine supplier. The cost won't be high, so it's a no brainer for some of them.

Ferrari racing a Honda powered Mclaren, racing Williams powered by Cosworth and Red Bull powered by either their own engine or something crazy, like Lamborghini or Aston Martin (in either case, Red Bull would likely fund the development), screaming, great sounding engines, close racing, mistakes happening because of misshifts and pressure. People don't have to moan about ''the glory days of the 80s'' but can actually say ''these could very well be the glory days we've been wanting to see...''.






Or, they could do none of that, wait for fans to drop off even more, engines to be even worse, and watch the sport fold. Their choice, I guess. The manufacturers seem to be heading the way of Formula E (cheaper, more relevant to current technology). F1 should be exciting and thrilling.

 

F1 faces a fight in the evolution of car technology. Faces revolution in how to watch and a fan base that no longer finds F1 compelling. How it survives is anyone's guess but we are probably watching the final evolution of it with the internal combust motors. I dont think in 10-15 years we have 'F1'. We have something else no matter the name. It is the way of the world and there is no fighting it. So enjoy what we have now as I dont think we will see it much longer.

No matter what brakes they use F1 is on the way out. The question is what will it evolve into or survive at all. Exciting and interesting time no matter.....

 

When F1 dumps the ICE engine it'll cease to exist. I think logically speaking manufacturers will end up playing in Formula E, and I do hope F1 itself will be rescued. They can run on bio fuel grown in fields quite easily to keep a ''green'' image.

 

Its not racing anymore. It's a video game.

And a real video game is more exciting.

F1 will die of it's own weight. It cannot support itself when advertising drops. When it's down to 4 teams and 2 engines, the sport will end.

My solution has been give each team for free the same aero software, no wind tunnel testing, and more track time for testing to make the cars reliable or catch up faster if they get off to a bad start.

Right now after the first 3 races you already know who will be the team champion. It's just waiting for the season to end.

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Being in the business as a designer of all sorts of race cars I am forever confused by just how bad F1 gets their rules.

Want people to watch F1? Simple:

1.) 1500 HP motors.
2. Narrower and or harder tires. Make it so car is on edge accelerating out of corner, under braking, etc. Make driver's right leg become "traction control". And left leg become ABS.
3.) Kill 80% of the aero. Simple front and rear wings, with a rational tunnel under car. (Tunnel means you are not making the Df exclusively with wings.) Which means when two cars get close to each other they can stay close to each other without having their balance go away. A little more complicated than I am making out but the theory is sound.
4.) Keep braking power limited but effective. Carbon is fine-actually cheaper over a season than iron!

This will create longer braking zones, with cars able to stay tight behind each other. All that power and harder tires will generate lovely power slides out of corners, less aero means more yaw angle in car-nice 4 wheel drifts thru corners, etc. And all controlled by the driver! Great acceleration out of corners-limited by wheelspin. Drivers would love these cars.

But no aero and skinny tires and 1500 hp means too high a top end. No-it doesn't have to be that way. You are limited in acceleration by wheelspin, so you cannot use that 1500hp all the time. And then braking zones will be much longer-so the effective flat out 100% throttle on zone on any any straightaway is limited both ways braking and accelerating.
Top speeds may go up some-that can be dealt with, if a problem with some nice big wing gurneys here and there, etc.

Basically return the control of the cars to the drivers, give more hp than the tires can handle, give less tires than he brakes can use, get rid of the aero crap that prevents close driving.

Cars will be 50% cheaper, team sizes can go down 60-80% (Mostly engineers-Yea--Me!) and there will be real drama on the track.

Put on a big fin and large wing end plates for sponsor decals, to keep them happy.

 

Right now, despite all the talk about the worrying decline in viewing figures, all those in charge of F1 are interested in is getting the big bucks now!

Take the UK's situation:

For years, the only place you could see F1 was on terrestrial TV (with or without adverts depending on which channel had the coverage), and all of the races were shown live.

Then SKY TV turned up and tried to get exclusive rights to show F1 but the owners of F1 said no, their sport must still be made available to the mass public on free to air TV as well, and so SKY had to share all of the live races with the BBC/ITV.

In the meantime, those in charge of F1 kept on putting the price up and up and up for those wanting to show the sport, resulting in the free to air coverage eventually becoming 10 live races only, with the other 10/11 races shown as a highlights package, whilst all 20/21 races were shown live on SKY TV who were prepared to pay the price.

Now, come 2019, the owners of F1 have done a deal to give exclusive live race coverage to SKY TV until 2024 - Stating in the contract that a highlights package must be made available to a free to air channel as well (NOTE: There's no mention that any channel must take up that option though- They just have to make it available!).

The contract also states that the British Grand Prix must be shown live on free to air TV, but that's because it is classified as one of the UK's "protected" events by the Government.

Now what needs to be realised is that, whilst just about everybody in the UK has free to air TV, only @1/3rd of the people in the UK have SKY TV.

SKY TV is hoping that F1 fans in the UK will pay up and take on their service, but the reality is that very few will, and the UK F1 TV audience will shrink massively, but that's of no immediate interest to the owners of F1 because they've already got SKY's money in the bank, so they don't give a s:censored:t if 10 people watch the coverage or 10 Million are watching.

Bernie Ecclestone has even suggested that somehow, making F1 a pay per view sport only will increase it's popularity!

By 2024, I suspect the reality will be quite different to Bernie's vision and F1 will become a minority sport in the UK due to fans losing interest as a result of the ever increasing restriction on their TV access to the sport, but so long as the owners get their money again from SKY TV, they won't give a rat's rectum!

And that goes for the World wide TV audience as well - As long as the owners are getting the TV money for the sport then they're not going to care what the viewing figures are.

However, if the viewing figures drop enough that the TV companies decide they no longer want to pay the price for the sport, then the owners might care - The trouble is, by then it might just be too late to save the sport!

 

Younger audiences don't expect to have to pay anything for content. They watch stuff on YouTube, on their phones. All the services they use on the internet are free - FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, DropBox etc. It's all completely free (free as in beer). Music and Netflix take care of legitimate content for less than £15 a month. That means you can watch pretty much any film or TV show, or listen to any piece of music you like, for less than £200 a year. Or you can get it all on BitTorrent for free. This is the backdrop against which the new owners of F1 will have to fight for new consumers, and against which Sky want to charge almost £1000 per year to watch what has become a niche sport.

Sky is bloody expensive for what it represents to the hardcore F1 fan. I go to 3 or 4 races per season, I run a couple of F-cars - but would I pay for Sky? No - it represents terrible value for me, as all I want to watch on it is F1. The cost per hour of content is too much. I won't be signing that Sky contract even when it's the only game in town for live F1.

Anecdotal, sure, but that's the dilemma for F1. Young people won't pay for it because their generation expects not to have to pay for stuff that you can't physically hold in your hands. Older generations won't pay for it because it represents poor value compared to just about everything else that competes for their disposable income.

I think the Sky model works well for other sports - look at football. There's just so much content - tens of hours per week, for most of the year, on most days. Cricket? So many different formats and tournaments. A game can last five full days! F1? Not so much. An hour of quali and a couple of hours of racing, every other week. You can add an hour on for the GP2 races if you like, even though hardly anyone watches it, but it still doesn't add up to much.

This is why Liberty want to add more races - to generate more content. However, I think they're barking up the wrong tree. They need to add more content by making it more attractive to watch other classes of motorsport, or by altering F1 in such a way that a race weekend generates more content. GP2 racing is great, but the drivers aren't superstars, and superstars are what attracts casual interest. I mean, only about a quarter of the F1 grid could be considered superstars. Marcus Ericsson? Esteban Gutierrez? Who are they? They're nobodies and will be forgotten in a couple of years. Why isn't GP2 more known-about, in the same way that Championship football is? Why isn't it a bona-fide second division of F1, with driver promotions or team promotions, funded by prize money? It's not possible for an average footballer to buy a position in a Premier League team - why is it possible in F1? (Hint: unfair prize money distribution). Why are there five hours of practise on a F1 weekend, but only probably an hour of interesting action? (Q3, race start, last third of race).

I could go on with the questions, but what I find most surprising about F1 is that there's so much radical stuff they could try, yet they're pissing about with radio rules and DRS. I'd even class the 2017 changes as pissing about. The new fans that F1 NEEDS to attract in order to survive don't care that the rubber is wider, or that the rear wing is lower. They don't care how many ponies the engines chuck out or how many second a lap quicker they are. It's the format that's staid, the competition that is dire.

If F1 were purely a business, it would die, and none of its customers would mourn it.

 

According to this month issue of "Motorsport Magazine", Mercedes has already filed a provisional entry for Formula E, beginning 2018...
So yes, they are at least evaluating their options already.

Rgds

 

I guess Liberty are pretty smart ...they will be implementing new strategy's and a big part of that will come under the steady hand of one Mr Ross Brawn at the wheel.

Don't worry guys he can and will sort the mess out ..eventually.

 

+1

Sensible propositions.

Cars have to be difficult to handle: excessive power, narrow tyres and next to no aero will sort the men from the boys !!!

 

Because of several factors, F1 as we know it will cease to exist one day.

Lack of support from the manufacturers, excessive cost, decline in public interest, new technologies outside motor racing, ecological concerns, noise abatement, all those will contribute to its demise.

The internal combustion engine will not be relevant within 50 years, and everything associated with it become obsolete.

 

Tony Brooks said, back in the sixties, that a racing car should always have "slightly more power than the chassis and tyres could handle".

Rgds

 

Agreed: IF, and I said "IF", the bill to ban all cars with internal combustion engines in Germany from 2030 onwards is implemented, Mercedes would see no reason to subside a Formula One racing team anymore. Better invest towards another technology commencing right now. And as I wrote above, they have (according to the last issue of "Motorsport Magazine") filed a provisional entry for Formula E starting 2018...

Rgds

 

Yes, the writing is on the wall for the ICE.

Apart from ecological concerns, banning the ICE makes perfect sense from an economic point of view.

Millions and millions of car owners will have to buy new (electric) cars within a few years whilst their diesel and petrol will be banned.
That will give a huge shot in the arm for the car industry, and guaranty job security for many years in car factories, and boost the economy.

Most car makers are already getting themselves ready for a switch to electric power.