Source: Mercedes-Benz Archive

F1 News

Formula 1 tv audience could shed 5 million in 2019

Formula 1 tv audience could shed 5 million in 2019

24-12-2018 11:23
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Nicolás Quarles van Ufford

The United Kingdom's television audience could be set to lose around five million viewers in 2019, as just one free-to-air will be available next season compared to the ten in 2018.

Sky Sports, who broadcast every race live but are behind a paywall, struck a deal with the F1 in the Bernie Ecclestone-era to have exclusive rights in the UK to all live races except for one; the British Grand Prix.

This means that for people who aren't willing and able to pay for Sky, 20 of the 21 races will now only be visible through a highlight package on Channel 4, where ten races were previously broadcasted live.

According to research by PitPass, highlight packages got viewed by 580,000 fewer people than live broadcasts in 2018 on average. Multiply that number by nine (as nine more races won't be broadcasted live anymore), and you get a number around 5,2 million viewers you're losing out on just because of the paywall.

In the short run, this will only end up being more profitable for the F1 and therefore for the teams (who get a large slice of the F1's profits in prize money) because of the increasing amount of paid subscribers, but the net loss of viewers could impact sponsorships. After all, a sponsor wants as many eyeballs on the sport as possible, paying or not. If you lose viewers, you lose sponsors, it's quite simple. Could the paywall be a bad thing after all?