The Formula One motor-racing series has reported an increase in audience figures across both television and digital platforms for its 2017 season, claiming that F1 is now the fastest growing sports brand on social media platforms.
The 2017 season marked the entry of Formula One’s new ownership group led by US mass media company Liberty Media. In a report, Formula One said its cumulative television audience in the top 20 markets stood at 1.4 billion, representing an increase of 6.2 per cent compared to 2016.
The top 20 markets, in alphabetical order, are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, UK and USA.
F1 said the top four markets – Germany, Brazil, Italy and the UK, ranked by absolute figures – all registered positive growth. The strongest was Italy (+19.1 per cent), followed by Brazil (+13.4 per cent), the UK (+3.9 per cent) and Germany (+0.9 per cent). Other significant increases were registered in China (+42.2 per cent), Switzerland (+14.3 per cent) and Denmark (+14.1 per cent).
Cumulative viewing, both live and non-live, of races remained at around 603 million, with a one per cent increase in the live audience and improvements in cumulative viewing for both free practice and qualifying sessions.
During 2017, Formula One said 352.3 million unique viewers tuned into F1 programming at least once – the first time since 2010 that there was not a decrease in this specific number. In the main markets there was an increase of 2.4 per cent, with Mexico (+22.6 per cent), Italy (+16.7 per cent) and the USA (+13 per cent) leading the way in terms of improvement. Brazil remains the sport’s biggest television market with more than 76 million viewers, despite a slight decrease of 1.8 per cent compared to 2016.
However, the Forbes website noted that the equivalent report for the 2016 season described the audience figure as being global, with no mention of this benchmark for 2017. Forbes claims that the 2016 figure of 390 million was calculated using data from just 10 markets which was then extrapolated to give a global total.
For 2017, data from 63 markets was used to generate a figure of 352.3 million. Forbes said that if this measurement system was applied retrospectively to 2016 it would result in a similar total.
The 2017 report also outlined how the number of users of Formula One’s social media platforms grew significantly during 2017, with a total of 11.9 million followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Liberty has been keen to embrace such platforms to boost the presentation of the sport, with the improvement compared to 2016 up to 54.9 per cent, a figure which the report said made Formula One 2017’s fastest growing sport brand on social media.
On Facebook, the minutes of video viewed were up over 1,600 per cent compared to 2016, reaching more than 390 million. The report said this was chiefly due to the qualifying and race highlights, the most seen content, especially for the races held in the Far East.
On Twitter, video content was the best performing, with over 64 million views, up 165 per cent year on year. Instagram followers almost doubled during 2017, reaching 3.8 million.
Sean Bratches, managing director of commercial operations at Formula One, said: “Central to our efforts last season was to improve the fan experience across our platforms and it is encouraging to see the engagement that fans around the world have with Formula One media.
“Our work continues as Formula One fans will see material changes in 2018 with respect to both incumbent experiences and the creation of new ones. It is a good time to be a Formula One fan.”