Sidepodcast

What's the Business Case for ITV's F1 Website?

With the UK's Formula One television rights now in the hands of the BBC, we were expecting ITV's online F1 presence to disappear at the start of this year. Surprisingly ITV-F1 is still going strong.

It was pointed out to viewers at the end of the season, that the team had every intention of continuing with the site, but seeing as they no longer have any exclusive access, nor any unique video content, it's hard to see why they would bother?

Commercial Matters

The most likely answer is the site still brings in enough advertising revenue to justify it's costs. However, the main promotion for said site was a television program which regularly publicised it. Without any ongoing plugs, shouldn't the number of readers begin to drop like a stone?

Make no mistake, the British commercial broadcasters online popularity was massive. Googling the phrase F1 sees ITV listed second behind only Bernie's official homepage, and here's how Google Trends rates them compared to Autosport and F1 Live (who sit beneath them in the search results).

According to that data, ITV ranked second behind F1 Live throughout 2008, but ahead of Autosport. We can't see the most up-to-date information, but towards the end of November, after the season was over, they were clearly falling ever further into the clutches of Autosport's grasp.

You can see the chart in more detail on the trends website. It's hard to gauge just how reliable the figures are, but we were discussing web statistics in the comments recently, and by comparison they appeared to be the most reliable of those freely available.

I'm Not Dead Yet

With declining figures and no cost effective means with which to further promote the homepage, I assumed it would only be a matter of time before the thing was axed. At least, that was until I read an interview with Mark Blundell yesterday.

Talking to Crash.net, Mark revealed he still has a year left to run on his contract with ITV and they're looking at doing something a little bit different, but still motorsport related in the future.

It seems the broadcaster really hasn't given up on the project just yet, but if what we're led to believe is true, and the company really didn't want to deal with F1 any longer, why on earth are they hanging on in there. Drivers on their books and a website with content updated as recently as Thursday, it doesn't make sense.

ING / F1 Racing Survey Results

A couple of days ago, Scott W gave us a quick summary of the ING/F1 Racing Global Fan Survey results. The stats were printed in this months issue of the magazine, and as things have been a bit hectic at Sidepodcast Towers recently, I hadn't had a chance to do any more than look at the pictures.

However, some of the things Scott pointed out are worthy of attention. It's hardly a surprise that Hamilton picks up the highest percentage in the favourite driver category, closely followed by Raikkonen and Alonso. I am surprised at the margin, though, as many polls I've seen recently have put Fernando at the top of most popular driver, and he has only 12% to Lewis' 27%.

Scott also pointed out that poor Trulli is the least favourite driver with only 0.1%, but I don't want to dwell on it too much, as the Trulliometer is a very fragile thing.

The top five are made up of drivers who won a race this year, hit the headlines a lot, and were in the public eye more than they've ever been before. The sixth most popular driver is Jenson Button, and if I were him, I would be really happy with that. He's had a rubbish year, been screwed over by his team, and suffered a lack of attention as a British driver. As 6th highest, he beats 17 other drivers, including the ever-popular Vettel, and I think that can only be good for Button's career.

The Future of F1 category has almost 50% of participants wanting more races on the calendar, whilst 90% want F1 to continue at classic venues (read: Canada). Sadly, both of these aren't happening with circuits falling off the calendar at a frightening pace. Reverse grids are an unpopular idea with only 17%, and banning refuelling is also pretty low down - 18%. On that last point, the majority of respondents then, will not be impressed with the 2010 season.

The BBC should take note of the "What you want to see more of on TV" category, as it has some serious hints for their coverage. Interviews with drivers and engineers are immensely popular, whilst random celebrities don't get the thumbs up. Please no cringeworthy gridwalks, BBC. Most of the options around the 50% mark are about getting more information, such as increased team radio, access to telemetry and more on board cameras.

Overtaking is the most important thing in F1 for most participants, with the best drivers and good commentary falling behind. Sponsorship, road-relevance and glamour are not really top priorities.

Finally, there seems to be mass confusion over next year's rule changes. Only 41% think slicks will make the racing more interesting, 64% won't judge KERS until they've seen the evidence out on track, although 16% believe it will increase excitement.

Unfortunately, that's all the statistics we have at the moment. Just five sets of results were printed in the magazine, and I can't seem to find anymore anywhere else. I know I answered more than five questions, but perhaps the other results will be forthcoming soon.

There has been some criticism of the survey on the web already, with some worries that it's a very narrow selection of people - F1 Racing readers mostly. However, I would say that I saw that survey advertised everywhere I went for at least a week, you could hardly miss it. You have to take all survey results with a pinch of salt, as you do with any analyses that come out from it.

Nevertheless, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the results of the survey, whether it was worth taking, and if you think anything will come of it.

F1 Video

This article was originally written for BellaOnline, but is republished here for posterity.

Formula1.com Season Highlights
After each race, the official F1 website releases a short video - 5 minutes or so - with the best bits of the action compiled into a packed watch. They are really well edited and the music over the top has clearly been picked to have the best effect. The season finale one is both brilliant and heartbreaking. Each video has provided a nice reminder of the races throughout the year, but now the season is over, it's nice to look back and remember the highs and lows of such a frenetic year.

ITV F1 Videos
ITV have provided the F1 coverage for the UK (and a lot of other syndicated countries) for over a decade, but have now lost the rights to the BBC for 2009. Nevertheless, ITV say their site will remain active, and they have so far kept up to date with the news. They've also kept their video section current as well. Throughout the season, highlights of each weekend were available, but now it looks like they have been replaced with feature videos instead. There are some interviews, and footage from the 2008 launches (presumably we'll see some 2009 launches when they start in January), plus Martin Brundle's F1 Insight series which was shown on the TV coverage.

Yahoo and Eurosport F1
This page is packed with news and features, but down the right hand side, there are Formula 1 videos to be enjoyed. There are some features here that aren't available on the other sites, like The Factory. That show is shown on Eurosport, and is a behind the scenes documentary on Williams. It's split up into several parts on the Yahoo site, but it's all available to watch for free. There are also short interviews and news updates available as well.

Of course, you can always put a search into YouTube to try and find what you are looking for. However, FOM are very aware of their content on YouTube and will quite often pull it down before you get a chance to see it. The older stuff, pre-1970s is available in all it's glory, but some of the newer stuff is harder to find.

F1 People - Murray Walker

• Length: 4:24 
• Size: 4.1 MB 
• File: people10.mp3 
• Transcript: people10.pdf 
• Torrent: people10.torrent 

Welcome to F1 People, a mini series of short shows chronicling the lives of important people in the world of Formula 1. Today we’re going to look at Murray Walker, not a traditional F1 People subject, but an important one nonetheless.

Graeme Murray Walker was born on the 10th October 1923 in Birmingham, England. His father raced motorcycles professionally before the war, and was pretty good at it. Murray’s father also became a commentator for the BBC, working with them for 31 years. Walker decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, trying out the motorcycling route but realising he was never going to be as good as he wanted to be. At a particular race in 1949, his father was preparing to do the commentary, but had to step down at the last minute. Walker stepped in, and was overheard by a BBC producer in the crowd. He was invited for a commentating audition ahead of a Goodwood meeting, and got the job instantly.

Walker also took over his father’s role as motorcycle commentating when he died in 1962.
Whilst commentating on the race weekends here and there, Walker made ends meet by starting a career in marketing. His creative flair saw him promoted through an advertising agency, and this double life suited him. He worked on occasional F1 commentaries until the late 1970s, and in 1978 he was given the job full time.

In 1980, Walker was teamed up with James Hunt, who had recently retired from Formula 1. Initially, the pairing was awkward, with Hunt being somewhat of a playboy and Walker perhaps slightly disapproving of that. But as the years went by, they became an incredible partnership, the first to really bond a commentator’s art of conversation with a driver’s expertise of the sport.

Walker retired from the advertising industry in 1982, making commentating his full time concern. He began to get a name for himself as having the “commentators curse”. He would discuss the action out on track and often say how well a certain driver was doing, and then moments later, the driver would crash or suffer a mechanical failure and have to retire. It became such a common theme that some drivers actually asked Walker specifically not to mention them during a race, so their luck would hold out.

James Hunt died in 1993, but Walker continued to commentate. The next year saw the death of Ayrton Senna, an event which Walker himself describes as the blackest moment of his career. He found it very tough to talk about the accident during the race, as he didn’t know the outcome, and the pressure of having so many fans awaiting news was incredible. However, Walker got through these and other similar tricky events with aplomb and was therefore top of the list when ITV won the rights to F1 coverage in 1997. He and all the fans switched channels with ease, and Walker was teamed up with the newly retired Martin Brundle. This pairing mimicked the James Hunt success with Brundle providing the insight.

Murray Walker retired from F1 commentating in 2001, at the United States Grand Prix. He was presented with an original brick from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in recognition of his work. This is a rare honour and something Walker treasures to this very day. Despite his retirement, Walker remained a public figure within motor racing. He became the voice of the Grand Prix Masters series in 2006, he commentated on Supercar races, and filled in for a couple of F1 commentators when they weren’t available – in both the UK and Australia. In 2006, Honda signed Walker up as their team ambassador for half of the season, meaning he was a corporate front for the team, welcoming and entertaining VIP guests.

When the announcement came this year that the BBC had won the rights to F1 back from ITV, Murray Walker was the first name that sprung to everyone’s lips when talking about who would fill the commentators role. He’s done plenty of work for Radio 5live since retiring and commentated on the odd race. Whilst Walker said he doesn’t want to return and do a full season, he would be more than happy to do the odd Formula 1 feature.

Walker has been married to the very private Elizabeth for almost 50 years, and himself turns 85 this year. Whilst admitting that he is slowing things down gradually, he’s also very open about the fact that he loves the limelight and the attention.

Finally, if there’s any doubt that Murray Walker is a legend in F1, you just need to know this. When the upcoming Hollywood film about Michael Schumacher was announced, there were rumours that Murray would be played by Bruce Willis. You don’t get a better compliment than that.

That’s all for today’s episode of F1 People. I hope you enjoyed the show and will join me again tomorrow when we look at another VIP in the world of Formula 1.

Theme music: Natives of the New Dawn, People.

UK F1 Coverage Returns to its Rightful Home

Formula 1 fans in the UK received a second helping of good news this month when it was announced today that F1 television coverage is returning to it's natural home, the BBC. Last week Formula One Management finally caved in to pressure and allowed races to be broadcast online, and next year they will also be shown uninterrupted and commercial free.

This is excellent news for any Formula 1 fans living in the UK, and as pointed out by Lou in a comment earlier:

We are gonna get to watch the WHOLE race!

For many years ITV has been the subject of criticism from fans for it's poor coverage and incessant advertisement breaks, ruining the flow of the action during what are often the most important points of the race.

When asked about the move, BBC Sport director of sport rights Dominic Coles said:

We were delighted when Bernie Ecclestone approached us about the return of F1 to the BBC.

While Bernie suggested that for once this deal wasn't motivated by greed or profit:

I think they will be able to service us an awful lot better, a little bit more time.

Having sat out the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, maybe Ecclestone finally grasped first hand the disruption the commercial breaks cause? Or maybe not.

The deal will run from 2009 to 2013, cutting ITV's agreement short by two years. In response to the announcement ITV said:

This was a straightforward commercial decision for ITV and we are pleased that F1 will continue to be broadcast free-to-air.

ITV seem to be suggesting that it was their decision alone to end the agreement early, but seeing as they made so much additional revenue on the back of the Hamilton effect last year, this seems a little unlikely. They recently tried and failed to land a high grossing sponsor on the back of 2007's success, and instead have been left with Sony, who pay an amount similar to the money Honda invested the previous year. That may have hurt them, but year-on-year income from ad-breaks should still have increased.

As yet there has been no confirmation as to whether ITV's current presenting team will be retained by the BBC, but given that this has been another source of negative opinion amongst fans it seems unlikely. Although on our Facebook Group Dan did say:

One thing though: they better keep Brundle

Interesting times ahead for F1, but all this good news has me suspicious, since when did Bernie ever give fans what they want? Next up he'll be guaranteeing Silverstone a place on the calendar.

As ever, let us know your thoughts. We're especially interested to hear opinions from anyone outside of the UK, the fans who have thus far been left out in the cold when it comes to the online and ad-free revolutions that Formula 1 is currently undergoing.

ITV to show Live F1 Coverage Online

Oh yes, it's true. I mentioned in the comments earlier this week that there was a peculiar ITV advertisement doing the rounds.

It looked like this:

And read:

Live coverage of Friday’s Practice, this Thursday at 11pm GMT

I clicked the message, but to my disappointment the page didn't go anywhere. It also didn't explain whether the content would be online, on television or some kind of mobile service.

Today, ITV announced that they have in fact secured the rights to stream Friday practice on the web. They also have rights to something they're calling "simulcasts" of qualifying and the race. I can't for the life of me figure if there's a difference between live streaming and simulcasting, presumably they mean shown at the same time as on television?

In addition there's a 30-day catch-up service for the F1 programmes they do show on TV.

Sadly this service is limited to UK residents only, although there's a slim possibility there may be a technical workaround when it comes to the streaming content. Many people are telling us that a simple "proxy address" change will allow you access, but we've yet to confirm that.

In general though this is fantastic news, and a massive step forward for Formula 1 online broadcasting.

Update: The first Friday broadcast went reasonably well. The good news was the rumours suggesting it was a Windows only service were wide of the mark. The player is a simple Flash application that appears to work well across most platforms.

There were issues relating to choppy playback, bad sound and sometimes total video failure, but it's unclear if these were caused by problems with the World Feed (FOM's responsibility) or a problem with the content delivery network (ITV use Limelight Networks for this).

Ignoring the early teething troubles this looks like it could finally change Formula 1 broadcasting for the better.

Price Drop for ITV F1 Sponsorship?

According to the marketing website Brand Republic, ITV are having to drop the price of their proposed 2008 Formula 1 sponsorship package due to insufficient interest.

The company recently lost 2007 sponsors Honda, after it was claimed the asking price would increase from £2.5m up to £4m for the coming season. It now looks as though this years price will be roughly similar to last years, despite the increased interest the channel received due to some bloke from Stevenage.

Recently, ITV's head of sport Mark Sharman, stated that:

What sport does, and Formula One in particular, is deliver an ABC1 male audience, and that's priceless for us.

One might suggest that there is a price, and that £4m is a bit too steep.

Last year the Brazilian Grand Prix, which witnessed the climax of the driver's championship, managed to net an average of 7.3m viewers, compared to just 4.9m the previous year. So there may well be a valid argument for a price increase, but it would appear that so far, ITV haven't found anyone willing to cough up as much as they'd like.

You can read the full story on Brand Republic, although be warned that it's a subscription site and you'll have to log in to view the whole article.

Episode 48 - We Got Told To Call Him Kubica, So That's What We're Trying To Stick To

• Length: 18:09 
• Size: 17.0 MB 
• File: episode48.mp3 
• Enhanced: episode48.m4a 
• Transcript: episode48.pdf 
• Torrent: episode48.torrent 

This episode brings you up to date with the most recent launches, plus discussion of some of the more controversial rule change suggestions, all with an irritating helping of sampling fun.

Intro

The new keyboard, what it does and why he loves it.

Good Week / Bad Week

This week has been good for the environment, and for Hamilton's long term future, whilst his and ITV's bank balance look set to suffer from a bad week.

News and Views

The FIA seriously consider budget caps - perhaps one of their more sensible decisions, unlike the new engine penalty twist to the rules. We also discuss testing at Jerez and Valencia, with Alonso showing us all how it's done, BMW suffering with the weather, and Super Aguri staying tucked away in the garage. Two more cars launched this week, and complete opposites, a grand affair from BMW and a more sedate rollout for Red Bull.

Housekeeping

We found the Mark Blundell clips to try and clear up the pronunciation discussion. However, we're probably going to kick it all off again with a particular country's name. Finally, we discuss our inability to promote things properly, thus the need to clarify just exactly what you can find in the RSS Feeds section.

Better Than Half the Grid

At the tail end of last year, on the 30th December to be precise, a Formula 1 related video documentary aired in the UK on ITV4. You may not have heard of it, I imagine most people didn't know it was on because ITV didn't bother to promote it.

I didn't see any advertisements for the program, and no mention was made on their F1 website, so you can be excused if you missed it. We only heard about it because a friend of ours texted to suggest we tune in. The documentary was entitled "Life Behind Lewis".

As it happened, we were busy at the time the program aired, so we threw the details into the PVR and went about our business. This week we managed to catch up and it turns out we got it completely wrong. The show had nothing to do with Lewis Hamilton, and made no reference to his dad at all. It was in fact a documentary about Anthony Davidson. The 'Behind Lewis' premise being something to do with following the McLaren driver from some distance.

In an ideal world the program would have been called A Year in the Life of Anthony Davidson and we'd be raving about it for weeks to come.

The content was a mix of the fantastic peppered with the surreal. At times we got to see some really unique footage of an F1 driver away from the media. Anthony getting himself lost while following Sat-Nav through France, or taking 12 minutes to top up his oil at a service station were just a couple of the highlights. But every now and then the narrator would drop in some random reference relating to Lewis, as if to keep the casual viewers attention.

More Davidson highlights included what I assume to be a sneak preview of Super Aguri's 2008 challenger sitting in a wind tunnel - it had a McLaren style bridged front wing attached, which as far as I'm aware has never been publicly tested, let alone raced.

The program was also the source of Anthony's wonderful soundbyte that did the rounds the first couple of days of this month:

I'm so happy I've proved to myself that I'm good enough for Formula 1, and probably better than half the grid – I can say that easily, without a doubt.

Added to that, Mr. Ecclestone must have been having a good day when this idea was pitched to him, because official FOM race footage appeared during the broadcast, including a re-run of Ant's stellar qually lap in Turkey. Bernie's going soft in his old age.

At points the tenuous Hamilton connections started to wear thin, as did the lack of video - I had to hide behind a cushion when the camera slowly panned across a collection of Autosport magazine covers, presumably due to a lack of any suitable Lewis footage.

Due to the vagarities of our PVR, we did manage to miss both the beginning and the end of the show, so there may have been other key bits we didn't see. I'd be curious to learn what Anthony thought of it all as there's nothing on his official site, nor on Super Aguri's.

It's such a shame that ITV decided to bury this program, because a documentary like this deserves better.

If you did manage to catch it, please let us know your thoughts.

Disclaimer: Didn't appreciate this at the time, but this TV show was made by a company called USP Content, the very same people who took us to Honda Dreamfields in 2007. My complaints still stand though, some things could've been better.

Update: It's been pointed out to us that during television re-runs, the FOM footage was excluded due to rights restrictions. In short, scrub the bit about Bernie going soft in his old age!

Speed TV

Speed TV sometimes gets a bit of grief for their Formula 1 coverage in the US. Not as much grief as ITV get over here, but enough to lead me to believe they could be doing a better job than they are.

The one thing Speed TV do have over their counterparts this side of the Atlantic, is they actually understand this online world. They're not afraid of it. For example, just this week they posted a great interview with ex-Formula 1 driver Scott Speed, discussing his future racing in ARCA:

The video has been posted on the Brightcove network, which means not only do folks in the UK get to see it, we also get to share it here. Compare this to ITV's rather pathetic attempt at video which currently lists 3 very small (and somewhat dated) clips and no options to use them.

Speed TV may not offer the greatest Formula 1 coverage in the world, but I think they have a far better chance of coping with the future than ITV. What we really need is F1 television coverage to move to Channel 4.