Formula One has announced a dip in TV audience figures in 2020 despite seeing audience figures rise on digital platforms.
With just 17 races throughout 2020 compared to 2019, F1 saw a slight drop in average audience to 87.4 million viewers, which was just 4.5% less than 2019’s total across 21 races.
F1 acknowledged that this slip was down to the fact that ‘a number of regions did not host their own Grand Prix’ whilst race start times not suiting all time zones was another factor, despite several countries including China, Netherlands, UK and Russia seeing year-on-year rises in their audience figures.
USA meanwhile saw a 1% increase on their 2019 audience despite having no US GP which would of provided wider exposure on ABC, and races were often early morning local time in the United States which weren’t viewer friendly times.
F1 also reported that unique viewers had dropped by 8% to 433m which like the dip in average audiences was put down to fewer races, with the cumulative TV audience consequently falling to 1.5 billion viewers compared to 1.922bn in 2019.
Hungary was the most watched race in 2020 with an audience figure of 103.7m which represented a 7% rise on the same race in 2019, whilst the new races also rated well with Portugal claiming the highest audience of 100.5m as Lewis Hamilton claimed a record-breaking 92nd F1 win.
F1 CEO and President, Stefano Domenicali praised the overall strength of these viewing figures, saying: “The audience figures for 2020 show the strength and resilience of our sport, with average audience figures in 2020 at 87.4m and a total season cumulative audience of 1.5bn.”
Domenicali also commented on the issue of a shortened and limited geographical calendar affecting the audience figures, acknowledging that every sport has had to ensure this issue in 2020 from football which saw final stages of UEFA competitions of 2019-20 season held across three different countries.
The ex Ferrari boss however is ‘proud’ of what F1 produced in 2020 and believes that F1 now has ‘an incredibly strong fan base and audience platform to grow in the coming years’
F1 also ran a survey with 6,000 fans with 72% of respondents feeling that the sport has improved compared to 52% in June 2019, with 71% rating their satisfaction as a F1 fan out of a score of ten as eight or higher.
Fans as a majority also felt that safety measures were appropriately put in place with a 90% positive response, with 81% of surveyors praising the communication with fans throughout the worldwide lockdown of which 73% also feeling that fan absence was dealt with well.
F1 Posts Huge Digital Gains in Engagement
Across digital platforms in 2020, F1 made huge gains across all four major social media platforms with followers rising by 36% to 35m, whilst 4.9bn viewed videos across F1’s social media accounts, official website and F1 app with total engagement rising by 99%.
Unique users also saw a rise to 70.5m with China in particular seeing a massive improvement of 133% across all Chinese digital platforms.
F1 consequently confirmed that their biggest drives in digital growth has come from video uploads, new races during a revised 2020 calendar and excitement during races which drove traffic and activity increase across race weeks.
2020 also saw F1 outperform several other major sport leagues and organisations like Premier League, NBA and UFC, whilst other sports like NFL, MotoGP and Major League Baseball saw drops in their digital engagement.
These figures comes just weeks after F1 Esports enjoyed record-breaking audiences with 11.4m live stream views across all digital platforms.
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