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The 2015 study on sports broadcasting on television allows us to compare the visibility of Formula 1 and other motor sports with their main competitors. That year, L'Équipe 21 established itself as the leading sports broadcaster, surpassing Canal+ and TF1.
Unsurprisingly, soccer dominates with 787 hours and 21 minutes of airtime, ahead of rugby and basketball. Formula 1, meanwhile, ranks 13th, between pétanque and biathlon, far from being the most watched motorsport. Rallying and Moto GP are ahead of it. Rallying, ranked 6th, is mainly broadcast on the TNT channel, L'Équipe 21, which covered 12 of the 13 rounds of the championship, totaling 162 hours and 10 minutes of exposure on a generalist channel. MotoGP, in 11th place with 63 hours and 28 minutes, also benefits from L'Équipe 21, which broadcast 62 hours and 5 minutes. Formula 1, for its part, recorded 45 hours and 59 minutes of broadcasting, mainly on Canal+, which holds the French rights.
The study excludes specialized sports channels, which means that broadcasts on Canal+ Sport, BeIn, Eurosport, and MotorsTV are not included. However, Formula 1 is often shared between the generalist channel Canal+, the thematic channel Canal+ Sport, and Canal+ Décalé. These figures should therefore be treated with caution and analyzed in greater depth. Since 2010, the average hourly broadcast volume on Canal+ has remained roughly comparable to that of TF1, which shared Formula 1 with Eurosport, sometimes sacrificing a few sessions in favor of pay-TV sports. Counting all the channels in the Canal+ group, we arrive at more than 110 hours on the two smaller channels and nearly 40 hours on the main channel, or more than 160 hours of Formula 1 available to subscribers.
However, it is worth noting a sharp decline in broadcasting on Canal+ between 2014 and 2015, with more than 20 fewer hours, a reversal that was confirmed between 2013 and 2015. This change coincided with the arrival of Vincent Bolloré, who completely reorganized the programming. Formula 1 is now only shown during Grand Prix races (and sometimes one or two qualifying rounds or practice sessions) on the main channel, with the rest being split between Canal+ Sport and Canal+ Décalé.
The same phenomenon, albeit on a smaller scale, can be seen on TNT's little sister channel, D8, which has gone from 45 minutes to 25 minutes of broadcasting, with the images being used mainly in television news programs.
Formula 1 has dropped five places in this ranking and is no longer among the five most broadcast sports on Canal+. It therefore represents only a small share of airtime compared to the group's other sports. Despite a fairly substantial number of hours of airtime in France, Formula 1 remains confined to pay-TV channels, which limits its visibility to the general public.
The lack of television exposure for Formula 1 is detrimental to attracting new fans and retaining existing ones, and the loss of rights by public channels to pay TV is not helping to reverse the trend. In Europe, public channels are gradually losing their rights, and in England—the largest European market—Formula 1 will be broadcast entirely by the pay-TV channel Sky Sport from 2019. This development raises questions about the intentions of the FOM.
Content written by Diane Botteno and published on www.FranceF1.fr
