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How many people watch an F1 race worldwide?


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#1 Kucki

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 03:10

Like the title says, does someone know, have ever heard any figures of how many people worldwide combined watch an F1 race?

And what is the most viewed one? Monte Carlo?

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#2 primer

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 03:39

Like the title says, does someone know, have ever heard any figures of how many people worldwide combined watch an F1 race?

And what is the most viewed one? Monte Carlo?


IIRC FOM once said (years ago) that about 300 million people watch a F1 race? That number is certain to be nonsense, it is in their interest to exaggerate the figures as much as they can.

#3 Lights

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 08:05

I doubt any figure is close to reality.

Although if I'm correct, Montreal used to be the most viewed race.

#4 primer

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 08:32

Although if I'm correct, Montreal used to be the most viewed race.


That has changed in the past few years though, with Brazil being the most viewed. Or so I read somewhere.

#5 D.M.N.

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 08:33

Bahrain was said to be the most watched last year, but I think the research got it and Abu Dhabi muddled about.

#6 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 08:40

I doubt Abu Dhabi would have been higher, even with it's time slot. It was a meh weekend and the title was over, there was no reason to tune in really.

Roughly speaking an F1 race gets 40-50mil live viewers, average. At some points in the race it's higher, sometimes as far as 100mil, at other points in the 90 minutes it will be lower. But a round number for any typical race, the average live audience is about 40-50mil. Canada, because of it's ideal time slot in the European evening does tend to be the highest event, usually only overtaken if another primetime race like Brazil has a championship decider; but Canada isn't that much higher than statistically average. Championship decides are very high.

Which makes it, in any given year, the third highest series/event after the Champions League Final and the American Superbowl. Non-annual events like the Olympics and World Cups will bump it down to 5th or 6th in those years, but those are obviously only every 4 years.

My semi-official stats say:
2009 Bahrain 54
2008 Brazil 80
2007 Brazil 78
2006 Brazil 83
2005 Canada 52
2004 Monaco 59

And those figures were done independently. No TV measurement system is perfect, but that's as good as you're going to get and the one the industry tends to accept.


#7 primer

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 09:18

AFAIK those numbers include people who switch to F1 while Disney goes to ads. If we consider flag-to-flag viewers, the numbers will be much smaller. Precisely how much, no one can tell.

#8 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 09:29

Eh? Disney?

What part of average are you confused by?

#9 Kucki

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Posted 21 February 2010 - 23:28

Thanks. Very interesting Ross. Do you also happen to know the approximate amount of Live viewers for the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500?

#10 Mox

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Posted 22 February 2010 - 09:21

According to Paddocktalk, there were on average 600m viewers per F1 race in 2008, and according to Pitpass that number dropped by 80m to 520m in 2009.

(Well, at least the 2 sources numbers add up)

#11 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 22 February 2010 - 09:26

That's the rather nebulous 'impressions' which includes highlights. So if 15million people watch BBC News on a Sunday evening and they show a 10 second clip of F1, they throw that number on.

The live audience figures are the only one's that truly matter as far as trying to discern a value from something like sponsorship.

To answer the Daytona question
2009 16m
2008 18
2006 20

Indy500 probably gets 4-7 depending on the year and various factors. Daytona has next to no international audience so doesn't often feature in Top 10 global lists.