Subscription broadcasters have helped to raise the standard of Formula 1 TV coverage and bring fans “far more than ever existed in the past”, according to the sport’s media rights chief. F1 reported last week it had enjoyed its biggest TV audience in 2019 for seven years, with a cumulative audience of 1.922 billion to mark a third straight year of growth. F1 has shifted towards more subscription TV deals in the past decade instead of free-to-air broadcasters, resulting in criticism that the sport has become less accessible. While F1 director of media rights Ian Holmes acknowledged pay TV audiences would always be smaller, he said it was an “oversimplification” to identify this as...
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