Don't blame Vettel for viewer switch-off

TV numbers are Formula 1's currency. When ratings are up, the Formula One Group is able to negotiate top-dollar contracts - which in turn trickles down to teams, albeit diluted - and when global numbers peak so does the value of sponsor and partner deals, whether at team or commercial rights holder (FOG) level.

Circuit owners, too, score through increased awareness in their territories, while there is little doubt that today's fledgling viewers are tomorrow's drivers, engineers, buyers of tickets/merchandise/games, and pitlane reporters.

F1 was once very much a fringe sport, watched live mainly by petrolheads; today it's a mainstream activity followed not by the billions all too often misleadingly spoken about, but certainly hundreds of millions across the globe.

Thus alarm bells rang at all levels when 2013's ratings were totalled, for the number of viewers who watched more than 15 consecutive minutes of F1 throughout the season recorded a drop of 10 per cent (2012: 500m/2013: 450m), a decrease blamed largely on the 'Sebastian Vettel Effect', when the German and Red Bull blitzed the final nine rounds to take a fourth consecutive title double.

"The less-than-competitive nature of the final few rounds, culminating in the championship being decided ahead of the races in the USA and Brazil, events which often bring substantial audiences, had a predictable impact on reach," F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone explained in the Broadcasting Report.

"The overall effect was exaggerated further still when you consider that the calendar was one race shorter in 2013."

While these are no doubt contributing factors, they tell less than a quarter of the full story, for a drop of 50m viewers is almost totally accounted for in just two territories: France and China. The former lost a whopping 17m (63 per cent) due to a switch from free-to-air TF1 to pay channel Canal+, while in the latter country 30m (62 per cent of viewers) evaporated after a move away from CCTV to a host of regional broadcasters. This move was again driven by failure to reach a commercial agreement.

American viewing figures rose with a move to NBC Sports © XPB

While FOG could point to an 18 per cent increase in the US after a switch from Speed to NBC/NBC Sports, the bottom line is that it's FOG's task to grow numbers - particularly in markets with emerging events such as Austin's round - and while the percentage seems impressive, the net increase in eyeballs amounts to 2m for the entire US of A, with its population of over 320m!

True, the loss of a single race may have had an effect, but mathematically that would account for just a five per cent drop. Conversely, when F1 moved from 19 rounds in 2011 to 20 the following season, viewerships rated by the same metrics remained virtually static. In fact, they showed a slight decrease: 515m and 500m respectively, and this during an Olympic year, which 2013 decidedly was not.

This is not the only decrease: in 2008 the figure was 600m (off 18 races), pointing to a continuous decline, particularly on a per-race basis.

To put this in perspective, 2008's purified figure is 33.3m; 2011 pans out at 27.1; 2012 is 25m; and last season equates to 23.6m. While a crude ratings versus rounds comparison is, admittedly, most unscientific in the greater scheme of things, it does highlight a worrying trend.

By the same token, when Michael Schumacher was at his most dominant, ratings in Germany leaped dramatically, and while there's little doubt that the equally (if not more) gifted Vettel doesn't resonate with his compatriots to quite the same degree as did the country's first multiple champion, so again Ecclestone's reasoning appears somewhat flawed.

In any event, if indeed Vettel's domination is a major factor in the ratings drop, then FOG has only itself to blame, for what else could the commercial rights holder expect other than total domination after inequitably endowing the team with arguably the best driver/designer combination and best in-house funding with the largest individual slice of F1's annual revenues?

Surely FOM did not for one moment believe that this highly competitive driver would be overcome by bouts of 'after you, Fernando (or Mark or Lewis)' manners for nine straight races. Rather than blame the 'Vettel Effect', the sport should learn from its inequitable revenue distribution...

Did viewers tire of seeing this podium line-up? © LAT

That said, agreement was reached for Red Bull (and Ferrari, with McLaren, Mercedes and Williams benefitting to lesser degrees) to gain from such utterly unethical favouritism - and do so through to end-2020 - so, really, FOG has only itself to blame.

Sadly, though, seven teams not thus favoured are dealt a double whammy, for not only do they suffer substantially reduced slices of F1's revenues, but the pot itself (and sponsorship potential) shrinks in line with reduced ratings.

This column last month highlighted the British Premier League's revenue structure, which distributes £1.6bn to 20 teams annually - versus one third of that to 11 F1 entrants, including their shares of race-hosting fees and merchandising - and can now add the Turkish League's revenue distribution to the argument. In 2013 this domestic body distributed £300m in TV income to member clubs, which compares rather favourably with the less than £250m shared by all 11 teams for F1's TV (only) rights.

However, rather than cherry-pick individual factors as root cause for the drop and paper over some very evident cracks, the commercial rights holder should look inwardly and question whether it is serving this global sport to the best of its abilities, and remunerating teams accordingly.

Prior to the Concorde Agreement expiring at the end of 2012 the teams suggested they would push Ecclestone to grow the sport's ratings rather then demand greater shares of F1's revenues. In the end those outside of the cosy Constructors' Championship Bonus club have got neither...

Clearly there is enormous room for improvement, and it can't be coincidental that the sport has lost 16 per cent of its viewers since it introduced moveable front wings, push-to-pass KERS, DRS, tyres with artificially low wear rates and gimmicks such as forcing the top 10 to start on the tyres used in qualifying and allowing the rest freedom of choice.

This year, with its double points and further tweaks to tyres, will likely result in further erosion.

Also likely to switch viewers off is the complexity of following racing under the new regulations: with ERS-K and -H, plus stringent fuel restrictions, F1's fanbase is likely to be confused until the dying seconds of a two-hour grand prix.

Who in this day and age has time to watch a complex competition unfold without knowing the true status quo? Some call it unpredictability, but in days gone by unpredictability resulted from daring moves, not running out of gas or battery.

Villeneuve was outspoken in his criticism of modern F1

Yes, a move to the new formula is well overdue, but with it should come some form of educational programme, and here one waits with bated breath to discover what graphics and on-screen information the commercial rights holder has in store.

Already viewers (and commentators) are likely to be confused by constant changes to helmet livery, and "lifetime" numbers, which have the more successful Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso bearing #14, while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen carries #7.

That maverick of mavericks Jacques Villeneuve has this week expressed concern about the "artificial" direction F1 is taking.

"They want to cater to the younger fans that don't have an attention span, and just want an overtake every two seconds even if it's a terrible one, because they don't understand it," the French Canadian told AUTOSPORT.

"I'm a purist and I love the sport. I loved the '60s and '70s, when the fans even enjoyed the races where only four cars finished and they were two laps apart."

What F1 needs as it faces its brave new future is a root-and-branch overhaul of the way it presents itself to and on new media, not gimmicks such as DRS and double points.

Given that TV ratings and new media presentation are commercial rather than sporting or technical issues (although any developments will impact on both), this falls very much within the ambit of the commercial rights holder, thus CVC Capital Partners, who have to date treated the sport they bought into very much as a cash cow.

Therein lies the root of the downward ratings spiral, not in the domination of a global sport by one driver.