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Formula One Hires Murdoch Ally To Turbocharge Its Visuals

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Formula One auto racing has hired former Fox Sports president David Hill to advise on an overhaul of its on-screen package which is set to include virtual advertisements from brands local to where the races take place.

“David Hill, who really built Fox Sports, is an adviser to help, as we go into the next year, launch some innovations and enhancements to the programming package to really bring something fresh to the marketplace,” said F1’s chief executive Chase Carey yesterday.

Hill started out working for Australia’s Nine Network in the 1980s and helped to launch Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Television in Britain in 1989. Following that he was president of Murdoch’s Fox Sports network from 1993 to 2000 where Hill made a name for himself through the introduction of cutting-edge on-air innovations. They included the use of a glowing hockey puck and a first down line superimposed on the gridiron in NFL matches.

Hill left Fox to form his own production company in June 2015 and soon landed one of the top producing jobs in live television when he was named co-producer of the 2016 Academy Awards. His road into auto racing came through fellow Murdoch veteran Carey who became F1’s chief executive in January following the takeover of the series by Liberty Media Corp.

Carey was the chief executive and chairman of Fox Television between 1994 and 2000 and went on to become executive vice-chairman of News Corp itself until June 2016. He had high praise for Hill when he left Fox and said “for nearly thirty years, David has defined excellence in sports television in the same way [former ABC Sports president] Roone Arledge did in the 1970’s and 1980’s. David is a true leader, visionary and once-in-a-lifetime force of nature.”

Carey is hoping Hill will help to revitalise F1’s broadcasts after a steady decline in audiences over the past decade. In March Britain’s Independent newspaper revealed that last year F1 attracted 390 million viewers which was a fall of 207 million on a decade earlier.

“We do a professional job today but I think too much of what we do is probably not that different than it was ten years ago, whether that’s graphics, sound or camera angles,” said Carey. “We need to make sure we continue to make sure our product has an innovation and an energy that excites and engages fans.”

In September Reuters reported that Hill was helping F1 but said that he was involved with developing ways to boost the volume of its V6 engines which are noticeably quieter on TV than their V8 predecessors. It has also dented interest in F1 and the series has failed to solve the problem since the V6 was introduced in 2014.

In contrast, driving interest through the on-screen graphics can be as simple as changing the data which is shown according to F1’s commercial chief Sean Bratches. In addition to showing live rankings, broadcasters offer a wide array of in-race information including the use of the throttle and brake as well as G-Forces on the driver and speed of the car.

“As a consumer being in the United States, I would watch a Grand Prix and all of the metrics were in kilometers. Next year we are going to put miles per hour in markets that adopt them and kilometers in markets that use them as a metric,” said Bratches. He added that consumers aren’t the only ones who will benefit from F1’s digital development.

Around 15% of F1’s $1.8 billion revenue last year was generated by advertising and sponsorship from a suite of ‘Global Partners’ including luxury watch maker Rolex and the Emirates airline. The most public aspect to these partnerships are the banners around the tracks which are usually made of vinyl but are sometimes painted onto walls. Some branding is on digital screens but they still only tend to show the logos of the Global Partners rather than local brands. That could be about to change.

“We are doing a lot of things in terms of direct feeds that are going to give the opportunity to sell localised trackside inventory on a virtual basis. So I think the sales proposition is getting better,” said Bratches.

Virtual advertising is common in many sports and involves banners at the track being digitally replaced to show a brand which is local to the region it is being broadcast in. F1 has only experimented in this field so far, most notably by overlaying messages about the series onto the track. Any localization of the broadcast, no matter how small, could have a big impact in countries like the United States which has just one home Grand Prix with many of the others shown at inconvenient hours due to the time difference.

Sports network ESPN will be first-ever US broadcaster to benefit from Hill’s input as it is due to take over from NBC in 2018. Time will tell how much he is able to rev up the interest in F1.

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