F1 has released details regarding its TV and digital audience for the 2018 season which has seen growth in both the sectors.
In terms of unique visitors, the sport saw an increase of 10 percent globally, reaching 490.2m viewers with 14 percent increase in the Top 20 markets. China posted an increase of three times than the 2017 numbers due to free-to-air broadcasting.
Brazil led the way in terms of TV reach with 115.2m viewers, followed by China (68m) and USA (34.2m), while the Indian subcontinent saw an increase of +87 percent with France showing +51 percent growth, followed by Russia (+27 percent) and USA (+20 percent).
The Top 20 markets for unique visitors includes Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Pan Africa, Pan India, Pan Latin America, Pan Middle East, Pan Russia, Russia, United Kingdom and United States.
In terms of cumulative TV audience, the numbers from the Top 20 markets stood at 1.59b viewers which is a three percent increase from 2017 – the global cumulative audience reach sits at 1.758b viewers.
The Top 3 markets remained the same in 2018 with Brazil, Germany and Italy. Among the Top 20 market, China posted an improvement of +69 percent, followed by France (+40 percent), Indonesia (+25 percent) and Brazil (+20 percent).
The Top 20 markets for TV audience includes Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Pan Latin America, Pan Middle East, Russia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States.
Among the races, Monaco GP posted the highest cumulative TV audience at 110m viewers with events like Bahrain GP, French GP, Austrian GP, British GP, Italian GP and Mexico GP having viewers in excess of 90m.
Moving on to the digital platforms, the numbers rose across for F1 with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube reaching 18.5m followers which is +53.7 compared to 2017 to make the sport as the fastest growing on social media.
The average number of unique users per race week was 11.1 percent higher than 2017 as total impressions grew by 29.2 percent (10.4bn), while the views on videos increased by 77.2 percent (2.0bn) with minutes watched reaching 1.75bn (+84.6 percent).
With more videos uploaded on its Youtube channel, the growth was at 115 percent which was highest among the marquee right holders. The interactions across all platforms totaled 185m with sits at 52 percent.
The revamped F1 website saw increased numbers as well with the number of page and video views growing to 333.3m (+20.5 percent) and 37.2m (+5.3 percent) as minutes watched rose to 70.7m (+5.3 percent) and unique users reaching 45.2m (+2.9 percent).
The Beyond The Grid F1 podcast saw 5.1m listeners while the Twitter Show had 9m views. The overall fanbase of F1 increased from 503m to 506m with the age division provided by Nielsen had 205m fans under the age of 35-years.
F1 has almost two thirds of the fans (62 percent) at 45 or younger. With an average age of 40, the F1 fanbase is in line with other major global sports and leagues in football, NBA, NFL, tennis, whose average ages lay between 39 and 40.
Among the fans gained in the last two years by F1, 61 percent of them are under 35-years with 36 percent under 25-years. The new ESports series launched by the F1 has 80 percent of fans under 35-years and 56 percent under 25-years.