It feels like a long time ago that Formula 1 was just ‘on’ in the backgroun꧒d over a week🏅end.

Followers did their best to glue themselves to the box (and back then it really was a box) and potential new fans stumbled across the petrol-fuelled madness while hopping across the four or five available channels, and were ꦐinstantly hooked.

F1 drivers were household naꩵmes in the 1990s and early noughties, in the same way footballers are now (alright, not quite the same - footballers receive an unreal and unprecedented level of coverage currently - but a lot closer).

Even if you hate football, and have never watched a match live or otherwise, it’s highly likely you know who Ronaldo, Messi, Rooney, and Neymar are, w♒hat they look like, and probably who they’re dating or married to, such is the media exposure they get.

Back then Ayrton Senna, Alai🐻n Prost, Ni🌟gel Mansell, and of course Michael Schumacher had similar household name presence.

Fast forward to 2012 and Sky was airing its firs🦹t season of F1 coverage, with the BBC only having rights to also show half the races live.

By this time digital had exploded and the options for sports fans to view their favourite sports across a multitude of broaཧdcast and online channels were huge.

Competition for eyeballs was fierce and with football and footballers leading the charge across social networks and media sites, F1 driv🍰ers and teams were restricted in what they could say, post and where they could appear.

Just because F1 was on TV, and even partly terrestrial TV, no longer meant people were actually going to watc🎃h it.

Seasoned fans who could justify the investment would pay the Sky subscription to watch every race live, while others would dip in and out of the BBC coverage. But with less ‘noise’ arou🐭nd F1’s achievements, narratives, and personalities, audiences were drawn to other more media-friendly sports.

In turn this meant fewer fans, column inches, and social coverage, diminishing F1’s sporting presence and putꦜting its cast of drivers firmly in the shadow of football’s 🐭superstars, with Lewis Hamilton the only notable exception.

There was also a widespread perception that F1 became more boring 👍too, with less overtaking.

But the statistics actually suggest that, if anything, F1 has become a more exciting sport with more overtaking❀ as the years have passed.

The graph below from ClipApex shows that overtaking stayed largely static from 1995 to 2010 until a huge spike in 2011, following the change in tyre provider and the🎉 removal of refuelling, which encouraged teams to try different strategies.

Maybe then it was a case of out of sight … nꦑot really both♏ered anymore?

Perhaps people’🐽s reaction to not being exposed to﷽ F1 as much was to dismiss it as dull, and think no more about it.

And as for potential new fans stu꧑mbling across F1, with so much more choice and competition 𝔉out there fighting for the ‘stumblers’, the numbers finding F1 diminished.

Had the stories, momꦺents, and drama been more widely accessible and received more extensive coverage and support across a wider mix of TV, websites, and social networks F1 may be held💝 in much higher sporting regard by a larger majority of sports fans.

Enter Liberty Media.

When the US company♈ bought F1 last January for a reported $8 billion, no one really new for sure how much change would follow, and that lꦜargely remains the case.

However,🦂 Liberty has revealed some of its hand. ౠProposed changes to the rules and regulations specifically associated to the cars and racing itself have been questioned by some of the teams.

None more notable than Ferrari which has threatened to quit the series alt༒ogether if it’s not happy with how things start to pan out. Merced💧es having recently backed them up on this stance.

It’s so important the big teams st🥃ay in F1 if it’s to thrive, and hopefully a compromise can be found.

But what has largely been welcomed is the desire to helpꦐ the sport achieve its great potential once again, and a media revolution is at the heart of its plans.

At a press conference to launch its new logo back in November last year F1’s commercial boss, Sean Bratches, said: “…we are trying to re-position Formula 1 from a purely motorsport company to a media and entertainment brand with the heart♕ and soul of a race car driver in the middle of it.”

This sentiment was backed by Ellie Norman, brought on board by Liberty after five years at Virgin Media, where she instigated the famous Usain Bolt cam🙈paign, who said: “Pretty simply, the fans want to get back to racing and what racing means to fans, and that's about the realness of it, the grittiness, the human element, and that kind of w෴heel-to-wheel racing.”

Since then, momentum 🍬has continued to gather. ♕;

F1 was the 168澳洲5最新开奖ꦚ结果:fastest-growing sport on social media last year as it started to play catch-up. Stringent restrictions on what team⛎s can do on social platforms have been relaxed, and the amount of F1 video content being produced has skyrocketed.

And that’s just the beginning. F1 bosses are acutely aware they’re still a long way off their sporting competitors. Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton have 10m and 4m Facebook fans rᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚespectively compared with Real Madrid and Ronaldo’s pages which have 106m and 11.8m, for example.

Liberty have implied further huge social investment will happen this year, along with the introduction of an over the top streaming service, a new website and apps, which would include plenty of historic coverage as well as current season coverage, a broadcasting overhaul with new graphics, and a selection of 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:post-race 'live shows' broadcast on Twitter. As part of its bid ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚto modernise the sport, ‘grid girls’ have now become a thing of the past. 

Bratches view is: “…every opportunity we can start to take elements of Formula 1 and racing at the grand prix up to a wider audience wꦺe are going to be activating and following. The primary reason for that is to build a long terꦑm, sustainable sport and that means reigniting passion with fans and bringing new fans into our sport.”

So what does that mean for us?

Well for the media, especially digital publishers, this is what we’ve been wai𝐆ting for.

Prior to Liberty’s takeover filming restrictions were so strict wuqian0821🥀.com and other digital media outlets were unable to take a camera anywhere near a circuit in the build up to or during a race we✅ekend.

The folklore was a filming exclusion zone 5 km or 5 miles - a long way out at any rate - and for Monaco the restriction was, wel🧔l Monaco. Yep, the entire city was off limits.

Liberty has already relaxed this law and reporters have been allowed to film pieces to camera outside of🍸 the iconic circuits, and the hope/dream is we’ll all be allowed inside some point soon.

Obviously not to film the actual race, but to cover the atmosphere and get interviews, pre and post-race, would make a massive difꦓference.

With more video being produced, more content going on socia🐼l media, and more access being given the product we’ll be able to produce as an F1❀ digital only publisher, will increase in quality and quantity tenfold.

This can only be a good thing for existing fans too. It will mea♛n greater variety of content, more in-depth coverage and insight, a🍸nd a bigger buzz around their sport.

It also means we’ll be able to ♌rapidly grow our online audienc♈e, as will other digital publishers, which will in turn encourage us to invest more in content and social, significantly adding to F1’s overall fanbase growth.

And with a huge spotlight shining on Formula 1 thi𝔍s can only be good for brands kee🍷n to associate their products and services with F1 and connect with its audience.

wuqian0821.com’s F1 audience is largely made up of i🦩ndividuals who spend a lot in the automotive, trav♑el, sport, entertainment and luxury sectors.

It’s a highly sought-after audience by advertisers both programmatically and direct, and wit꧅h it set to increase in size dramatically that will give greater options for digital content and advertising campaigns, along with more competitive pricing, and better results.

It’s the ideal time to embed a brand within F1’s digital audien🐭ce from the beginning, in order to grow with it and become firmly associated with the sport, and known to its fan🥀s old and new.

This is the crest of the wave for a new look Formula 1, and with the on-track battle for supremacy hotting up, 2018 is ﷽already promising to be a massive year for the sport.