It's just before 3pm on a Sunday and a notification pops up on the screens of the near 1.4billion iPhone users around the world telling them the next Formula 1 race is about to start live on Apple TV.
The message gives them a chance to click through to watch the race on the streaming platform, set a reminder to check out highlights on YouTube, or go deeper and subscribe to F1's own F1 TV product on an app that is automatically downloaded on all new phones.
In an instant, the F1 message is in the homes of both current and potential new fans – and chimes perfectly with behaviours of people wanting to watch content where they want, how they want it and when they want it.
The above scenario may be a fantasy for now, but it is a future that may not be so far away with F1 evaluating right now how to best exploit a global change in viewing habits.
Where once TV broadcast deals were about F1 chasing the highest bidder, other factors are now at play as the championship bids to optimise both reach and income and capitalise on drawing in ever more fans.
The Smart TV boom
It is not lost on F1's chiefs that the viewing habits of consumers are evolving fast – and change is especially being driven by the growth of Smart TV adoption.
Estimates suggest that more than 54% of households worldwide now own connected televisions – whose owners want instant content and jump around apps at their pleasure to find what they want.
Linear TV is in decline, as viewers shift their attention to digital platforms that offer them content how they want it and when they want it – whether it is catch-up TV or platforms like YouTube.
This change of viewing habits is being driven by an ever younger audience that watches content in a totally different way to previous generations.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali revealed recently that data showed an average of 66million people watched each race on linear platforms last year, with an additional 20 million on digital platforms, including its own F1 TV.
Interestingly, out of a cumulative audience of 1.6billion race viewers in 2024, F1 captured almost 500million more on streaming platforms, including 230million watching highlights on YouTube.
The F1 appetite among YouTube viewers is no surprise here at The Race, where our YouTube channel - which now has nearly 1.2million subscribers - attracted over 160million views in 2024.
Changing fan behaviour
While this change in behaviour to digital streaming platforms is proving a challenge for traditional broadcasters, for rights holders like F1 it is being viewed as an opportunity – as it is one that offers it a chance to get in front of ever more eyeballs.
Domenicali admitted in a recent Liberty Media earnings call that the future growth of F1 – both in terms of eyeballs and revenue – needed to take into account the changing ways content was being consumed.
"What is important for the future is to see how the fans want to capture the content we are producing," he said.
"There will be not only the so-called traditional media rights, but there are other platforms that will have a big effect on not only growing that, but also growing the different possibility of engaging with the fans."
F1 knows well itself how its own content is being consumed differently. For many years, YouTube was viewed as a threat – with grand prix racing's main focus appearing to be more about taking down illegal content rather than embracing the chance to reach new fans.
Now things could not be more different. F1 produces its own shows, offers highlights packages and, for the first time in 2025, it will include YouTube numbers in its overall viewing figures.
F1's own broadcast of the F1 75 season launch event drew 7.5million viewers across all its platforms - making it F1's most successful live stream ever.
The US factor
F1 certainly seems to be at a crossroads when it comes to deciding how the next media rights deals are going to play out – and its hand in making a pretty big call is being forced by the US rights being up for grabs at the end of this year.
ESPN's exclusive rights to conduct talks has now expired and F1 is debating where things go from here in terms of who has the US broadcast deal from 2026 – with Netflix and Apple obvious candidates who could enter the ring.
Domenicali is clear that nothing has been decided yet, and that ESPN remains a contender. But the situation is one that he says may not be resolved for several months.
"There is a lot of interest around our product, we are fortunate enough to have compelling content and a growing fanbase and a strong demand for different situations from various parties," he explained.
"From one side, we always want to maximise the monetisation over media rights. But on the other side, we need to make sure that, in terms of awareness, and in terms of growth of our fanbase, we need to try to find the best way in terms of reach."
Global versus regional
One of the issues at play though is that the major streamers like Netflix and Apple are more eager for global rights deals rather than regional ones.
This is counter to how F1 has normally done its deals, with it preferring to treat markets on an individual basis depending on what works best in terms of reach.
So were Netflix or Apple to get an F1 deal, it would not be able to include major markets like the UK – whose current Sky deal runs until 2029.
That could potentially be a deal breaker.
Derek Chang, president and CEO of Liberty Media, has suggested however that maybe a different approach could be taken in the future.
"It's an evolving situation in terms of what the media rights landscape looks like globally, what the different players out there want and want to try to achieve with their own platforms," he said.
"Clearly the large streamers have consistently said that they want global rights to everything - and that may or may not be possible.
"But if some of these players are strong across a region, then clearly there could be benefits."
He added: "It really depends on what their strength is and what their aspirations are in some of these markets. Because, if the sum of all of those is greater than us going out individually, then we would have to look at that and pursue this opportunity seriously."
The bigger play
One aspect that is fast coming on the radar for F1 is how finding the right broadcaster deal can help increase the championship's reach without it having to do anything extra itself.
A global player like Apple or Netflix would throw a tonne of promotion around the world, and take F1 into households that the series would be unable to do off its own back without great expense.
Chang saw for himself how Netflix took the NFL into new markets with its live telecast of the Christmas Day games last year, as 200 countries tuned in at some point for both the Chief-Steelers and Ravens-Texans games.
"One of the big selling points of Netflix taking on the NFL Christmas games was that they delivered those globally," said Chang. "This is clearly an evolving space that we'll keep an eye on."
There is no doubt that getting the right broadcast partners on board could help elevate F1 and get it in the lounges or on the phones of people that it has never been able to do before.
So as viewing habits change, it is no longer a case of what F1 can do for broadcasters. It is now going to be more about what broadcast deals can do for F1.
