The Formula One motor-racing championship has today (Friday) announced that its new OTT subscription service, F1 TV, will now launch in May.
The platform will be rolled out in full ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, which takes place from May 11-13. Until that time, Formula One will continue to run a closed beta version of the service to a small subset of fans for viewing and testing during this weekend’s Chinese GP and the Azerbaijan GP.
Formula One last month opted to delay the launch of F1 TV to carry out further testing of the platform. F1 TV had been scheduled to launch in time for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.
NBC Playmaker, iStreamPlanet, CSG and Ostmodern will join Tata in delivering the solution, which marks F1’s biggest investment in its digital transformation to date. F1 TV will have two service levels at two different price points.
F1 TV Pro, the premium tier, will feature live races and all 20 driver-cameras, as well as side-by-side live race viewing and additional exclusive feeds. Subscribers will be able to personalise the way they watch a grand prix, the content they view and how and when they access it.
All of practice, qualifying and races will be offered live, along with press conferences and pre- and post-race interviews. Later in the season, the main support series Formula 2, GP3 and Porsche Supercup will be added to the service.
F1 TV will initially launch on desktop. Apple, Android and Amazon Fire mobile and tablet devices will launch shortly thereafter. By summer, the service will also be available to fans on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV.
Pricing will be offered on an annual basis of $70 (€57)-$150, with monthly rates ranging from $8-$12. The service will be priced according to market.
A less expensive, non-live subscription tier, F1 TV Access will provide live race timing data and radio broadcasts, as well as extended highlights of each session from the race weekend. It will also be underscored by unprecedented access to archive video content.
At launch, F1 TV will appear in nearly two dozen markets, including F1 host markets Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the US and Mexico, as well as much of Latin America.