Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt K
BTCC is popular mostly with race fans, mass British media don't care about it at all. You can get some Formula One news in The Times or BBC but not a word about BTCC. In Australia gossip newspapers can talk about James Courtney's divorce, a driver's house going on sale or a physical altercation between drivers during gala event. That's not relevant about the championship itself of course, but shows the reach and popularity.
|
Okay - long rant.
BTCC have been their own worst enemy with some of that, but the drivers need to do more to promote it (I know they're allowed to do tik tok videos now from the races, but that won't boost things on its own.) Just sticking things on YouTube and hoping people find it isn't good enough IMO. They haven't promoted it enough.
The Drive to Survive thing type thing they did was decent for season 2 and 3, but the numbers are woeful for a championship 'that big.' There just seems to be a culture of 'it's on TV, that's good enough.' That was the case before YouTube and streaming, but in 2023 you need to fight tobuild your future audience - and frankly, much as I love touring cars, to a younger audience it just looks like aging cars going round a track with the names of unknown people on the side. The analysis and interviews aren't enough compared to other championships on TV - I know fans like me want to see the other TOCA racing, but to bring in fans you need the driver personalities out there. Dan Lloyd is doing a great job as a pure vlog - but the other types of media all need to work to lift something like that.
The series does get UK national newspaper coverage in The Mirror, The Express (oddly not today) and The Star on the day after a race - but, it's not from a journalist, it's a short write up provided by the BTCC itself from Simon Melluish, when I checked out who he is it came up with him being head of media for the championship. Hardly independent is it?
Magazines. Motorsport News only gives two pages to a report and a page written by Dan Rowbottom with the odd feature and hardly any news. Autosport does really good race reports but hardly any news these days (I'm not suggesting they go back to the 1990s when BTCC got two pages of news every week!) Autocar are terrible, but I suppose the readers only need a snippet. I was gutted when Motor Racing UK stopped, because it had some good artivcles and reports but happy when they relaunched as Touring Car Magazine (first two issues sold out so I haven't had a chance to read it yet.) And remember, Speedway Star outsells all of those magazines combined.....
On the internet motorsport(dot)com have buried the BTCC. I can get NASCAR and Supercar (and TCR Australia) news on the English language version - but it pops up a little on Autosport on a race weekend (I wish they'd put more ut there.) touringcars(dot)net and Touring Car Times are just bitesized snippets hardly worth bothering with. As for Podcasts there's the odd one that's decent (like what Plato is doing) but no proper ones really. I do like the Alan Hyde show (love most of the music, but must admit I think that would alienate newer fans) and it's a pain to find.
What I'm trying to say is if 30,000 people are going to races why is their so little coverage? (not even mainstream?) If they claimed over a million viewers on ITV 1, and drivers I've asked say the information they pass to their sponsors is 15 million UK TV viewers - with live ITV4 races peaking at 300,000 per race, why is there such a poor media thing around it all? Crikey - if those numbers are true then they're bombing Moto GP and WRC TV numbers, but are way behind them. And the race day attendances are similar to Wolves, Forest or Brighton in the Prem (I know, that's a massive sport, but still, the fanbase musn't be that far behind Rugby League!)
As for international TV, I know in America it's on MAVTV. I've watched that channel before (and you can get it free on a Samsung TV) but they're worse than Motors TV. It's squeezed in among Swamp Rat Racing, V8 Superboats and amateur motocross, not the hotbed of American racing coverage you'd like it to be.
It's just like Bernie and F1 when he wouldn't let anything go on social media etc. Once Liberty took over F1 exploded everywhere - there's a lesson in that.
Can't work out whether the BTCC is underselling itself, or punching above its own weight.
Rant over.