F1 TV was given a major boost at the start of the 2025 season, with the launch of F1 TV Premium, providing subscribers with the opportunity to watch races in 4K UHD HDR along with a new personalised multiview feature available on select devices.

At launch in March, F1 TV Premium was made available to purchase on Chrome web browser, Apple iOS, Apple TV and Roku. Premium subscribers can watch F1 on up to six devices simultaneously and the new Multiview feature, initially available for customers on Apple iOS, Chrome web browser, and TVOS compatible devices, allows fans to watch particular elements of the broadcast, such as the F1 live feed, onboard cameras and live timing pages together on one screen.

Formula 1 executive director TV production Dean Locke said the launch, which was the biggest upgrade to F1 TV in years, was driven by fan demand for improved picture quality and content richness and was aimed at meeting expectations for high-end home viewing setups.

“I’m very happy at how well that launch went and how it’s been received as well. We kicked it off with UHD, HDR… the research was telling us that the fan base was quite keen to get those pictures and get that rich content and the best quality they possibly could.”

The Premium offering is focused on enabling fans to choose how they watch, with multiple camera angles and data layers and supports a wide fan spectrum, from die-hard strategists to casual viewers, Locke said – with an emphasis on personalisation as the future of live broadcasting.

“I believe the future of broadcasting is personalisation… so we have to ask, what can you do with live content, and how can you really engage with your favourite viewing or sport in the best way possible?

“We have this incredible, diverse fan base as well, which has always been very, very difficult – not to alienate the hardcore fan, but attract new fans, and engage with new fans. How can they understand every single graphic? How can they really get into the sport and identify with it without it being too much?

“We want to enrich that experience with [being] able to choose your level of personalisation… watching your favourite onboard whilst still watching the World Feed or F1 Live Feed seeing what your favourite driver’s [doing], engaging with data screens.”

Read more

• F1’s Dean Locke on getting closer to the action with drones, new camera angles and more team radio
• F1 continues IP advances and centralises AR tracking and RF control
• F1’s new Ghost Car comparison feature aids broadcaster race analysis

The multi-screening tools and UHD delivery were developed from scratch, with significant testing across multiple races and platforms.

Rollout was challenging, due to multi-device and cross-platform compatibility. Indeed, some features are limited on certain platforms and devices, with iOS supporting multiview, HD and HDR but not 4K UHD while Roku and TvOS support both 4K UHD and HDR.

“Just being able to deliver UHD pictures across different platforms and across the ecosystem wasn’t completely easy,” says Locke. “You’re not just rolling it out to one way of watching and one platform… so that makes it incredibly complicated when we roll out anything new.

“The team was very focused on this… testing for the last five, six races of last year was fairly intense, and then all through the winter was intense right up to a very relieved launch in Australia.”

Locke adds that some features could extend to broadcasting partners with interest in providing extra content feeds, graphics, and audio customisation.

“I think in time broadcast linear feeds will have the same sort of elements, and they will want to also integrate with that personalisation.

“Whether that’s extra content feeds that we’re supplying to our broadcast partners — which we already do to an extent — but looking [at] how we do that in a better way, whether that’s offering different graphics packages, or different audio solutions as well. Maybe some of these elements that we’re doing here, we can also offer to broadcasting partners in a different way, so that they’re able to utilise through their systems.”

The 2025 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, Italy, takes place Sunday May 18