Racing ahead: Inside F1's 2023 broadcast plans with director of broadcast and media Dean Locke By George Bevir
Friday, February 24, 2023 - 10:21
Print This Story
From more helmet cams to an overhauled remote production centre, the upcoming F1 season promises a raft of innovations. F1 director of broadcast and media Dean Locke provides an in-depth update on what's in store in 2023, including preparations for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
When the first race of the 2023 Formula 1 season gets underway in Bahrain on Sunday 5 March, it will mark the beginning of what is likely to be another bumper year for the sport, with the largest ever round of races, a glitzy new weekend of action in Las Vegas and six Sprint races (up from three last year).
Racing at Silverstone last season
It's fair to say that the popularity of F1 is on the rise as well, with the 2022 F1 World Championship season the most-viewed ever on US television, with an average of 1.21 million viewers per race, up 28% on the previous record set in 2021, according to ESPN.
That increase in viewership is attributed at least in part to Drive to Survive, with season five of the Netflix fly-on-the-wall series debuting today (and season 6 in the pipeline). There is also an F1 movie directed by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and starring Brad Pitt in the works and set to film over the course of this season at F1 races, all of which is likely to further boost interest in the motorsport.
It is always incredibly difficult to get anything on a F1 car, no matter what it weighs, or what the power or the heat is.
With more racing, growing audiences and an increased thirst for content, it's fair to say that F1 director of broadcast and media Dean Locke and his team have been busy since the fall of the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi in November. The 2022 season ended a few weeks earlier than the 2021 Championship due to the World Cup, but that didn't mean a few weeks of downtime.
I think everybody thought that that would mean we'd have a fairly quiet December, but it was the complete opposite, says Locke. But we're up to the challenge. And it's not just F1; there are more races in F2 and F3, so people are always busy. And I think that's why I'm particularly proud; we don't just say, here you go, here are three new things,' and then not do anything new for the rest of the year. The rollouts are throughout the season at every single race.
Locke has the challenge of overseeing a continuous cycle of innovation in the way content is captured and presented on viewers' screens throughout the year, but one of the most significant changes this season is unlikely to be noticed by viewers. Between the end of last season and the start of 2023, there has been an upgrade to the F1 Media and Technology Centre at Biggin Hill, which is some 20-miles southeast of London.
We've completely converted the building now to be a remote centre, says Locke. The broadcast centre we had in Australia in 2020 was brought back here to Biggin Hill, and since then operated in the same way apart from it was in the hangar in Biggin Hill and wasn't a permanent structure, but we've done things like move the renderers and servers away from the operational positions.
We started that at 6am after Abu Dhabi (the final race of the 2022 season). Kit was ripped out of containers and then put into permanent workspaces and a permanent CAR room. That's been going on all winter, and it's now ready and we've had test signals coming back from Bahrain.
One of the main benefits has been an improvement in the working environment, but it is also part of F1's sustainability initiative. At each race, an Event Technical Centre (pictured, below) is deployed onsite and acquires content, data and feeds which are sent back to Biggin Hill. That operation will continue to be used, but over time Locke expects the remote setup to result in fewer people and less kit as F1 works towards its plan to be net zero carbon by 2030.
Speaking from F1's Biggin Hill base, Locke says: This is more of a dedicated site now. It's a much better environment, with more capability to do more - it enables us to do a lot more of the handover and the hefty, heavy lifting.
We also have a bit of an IP transition, like a lot of people in the industry. So part of the build at Biggin Hill was to facilitate over the next two to three years a big IP transition, and that will open up opportunities. Also, as we reach end of life on some of that kit, it raises the question of how we move that over to IP as well. One of the main things was to get all the fibre infrastructure into this building, and into the new CAR. And now we have to look at a roadmap for replacing some of that kit.
At each of the 23 locations around the world that will host races this season, the broadcast and media team's focus is on the acquisition of data, pictures, audio, along with some mixing of pictures. The main curation and production of the world feed and additional content for rights holders, as well as the F1 TV streaming services, is completed on race weekends at Biggin Hill where the main director and producers are based.
The build of a new full AR, dedicated studio for use by the F1 TV team, sponsors and broadcasters will see more content created at the Biggin Hill site. The majority of the commentary is done here at Biggin Hill now, so we have dedicated commentary booths. We like to keep commentators on site some of the time, because they like to be there. But we will host various broadcasters' commentary here as well, potentially. And a couple of couple of the broadcasters want to do shows here from [the new studio], because it supports their sustainability aims as well, says Locke.
More helmet cams
Getting viewers closer
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Racing ahead: Inside F1's 2023 broadcast plans with director of broadcast and media Dean Locke By George Bevir 
