The BBC has partnered with IMG to expand its Formula 1 podcast coverage with visualised content, responding to podcast visualisation trends
The BBC has partnered with IMG to ramp up its audio and visualised podcast coverage of Formula 1.
This is in response to a “big increase” in sports fans consuming audio content, as well as a trend towards the visualisation of popular podcasts.
This year, for BBC’s F1 coverage, IMG is producing more than 70 episodes of the F1: Chequered Flag podcast, including season previews and reviews. It is also releasing spin-off series Chequered Flag Extras on non-race weeks.
A major difference this year is F1: Chequered Flag is being visualised, featuring exclusive content from each Grand Prix. It is being published on iPlayer, the BBC website and YouTube.
IMG has also produced another series of the F1: Back at Base podcast, hosted by Rosamund Pike. This eight-part series follows Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman, and charts Cadillac’s journey towards the F1 grid in 2026.
On top of this, IMG is producing 140 hours of live coverage across the season for the BBC Radio 5 Live network, including commentary of every practice session, qualifying session and race.
Broadcast Sport talked to IMG head of audio Steve Tebb, about what the production company did to visualise the Chequered Flag podcast series.
“The BBC aren’t on site at every race, so we did the visualisation in different ways. For the eight races where they have a full team on site, we find somewhere like a nearby restaurant to record a review podcast,” he said. “It’s a very quick rig, with three Blackmagic cameras and an Atomos Pro monitor, with a live vision mix. We have one wide camera and two people cameras, and great lighting. We also have an ISO on each camera, but we live cut at the time as we need a quick turnaround.”
Tebb adds that the podcast is literally edited in the corner of the restaurant where the graphics are added and the content is topped and tailed. The finished video and audio is then sent to the BBC within hours of being shot.
When the BBC isn’t on-site for the race, IMG records the visualised podcast from a new vodcast studio it has built at Stockley Park. “The setup is pretty much a mirror of what we have on-site, including a live vision mix edit, and it looks great,” says Tebb.
It’s the eighth season of the podcast, which first launched in 2018, with the first visualised episode going live around six months ago.
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