“I always like to think of it as an entire weekend of Premier League football in one race,” said Tim Glass, Formula E’s broadcast and content director. “You’ve got ten different teams, 20 different drivers, and you don’t know exactly where the story is going to be.”
Speaking at last month’s BlackBook Motorsport Forum, Glass was articulating the central production challenge of knowing what to show live and when during a Formula E broadcast.
Unlike other series, Formula E must balance live storytelling with conveying complex real-time data, such as battery performance, energy usage and regenerative braking and efficiency strategy. Another major insight is the series unique ‘Attack Mode’, whereby drivers leave the racing line at a designated part of the circuit to gain a temporary power boost.
Multiple camera feeds, both trackside and onboard, alongside telemetry for 20 cars, produce an overwhelming volume of information. According to Tata Communications, which serves as the championship’s broadcast distribution provider, a typical race weekend produces between 600 terabytes and one petabyte of data.
However, distilling those insights into something digestible for the viewer is easier said than done.
“The biggest challenge that we have is making sure that we’re following the right thing at the right time,” Glass added. “And that comes down to being able to make the right decision in the live environment.
“You need to make sure that you’re not giving too much information to the fan, confusing them too much, or you’re not creating a single narrative.”
Moving production back to base
Remote production has become central to how addresses both challenges simultaneously. By shifting the majority of its broadcast operations to a London production centre developed by Gravity Media, Glass revealed that Formula E has reduced its on-site carbon footprint by 40 per cent and cut its freight requirement from three planes to two.
But the operational benefits of reducing its reliance on crew travel has had an editorial upside too, allowing for the remote integration of replay, audio and graphics into the live broadcast.
“[Remote production] feeds into the improved storytelling we can do,” said Glass. “Because of that, we’re no longer restricted to having a certain amount of people in the TV compound.
“We can increase the amount of people that we have back at our production hub back in the UK. We now have that capacity for the graphics, for all the sporting data, to help simplify the sport for the people that are watching.
“All that feeds into a better show.”
Formula E has also reduced the number of people required at the track by moving its onboard camera network to 5G, significantly cutting rigging time. Rolling that technology out to cover telemetry data is the next target, according to Glass, which he says would be “a step forward” in both sustainability and the fan experience.
Using AI as a production tool
Technology is reshaping the broadcast workflow in other ways thanks to Google Cloud, which first partnered with Formula E in January 2025 before upgrading to principal partner at the start of this year, joining Julius Bär, Hankook, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Sabic.
Glass explained that Google has helped Formula E build a strategy agent has that uses AI to feed developing storylines and tactical prompts to commentators in real-time, with the final editorial decision staying with the commentator.
AI has also been integrated into the Electronic Video System (EVS) machines used across sports broadcasting to produce instant replays without interrupting the live feed. Previously, Formula E carted slow-motion cameras to each race around the world, which not only was heavy and expensive, but also had to be placed manually at specific points of the racetrack.
By integrating AI, Formula E has opened the door to much greater flexibility.
“Now, we can put any camera that we have through the EVS machine, and any camera can be super slo-mo because it fills in the gaps,” said Glass. “It saves us money on having to fly the extra cameras around the world. As production develops year-on-year, we’ll get more things like that that can really have an impact on the fan experience.”
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