Netflix F1 show slammed over tobacco advertising

GENEVA - Netflix's popular Formula One show is providing tobacco giants with a fast and effective marketing vehicle to swerve past bans on advertising their product, industry monitors said.

The behind-the-scenes Formula One streaming series "Drive to Survive" has been hugely popular on Netflix, which recently released the fifth season.

But campaigners warn that beyond boosting the motor sport's popularity, the show is also delivering into homes worldwide the branding of cigarette companies that sponsor F1 teams, including in countries where tobacco advertising is banned.

In a fresh report, F1 industry monitor Formula Money and tobacco industry watchdog STOP charged that in just the fourth season of "Drive to Survive", "a total of 1.1 billion minutes of footage streamed around the world contained tobacco-related content."

And half of all episodes during that season contained tobacco-related branding in the opening minute, according to the report, entitled: "Driving Addiction: F1, Netflix and Cigarette Company Advertising".

The product branding of Ferrari sponsor Philip Morris International (PMI) and McLaren sponsor British American Tobacco (BAT) has "heavily featured in the series, with extended plotlines following the teams' drivers," the report said.

"Research suggests that PMI and BAT are reaching new audiences through the show, including people who don't otherwise watch F1 races," it added.

- Younger audiences -

Wednesday's report showed that the viewers of "Drive to Survive" were younger than typical F1 audiences, and also suggested it had contributed towards significantly increasing viewership of F1 races beyond the Netflix series.

"This increase in viewers means more people see the branding F1 sponsors place on the cars and livery," it said. 

"Netflix has a responsibility to not deliver content that is promoting, even if it's indirectly, cigarette company brands," Jorge Alday of STOP told AFP.

Netflix did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A global treaty has called for the elimination of all advertising for tobacco, the use of which the World Health Organization estimates kills more than eight million people each year.

And the International Automobile Federation (FIA), Formula One's governing body, has for two decades recommended against tobacco company sponsorship in the sport.

The tobacco companies have since stopped advertising for their traditional cigarette brands with F1, but have in some cases continued to push newer alternative products like e-cigarettes.

"They live in this grey area around what is and what isn't tobacco marketing," Alday said.

When contacted by AFP, the FIA said it "remains firmly opposed to tobacco advertising and continues to stand by its 2003 recommendations".

However, it said, "we are not in a position to interfere with the private commercial arrangements between the teams and their sponsors, or broadcast agreements."

Formula One meanwhile insisted that "all advertising is in line with applicable laws."