Insight TV motors ahead with Extreme E racing series
Insight TV, the leading millennial-focused global channel and content producer, today announces it has signed an agreement to broadcast the inaugural season of Extreme E, the pioneering electric off-road racing championship.
Broadcasting across Insight TV’s linear and digital networks from April, Extreme E will visit five remote locations highlighting a variety of environmental issues including desertification, rising sea levels, glacial retreat, deforestation and Arctic ice melt. The series hopes to raise awareness of the climate emergency by mixing sport with purpose to inspire change.
Insight TV, well-known for its line-up of motorsport entertainment and sustainable productions, will be the perfect broadcast partner for Extreme E Championship, which stipulates that each team must field both a male and female driver – a world-first in motorsport – in a bid for gender equality and a level playing field.
The first X Prix will take place in the deserts of Saudi Arabia on 3 – 4 April. Some of the biggest names in motorsport have founded teams including Formula One World Champions Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, with teams X44 and Rosberg X Racing respectively. Fellow Formula One star Jenson Button has not only founded a team – JBXE – but will also be behind the wheel.
The new series will broadcast across the channel’s global linear and digital networks in all territories except Brazil, India, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Germany, the US and the UK. In addition to airing all five of this season’s X Prixs, Insight TV will also air Extreme E’s race highlights package, as well as the championship’s review and magazine shows.
Arun Maljaars, Insight TV’s Vice President of Content and Channels, said: “Extreme E resonates with our millennial and Gen Z audiences on multiple levels, from addressing climate change and its effect on ecosystems world-over, to showcasing the performance of all-electric SUVs in extreme and thrilling conditions. We can’t wait to broadcast this fantastic race series to our viewers around the world.”
Ali Russell, Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme E, added: “I am delighted to welcome Insight TV, the go-to platform for story-driven millennial audiences, as broadcast partner to Extreme E.
“Extreme E is an exciting new motorsport, unlike any other, showcasing electric racing, adventure and environmental issues in some of the most challenging environments on the planet. As well as the live racing, we are producing behind the scenes programming which delves deeper into the championship and its wider purposes concerning electrification, environment and equality.
“We are driven by making a real difference to the environment and the communities we visit and we can’t wait to give Insight TV viewers a front row seat to all the action.”
All drivers in the championship, which include the likes of Carlos Sainz, Sébastien Loeb, Molly Taylor and Jamie Chadwick, will race an all-electric SUV – the ODYSSEY 21 – which is capable of firing the 1780-kilogram, 2.3-metre wide E-SUV from 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds, at gradients of up to 130 per cent.
These cars, and the rest of the championship’s freight are transported on the competition’s floating centrepiece, the St. Helena. The series chose a ship as sea travel is less carbon intensive than air freight, but not only that, it also provided the opportunity to conduct research into various areas of the marine environment during the global voyage in its on-board science laboratory, which will be home to a number of scientists during its year long voyage.
Extreme E’s inaugural race is in AlUla, Saudi Arabia (3-4 April), followed by Lac Rose, Senegal (29-30 May), Kangerlussuaq, Greenland (28-29 August), Pará, Brazil (23-24 October) and Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (11-12 December).