Netflix’s popular Formula One show receives backlash over 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 Wednesday.

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".