Sky Sports F1 to screen Classic British Grand Prix’s [UPDATED]

Sky Sports F1 starting next Friday are to screen Grand Prix classics, I can confirm. Schedules on the Sky Sports website are updating, and reveal the following for next weekend:

11th GP D’Europe – 20 minutes
– Friday 29th June, 19:40 to 20:00
– Wednesday 4th July, 20:00 to 20:15

1956 British Grand Prix – 1 hour
– Friday 29th June, 21:00 to 22:00
– Tuesday 3rd July, 20:00 to 21:00

1958 British Grand Prix – 30 minutes
– Sunday 1st July, 21:00 to 21:30
– Thursday 5th July, 19:30 to 20:00

1964 European Grand Prix – 40 minutes
– Friday 29th June, 19:00 to 19:40
– Monday 2nd July, 20:00 to 20:45

2007 British Grand Prix – 2 hours
– Saturday 30th June, 18:00 to 20:00
– Monday 2nd July, 21:00 to 23:00

2008 British Grand Prix – 2 hours
– Saturday 30th June, 21:40 to 23:40
– Tuesday 3rd July, 21:00 to 23:00

2009 British Grand Prix – 2 hours
– Sunday 1st July, 17:00 to 19:00
– Wednesday 4th July, 21:00 to 23:00

2010 British Grand Prix – 2 hours
– Sunday 1st July, 19:00 to 21:00
– Thursday 5th July, 16:00 to 18:00

2011 British Grand Prix – 2 hours
– Sunday 1st July, 21:30 to 23:30
– Thursday 5th July, 21:00 to 23:00

Legends: Stirling Moss – 40 minutes
– Saturday 30th June, 21:00 to 21:40
– Wednesday 4th July, 20:00 to 20:40

Looking around the web, the 11th GP D’Europe is in fact the 1950 British Grand Prix. The 1964 European Grand Prix took place at Brands Hatch, also under the title of the British Grand Prix. And according to Radio Times, the Stirling Moss programme is an interview with him and Steve Rider.

Great to see Sky putting out all the stops for the British Grand Prix. This is the second time Sky are showing Classic races, the first time being from Monaco in May.

UPDATE on 26th June: I’ve added the entire week’s schedule, so you can see when the races are being shown.

A few movers and shakers for this weekend and Silverstone

With practice over for this weekend’s European Grand Prix, there are a few movers and shakers to keep you informed of for the remainder of the weekend and at Silverstone.

On the Sky Sports side of things, Karun Chandhok is joining the team this weekend, starting with tonight’s The F1 Show with Georgie Thompson and Ted Kravitz. This is Chandhok’s second appearance I believe with the team having been on The F1 Show alongside Derek Warwick a few weekends back. Another person joining the team is former Sauber and BMW driver Nick Heidfeld, who will join Simon Lazenby, Johnny Herbert and Martin Brundle on Sunday. Allan McNish is the third driver with the team temporarily, McNish replacing the injured Anthony Davidson as viewers for practice today would have spotted.

BBC’s team meanwhile reverts back to the usual set-up after Jake Humphrey’s brief departure to cover Euro 2012. He was expected to stay out there, but the schedule means that he is able to cover Valencia in full. The move means that Tom Clarkson will probably not be covering this weekend for BBC and will only be with them for Germany and Hungary. For radio, Jonathan Legard replaces James Allen again for this weekend.

Looking ahead to Silverstone, and former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley will be pitlane reporter for 5 Live. Priestley, who was with McLaren from 1999 to 2009 will be alongside Jennie Gow for the entire weekend. Also, it has been announced that the F1 Forum from Silverstone will take place on the main stage on Sunday after the race. So if you’re heading to the main stage after the race at Silverstone, you may just be caught on camera!

Thanks to Karun Chandhok and 5LiveF1 on Twitter for some of the information above.

UPDATE on 23rd June: Clarkson is actually still out there for BBC, as you can hear him interviewing Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel here.

Sky’s IndyCar scheduling this weekend

So this weekend there is Live IndyCars on Sky Sports 2 at 02:30. Which is fair enough, that’s just the luck of the draw unfortunately that some races are on in the early hours. What I don’t get, though, is where the repeats are scheduled, or rather the lack of repeats are scheduled on one particular channel. Scrolling through the channels, I see:

– 02:30 to 05:00 – Sky Sports 2 [live]
– 10:00 to 12:00 – Sky Sports 2 [repeat]
– 17:00 to 19:00 – Sky Sports 4 [repeat]
– 20:00 to 22:00 – Sky Sports 3 [repeat]

Two of the three repeats are either against F1 or Football while the other repeat is against the Legends programme featuring Mika Hakkinen on Sky Sports F1.

With scheduling like this, it is as if Sky are not willing to commit to IndyCars given the disastrous three thousand viewers last Saturday. Fact is there, there are a lot of people that want to watch IndyCars, but can’t. Why? Because they have Sky Sports F1 but don’t have the other Sky Sports channels. I outlined the various ratings reasons here, but to summarise, this is how the IndyCar Series has rated so far this season:

Round 1 – St. Petersburg
– first hour and a half shown behind Red Button due to Malaysian Grand Prix overrunning
– Sky Sports F1
– Sunday 25th March, 19:00 to 20:30
– programme average: 21,000 (0.09%)
– peak: 34,000 (0.15%) at 19:05

Round 2 – Barber
– Sky Sports 4
– Sunday 1st April, 20:00
– programme average: under 30,000; outside of BARB Top 10

Round 3 – Long Beach
– Sky Sports 4
– Sunday 15th April, 21:00
– programme average: under 25,000; outside of BARB Top 10

Round 4 – São Paulo
– was originally meant to be shown on Sky Sports 4, but moved to Sky Sports F1 as race time was moved earlier (more here)
– Sunday 29th April, 16:30 to 19:00
– programme average: 16,000

Round 5 – Indianapolis
– Sky Sports 4
– Sunday 27th May, 16:30 to 21:00
– programme average: 28,000
– peak: 53,000 at 17:20

Round 6 – Detroit
– Sky Sports 4
– Sunday 3rd June, 20:30 to 25:00
– programme average: under 35,000; outside of BARB Top 10

Round 7 – Texas
– Sky Sports 1
– Saturday 9th June, 01:30
– programme average: ???

Round 8 – Milwaukee
– Sky Sports 3
– Saturday 16th June, 18:00 to 22:00
– programme average: 3,000 (0.01%)
– race average from 20:00 to 22:00: 4,000 (0.02%)

The above ratings are criminally low, and are in fact lower than all live content that airs on Sky Sports F1, including GP2 and GP3. With that in mind, would it not make sense to move it to Sky Sports F1 to try and boost ratings?

The current schedule for this Sunday on Sky Sports F1 is:

09:30 – LIVE: GP2 Series
10:35 – filler
11:30 – LIVE: European Grand Prix
16:15 – NEW: Legends: Mika Hakkinen
17:15 – filler
19:00 – NEW: European Grand Prix Highlights
20:30 – Legends: Mika Hakkinen (R)
21:30 – GP2 Race 2 (R)
22:35 – European Grand Prix Highlights (R)
24:05 – Legends: Mika Hakkinen (R)
25:00 – off-air

Filler’s are in the wrong place there quite frankly. The schedule, in my opinion, should go:

09:30 – LIVE: GP2 Series
10:35 – NEW: Legends: Mika Hakkinen
11:30 – LIVE: European Grand Prix
16:15 – NEW: IndyCar Series
18:15 – NEW: European Grand Prix Highlights
19:15 – Legends: Mika Hakkinen (R)
20:15 – GP3 Race 1 (R)
21:00 – GP3 Race 2 (R)
21:50 – GP2 Race 1 (R)
23:15 – GP2 Race 2 (R)
24:20 – off-air

The schedule above has nine hours back-to-back of original content without any fillers to get into the way, with the highlights show sensibly on slightly earlier to avoid a clash with Euro 2012.

For those wondering, the Legends’ series has had:

– Nigel Mansell, 18th March: 76,000 (1.03%)
– Jody Scheckter, 25th March: 49,000 (0.65%)
– Alan Jones, 22nd April: 25,000 (0.16%)
– John Surtees, 13th May: 15,000 (0.10%)

So a timeslot change for itself to earlier in between GP2 and the main Formula 1 show on Sky may actually help it. Although I suspect for such a cheap programme, ratings are not as relevant, plus they are repeated multiple times so do their job well. Back to IndyCars though, and this particular Sunday moving the Legends programme to 10:30 would open up a slot for the IndyCar Series repeat to go into at 16:15 and give it some much needed exposure on Sky Sports F1.

Because let’s face it, the IndyCar Series ratings above are not only sad, but also plain embarrassing.

The Twitter outlook

Formula 1 heads back to Europe, and in particular to Spain for the second Spanish round, known as the European Grand Prix. Hopefully everyone can stay awake for the duration… onto this week’s counters:

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 987,338 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 861,251 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
03 – 677,392 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
04 – 432,168 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 360,767 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 214,980 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 213,528 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 166,067 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 153,862 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 140,621 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 28,811 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 12,147 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 9,627 – Jenson Button
04 – 4,949 – Sergio Perez
05 – 4,889 – Bruno Senna

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 365 – Charles Pic
02 – 527 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 785 – Daniel Ricciardo
04 – 916 – Timo Glock
05 – 940 – Nico Hulkenberg

Hamilton and Perez get their benefits from their respective Canadian performances, with Perez recording one of the biggest increases of the week. As usual though, it is Fernando Alonso out in front. All of the five smallest increases are under one thousand followers, with both Marussia’s, Toro Rosso’s and the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg occupying the latter spots.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 286,974 – Ferrari
02 – 199,938 – McLaren
03 – 132,345 – Mercedes
04 – 122,789 – Red Bull
05 – 112,647 – Lotus
06 – 76,827 – Caterham
07 – 67,316 – Marussia
08 – 66,527 – Williams
09 – 66,299 – Force India
10 – 58,834 – Sauber

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 3,101 – Ferrari
02 – 2,088 – Red Bull
03 – 1,865 – McLaren

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 326 – Williams
02 – 463 – Force India
03 – 552 – Toro Rosso

I did the statistics on Monday, as I usually do, but since then, McLaren have broken the 200 thousand follower barrier. As I type this, they have 200,154 followers, joining Ferrari in the over 200 thousand club. For the second time in three weeks though, it is Williams that recorded the smallest increase, recording an increase of only 326 followers since last Monday. Ouch.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 18th June 2012.

24 Hours of Le Mans performs well as MotoGP and IndyCar ratings plunge

The 24 Hours of Le Mans performed in line with 2011 over the week, overnight television ratings show as MotoGP and IndyCar Series ratings dropped significantly here in the UK.

The endurance event, screened on British Eurosport and British Eurosport 2, averaged a solid 49,000 viewers, marginally up on the 47,000 average it had in 2011. The peak for 2011 was higher though than this year, with a peak of 162,000 at the end of the race. Unsurprisingly, the race had a higher viewership than in the opening few hours, tailing off in the night as you would expect, before increasing on Sunday morning, but to a lower number than in 2011, due to the race all but decided by that point this year.

24 Hours of Le Mans – 2011 vs 2012
13:45 to 19:30 – 46,000 vs 77,000
19:30 to 02:00 – 45,000 vs 39,000
02:00 to 09:00 – 16,000 vs 16,000
09:00 to 14:15 – 97,000 vs 76,000

As the breakdown shows, last year’s race was benefited by the battle between Audi and Peugeot for the victory which went down to the final hour, whereas this year it was pretty clear late on Saturday night after Anthony Davidson’s crash that it would be an Audi whitewash (even if they nearly did mess it up nearly on Sunday morning!).

Despite being up against the 24 Hours of Le Mans both years, the MotoGP from Silverstone on BBC Two found it’s ratings slashed year-on-year. Airing from 12:30 to 14:30 in both 2011 and 2012, the race averaged 1.76 million, with a 15.3 percent share for the programme. That compares with 882,000 viewers and a 10.0 percent share this year, a fairly significant drop year-on-year, even if it did win its slot. The race itself from 13:00 to 13:45 this past Sunday averaged 1.07 million viewers, which is still a big drop on the 2011 average. Eurosport’s coverage of the Moto2 and Moto3 races had 105,000 and 85,000 viewers respectively.

The biggest ouch, however, comes from the IndyCar Series’ IndyFest race on Saturday night. Between 18:00 and 22:00 on Saturday night, Sky Sports 3 averaged three thousand viewers, with the race itself from 20:00 averaging four thousand viewers, equating to a 0.02 percent share. That’s the lowest IndyCar Series rating that I have come across, and especially considering the primetime slot, an incredibly poor rating. You could argue it went against the football and Le Mans, but even so, no live sport should be averaging three thousand viewers unless there are extraordinary circumstances. Maybe it is about time that the Sky bods move it to Sky Sports F1, and give it some suitable promotion. I’ve outlined “why” multiple times on this blog, the most recent of which is here. It is a sad state of affairs when the Indianapolis 500 only gets 27,000 viewers.

As always, comments and thoughts on anything I publish and write about are welcome.