Wimbledon set to shunt the British Grand Prix to BBC Two

The respective Men’s and Women’s finals at this years Wimbledon looks set to bump the British Grand Prix to BBC Two. According to the schedules page on the BBC F1 website, the schedule is as follows:

Saturday 7th July
12:10 to 14:30 – Qualifying: BBC Two

Sunday 8th July
12:10 to 12:55 – Race Build-up: BBC One
12:55 to 15:30 – Race Live: BBC Two

I imagine a man named Bernie won’t be too pleased if this turns out to be true. That particular page has made errors before with channel listings, so it shall be interesting if this is true in the finalised schedules in a few weeks time.

In an already difficult season ratings wise for Formula 1 with the change in the contract as a result of the licence fee reductions, it appears this will be the latest blow for Formula 1 in the UK this season. One has to wonder if the conclusion of the British Grand Prix is less important than the first few sets of the Wimbledon Men’s Singles final, and also whether the Qualifying session is less important than the Women’s Singles final.

Either way, F1 is definitely drawing the short straw this year…

As always, I shall publish the confirmed schedules in a few weeks time.

Canadian Grand Prix: The ratings around Europe

While this blog does tend to focus on the United Kingdom television and broadcasting picture, along with the respective ratings, of course, the UK is only one small part of the puzzle. Around Europe, Formula 1 found itself overshadowed by football.

In Spain, the race had 5 million viewers, with a 33.5% viewing share on Antena 3. The figure was significantly lower than the 10 million viewers that watched Spain versus Italy, but higher than the 1.76 million that watched Ireland vs Croatia. Over in Italy, the race started on Rai 2 before switching to Rai 1 twenty-five minutes into the race. The Rai 2 portion had 5.67 million (25.7%), with the Rai 1 portion recording 7.93 million (32.4%). In comparison, Italy’s Euro 2012 game a mammoth 12.7 million, a 62.7% viewing share.

In the Netherlands, according to rating bureax Kijkonderzoek, where there are no Formula 1 drivers of course, the race had 537 thousand viewers, a 7.7% share, on RTL7. The football there recorded 4 million viewers, again with a mammoth share – this time of 65.7%. In France, looking at these comments, it appears the F1 was not actually broadcast live there last night thanks to their election coverage.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 3rd June, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 86k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 23k – Fast Track (Wednesday, 19:00)
3 – 13k – Monaco Grand Prix: GP2 Sprint Race Replay (Tuesday, 24:00)
4 – 13k – Fast Track (Friday, 19:30)
5 – 12k – Legends (Saturday, 18:02)
6 – 11k – The F1 Show (Friday, 22:30)
7 – 11k – 2007 Season Review: Part 3 (Sunday, 21:04)
8 – 11k – The F1 Show (Sunday, 22:22)
9 – 11k – Monaco Grand Prix Highlights (Monday, 16:30)
10 – 8k – Legends (Saturday, 18:32)

The above programmes are in random order you could say, with only the two ‘original’ programmes The F1 Show and Fast Track getting over twenty thousand viewers. The F1 Show fared well, with its highest number for a studio based programme since the debut F1 Show programme on March 9th.

For the week, the channel reached its lowest audience yet however, reaching 560 thousand people. It’s worth noting that only two programmes from Sunday make the top 10. Nothing from Sunday daytime made the top 10, in stark contrast with two weeks ago when they screened Classic F1 races to double the audience.

Canadian Grand Prix ratings hit six year low

The Canadian Grand Prix disappointed with it’s live viewership yesterday, overnight ratings show, with figures hitting a six year low. The race average on Sky Sports F1 was 1.63 million, with a peak of 1.77 million. One thing I have noticed a lot with the race average versus peak is that the gap between the two is small. Unlike with BBC, where the audience can increase a lot throughout due to casuals joining in the middle of a exciting race, that appears to be not happening on Sky Sports F1. Despite an exciting race yesterday, the peak is only 140 thousand above the race average.

With regards, to the peak, there is an argument that it did okay given the Euro 2012 opposition. I’m not sure I agree. Even with the Euro 2012 opposition, in my opinion the peak should have been at least above 2 million. In comparison, the Bahrain Grand Prix had a peak of 1.6 million in daytime, so Canada only bettered that by 170 thousand. I would have thought the primetime slot, plus the BBC highlights being in a late-night timeslot would have helped the Sky Sports F1 figures more. Unlike Qualifying, the race had a free run for the first 45 minutes in the ‘gap’ between the two games, so I would have thought it may have caught a few floating viewers between the games.

The BBC F1 highlights programme peaked with 3.1 million according to James Allen, resulting in a combined peak of 4.87 million.

The averages don’t make for a pretty picture. The BBC programme had a 2.39 million average (21.2% share), and when factoring in Sky, that will be an average of 3.39 million, which will be the lowest average since 2006, which had an average of 2.72 million. The 2006 race was up against the conclusion of England vs Ecuador.

Canadian Grand Prix – UK TV Ratings
2005 – 4.97 million
2006 – 2.72 million
2007 – 4.58 million
2008 – 3.99 million
2009 – no race
2010 – 5.20 million
2011 – 6.12 million
2012 – ~3.39 million

As for Qualifying, the BBC One highlights show fared solidly with 2.05 million, albeit with only a 13.9% viewing share. Once factoring in Sky Sports F1, the number will be significantly down on the 3.69 million that watched Qualifying in 2011, but in-line with the 2010 average of 2.40 million. I would have expected a significant drop this year, even if Qualifying was on BBC One live, as it would have faced very tough opposition in Euro 2012. The Netherlands versus Denmark match, which went against the live showing of Qualifying had a mammoth 7.59 million peak figure, which I think shows that had F1 been live on BBC this weekend, then Qualifying would not have fared at all well.

Note: The ratings information comes from Sky Media Updates, Digital Spy and Attentional.

Tom Clarkson doing Lee McKenzie’s job this weekend

As noted by Ben Constanduros on Twitter, Tom Clarkson is in Lee McKenzie’s role of interviewing the drivers for BBC F1 this weekend. Clarkson has been part of the BBC team in some capacity before, he worked as co-commentator alongside David Croft for BBC Radio 5 Live at Korea 2010, commentating on the first practice session.

This is not Clarkson’s first Formula 1 broadcasting role this year. As Australian readers may know, he was part of the TEN Sport line-up for the Australian Grand Prix back in March. Looking at some other sites on the internet, it appears Clarkson was part of the TEN Sport line-up last year, although I’m not sure what exactly.

Aside from his roles in broadcasting, he is also one of the editors for F1 Racing magazine, so chances are if you have bought that particular publication in the past, you have read one of his articles.

Constanduros has not stated on Twitter if Clarkson is covering Europe, Germany and Hungary as well while the roles are adjusted slightly in the BBC F1 team.

Update on 14th June: Clarkson is indeed covering Europe, Germany and Hungary as noted here by McKenzie.