ITV4 secure World Rally Championship rights

In what can only be described as fantastic news, ITV4 have secured the rights to screen the World Rally Championship. Round 3 highlights from Mexico will air on Tuesday 12th March at 17:50.

Considering the fact that WRC’s trajectory in this country has headed south in recent times, this should provide a much needed boost to the sport’s popularity in this country.

I have reached out to ITV for an official comment, and have also asked whether this is a one-off deal, or if this is for the remainder of the season.

Update on March 3rd – ITV have today responded to my request for comment: “We only have rights to the highlights programmes and I can see that there are only 3 episodes. The one on the 12th March which is Mexico and there are 2 others but there is no schedule or location information attached to them at this moment in time. That isn’t unusual though as our schedules only show confirmed information for up to 10 days in advance.”

The way I am reading that is that it is a short term deal, to cover Mexico, Portugal and Argentina up to the beginning of May on the basis that there are three episodes. Alternatively, the other two episodes may be Mexico repeats. The e-mail does not give much away at the moment, if there is a deal in place for the remainder of the year, I would expect something to be made official in the next week.

Update on March 11th – Following rumours this past weekend, ITV have today told me: “We have been advised that we are due to transmit highlights from the rest of the season, which will be shown on Tuesday’s following the weekend event.”

Testing coverage peaks with 119,000 viewers

Sky Sports F1’s extensive coverage of testing peaked with 119,000 viewers across two airings, overnight figures show. The two and a half hour show, also across two airings, averaged 65,000 viewers.

The live show, from 14:00 to 16:30, averaged 32,000 viewers (0.5%), peaking with 44,000 at the conclusion of the session. The repeat, from 18:30 to 21:00, averaged 33,000 viewers (0.2%), peaking with 75,000 at 20:30. At this point you are probably thinking “but isn’t adding up two separate airings at different times making the figures look better than what they really are?”. On the one hand, yes. But on the other hand, the amount of people that would have watched both airings is incredibly small meaning that at least 95 percent of the viewers will be unique. Another factor here is that not all of the 32,000 viewers that watched the live show will have watched it ‘live’ anyway, and instead will have watched it at some point before the 02:00 cut-off to be included in the BARB overnight ratings.

So to have a peak audience of 119,000 viewers in my opinion is extremely impressive, especially as that does not include Sky 3D which will probably add a few extra thousand onto that figure. Also, the BARB ratings do not include those that watched on Sky Go, meaning that you are looking at about a 140,000 peak across the two airings when you factor those two things in.

Below is a full round-up of yesterday’s ratings, excluding Sky 3D who’s figures are not publicly released:

14:00 – Live Testing: 32k (0.5%)
– peak: 44k (0.52%) at 16:00
18:30 – Testing Repeat: 33k (0.2%)
– peak: 75k (0.34%) at 20:30
21:00 – Testing Round-Up: 41k (0.2%)
– peak: 43k (0.19%) at 21:00
21:15 – Ted’s Notebook: 34k (0.2%)
– peak: 44k (0.2%) at 21:25

Heading into the weekend, there is not a significant amount of opposition for the testing, with no Six Nations and unusually only one Premier League game live on Sky, so testing might just pick up more viewers than many might expect into Saturday and Sunday with dry weather and a lot of running anticipated. If early figures are to go by, then Sky have made the right decision to broadcast testing live, and may well be pushing Formula One Management (FOM) to let them do it again in the future.

BBC axe 2012 opening titles

The BBC have dropped their 2012 Formula One opening title sequence, it has been revealed. Their Season Preview Magazine, available in all shops, says at the foot of page 21:

“F1 is never short of stories. It will be a pleasure for all of us involved in making the programmes, including James Allen and Jennie Gow on Radio 5 Live to bring the stories to life. Look out for new titles, watch Suzi as she finds out about life in the fast lane and enjoy F1 across the BBC.”

Although this seems a routine move, freshening up the intro with a new opening sequence, this is quite an odd one when you consider that the titles were introduced only last year. It may just be that they are changing a few of the clips in the intro, but the wording suggests it is a complete revamp. History shows that new Formula 1 intro sequences normally come around every three years, so this for me is a surprising move.

A History of F1 Opening Titles
ITV F1
1997 to 1999 – Jamiroquai
2000 to 2002 – Apollo 440: Blackbeat
2003 to 2005 – Bachman-Turner Overdrive: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
2006 to 2008 – Moby: Lift Me Up

BBC F1
2009 to 2011 – Fleetwood Mac: The Chain (Version 1)
2012 – Fleetwood Mac: The Chain (Version 2)

Sky Sports F1
2012 to present – Alistair Griffin: Just Drive

I assume (and hope) that the new titles still contain The Chain, but the magazine makes no mention of this. I have reached to BBC for a comment.

Update on March 2nd – The BBC have debuted their trailer to promote the new season today. In it contains The Chain, confirming that it will remain for 2013.