Throughout the past month, you have been giving your thoughts and details as to how you plan to consume Formula 1 this season versus 2012. The findings are not meant to be representative of the entire population, but merely a snapshot, of what my blog readers think as the season is in its early stages. In total, nearly 250 people contributed to the survey from many different corners of the globe. For analysis purposes, I have chosen to remove anyone not based in the United Kingdom or Ireland. This does not reduce the contribution significantly, but I feel it is worth noting.
General Conclusions
– 20 percent of readers have changed their viewing habits between 2012 and 2013
– 65 percent of Sky subscribers have watched Sky Sports F1 since launch compared with only 15 percent of people with Virgin Media
– 19 percent of Sky subscribers have not watched Sky Sports F1 compared with 58 percent of Virgin Media subscribers
The main overriding general conclusion concerns the big flip between Sky and Virgin Media. On Sky, from launch customers with either the HD or the Sports pack could view Sky Sports F1. But if you were with Virgin Media, you could only view it with the Sports pack and subscribers to the cable service have not had access to Sky Sports F1 in HD. No doubt the Virgin Media set of figures would be higher if Sky Sports F1 was placed differently pack-wise – but that is out of their control as they would need permission off Sky first.
Audience trends
– Sky Sports year-on-year remains identical
– BBC TV and Radio consumption drops year-on-year
– ‘Other’ viewing drops year-on-year
The above came as a surprise to myself, when you consider that the opposite has happened to the viewing figures so far this year. Like I said earlier, the above is not meant to be applied to the general population. For example, this blog is a specialist Formula 1 blog whereas the total Formula 1 audience stretches into the millions – many casual. It is nevertheless an interesting snapshot to see the Sky’s trend year-on-year is stable, suggesting that they are appeasing the more dedicated fan.
Change versus 2012
The final three questions asked whether readers were more likely or less likely to watch BBC or Sky versus 2012. I was expecting this to be largely ‘no change’ for most readers but the result was significantly different to what I anticipated. Only 43.5 percent said that there was no change as to whether they consume BBC coverage in 2013 versus 2012, compared with 53 percent for Sky. For both channels though, the amount of people more likely to consume their coverage in 2013 was higher than those less likely to consume the coverage. Whilst the overall audience trend appears near identical year-on-year, it appears within that a lot of viewers have moved about, possibly switching who they view Formula 1 with.
As I said at the beginning, the poll is by no means definitive, but is there to just give a snapshot of the picture from my blog readers. As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
The full poll results can be found here, and the original post is here.
Motorsport Broadcasting 