Whilst The F1 Broadcasting Blog traditionally focusses on the ratings picture in the UK, occasionally, he does like to cast his eye further a field to see what is happening in other places around Europe. Unfortunately, I am unable to find many historical comparisons below, but thought that the figures would still be worth posting. I should note that the figures below are race average figures and not programme averages that I traditionally report for the UK ratings.
Starting off in Germany, Sebastian Vettel’s victory attracted 5.75 million viewers to RTL, with a 34.9 percent share according to Quotenmeter. More impressively perhaps though is that the race attracted a 29.3 percent share in the younger demographics. In Spain, the race itself had 3.69 million viewers, up 601,000 viewers year-on-year perhaps unsurprisingly given that Fernando Alonso was not eliminated on the first bend this year!
GP2 and GP3 averaged 297,000 and 203,000 viewers despite competition from the MotoGP races. Moto2 averaged 819,000, MotoGP averaged 1.76 million and 530,000 by Moto3. In France, the Formula 1 averaged 850,000 (28.0%) on Canal+, a strong figure when you consider that there are no French title contenders just yet. Lastly, over in Belgian, 379,000 viewers and an impressive 42 percent share watched the race.
In order, again race averages:
1) 5.75 million (34.9%) – Germany
2) 4.40 million (41.6%) – United Kingdom
3) 3.69 million (35.5%) – Spain
4) 850,000 (28.0%) – France
5) 379,000 (42.0%) – Belgium
Already those five countries combined average 15 million viewers in total. When factoring in every country, this figure is probably doubled – to about 30 million viewers, pushing up to 40 million viewers per race.
Motorsport Broadcasting 