Sky Sports F1 to continue broadcasting throughout the Winter and into 2014

Sky Sports F1 is to remain ‘open’ as a channel throughout the Winter, it has been confirmed today. As noted by the channel’s Insider Twitter account this morning:

We’re currently preparing for our Christmas shows back at HQ – something to keep you guys amused over the festive season. We’ll review each teams season as well as putting on a Christmas special. We’ll keep you updated about when you’ll be able to see these.

This is not a surprise, just confirmation of news that was expected given that the channel remained on air in Winter 2012 and that a season review on each team, as well as a main programme, was broadcast last year. Still, it is pleasing to see that the commitment remains the same.

Another piece of information is from the Sky Programme Information website, specifically in their Brazilian Grand Prix description:

Sky Sports F1 has delivered unrivalled coverage throughout 2013 and will be the only place to the see every race in the 2014 Formula 1 season live.

Again, this is really just confirmation of expected news, the channel will be remaining in 2014. There is always a slight worry that content may one day be merged into the main four Sky Sports’ channels, but it appears that Sky Sports F1 is definitely remaining for 2014. Once we are into the close season questions will begin to turn towards the 2014 build-up. I have not even seen a definitive 2014 testing schedule, but if Bahrain is the final test, I wonder if Sky will broadcast it live again? Time will tell, and as always I will update the blog as news becomes available.

Update on November 7th – The F1 Show will end the main 2013 series as expected on Friday 29th November.

Update on November 26th – Whilst the main The F1 Show series will end on 29th November, a ‘Journalists Special’ will air the week after on Friday 6th December, which appears to be new.

Poll: Do you plan on following MotoGP in 2014?

This weekend, MotoGP’s coverage winds down on both the BBC and Eurosport, with BT Sport covering the series from 2014.

The F1 Broadcasting Blog today poses a simple question: do you plan on following MotoGP in 2014? The options are as follows:

Option A – Yes, I will continue to follow MotoGP via BT Sport – self explanatory. You have access to BT Sport currently and therefore will be following MotoGP in 2014.

Option B – Yes, I do not have access to BT Sport but will continue to follow MotoGP via other means – this does not necessarily mean ‘illegal streaming’ before anyone mentions that! It could be via the MotoGP website, AUTOSPORT or other outlets. After all, MotoGP’s YouTube channel is not too shabby…

Option C – No, I won’t be following MotoGP in 2014 – for those that have watched MotoGP in 2013 and before, but won’t be from 2014.

Option D – No, I don’t currently follow MotoGP and have no interest in doing so – you’ve never been a fan, and never will be, basically!

Option E – Undecided – self explanatory and could easily be, for example, a choice of the above three options come next April.

Option F – Poll does not apply to me – just so you don’t feel left out, foreign readers outside of the UK, click this option.

At the moment, I am somewhere between Option’s B and C in all honesty. I definitely will not have access to BT Sport before April, so it will be a case of either not following it at all, or ‘part time’, so to say. At this stage I would put myself (as I have done!) as an Option B. I have watched and followed MotoGP for the best part of a decade, and I don’t particularly want to give up easily! At the same time, I cannot justify getting BT Sport for the IndyCar Series, MotoGP and some Premier League games. The cost is too much for me, as it currently stands on top of the existing package I have.

How many people fall into the same boat as me? The poll is above, but more so use this as discussion rather than just the poll. If there are a few good opinions in the comments then I will publish a follow up blog in a few weeks time.

‘Dead rubber’ Abu Dhabi Grand Prix drops below 4 million

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix dropped below 4 million viewers to its lowest rating yet, overnight ratings reveal. This really should not be a surprise given the title race is over. What may be surprising, however, is that it appears that Sky Sports F1’s exclusive coverage actually did worse than the shared coverage for last year’s race. At this stage that is not 100 percent confirmed, and will only become confirmed in the official ratings next week.

BBC One’s highlights coverage averaged 3.367 million viewers, a 19 percent viewer share according to ITV Media. Qualifying highlights on the Saturday averaged 2.97 million viewers, a really good number for Qualifying, but again not surprisingly below what Pointless has been doing in the same slot on Saturday’s recently.

Last year, Sky Sports F1’s programme officially averaged 541,000, which is about 730,000 for 12:10 to 15:15. Yesterday failed to make ITV Media’s multi-channel top 10 which meant ‘it’ averaged under 607,000 viewers. What ‘it’ is, I don’t know. Is it the full programme average or is it the 12:00 to 15:15 average in Sky money? Either way, even with the title race over, this is fairly concerning – last year coverage was also live on BBC One, this year it was exclusively live on Sky. The problem for Sky though is that no casual viewers at all that would normally watch a race would be drawn at all towards their channel when a title race is over, they would have no reason to and are therefore unlikely to tune in. In that respect, terrestrial television and the BBC definitely has more of an advantage.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2009 – 4.88 million
2010 – 5.85 million
2011 – 4.69 million
2012 – 4.49 million / 4.68 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
– overnight figures were 4.40 million / 4.55 million
2013 – 3.82 million / 3.99 million (overnight rating)
– rough estimate and subject to revision

I’m not looking forward to USA’s rating, frankly. Another dead rubber race, which I cannot see doing well. It could well be a fairly embarrassing number. The side effect of that means that the season average is continuing to drop. It is not often the first half of the season is competitive and the second half of the year is domination all over. A tale of two halves, and the end number may not be pretty.

The 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Scheduling: The 2013 Valencian MotoGP

All good things, come to end. The 2013 MotoGP World Championship comes to a close next weekend with Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo fighting for the crown. But so too does BBC Sport’s and Eurosport’s coverage of the championship. From next year, the series (along with Moto2 and Moto3) will be broadcast exclusively live on BT Sport. Whatever you, or I, think of BBC’s current coverage, the fact of the matter is that as of 2014, MotoGP will no longer be attracting the masses across the airwaves. I’m definitely looking forward to see BT Sport’s coverage of MotoGP, but at the moment, the previous sentence remains true.

Nevertheless, the show must go on, and with that in mind, here is a special schedule piece for Valencia, as the curtain comes down on MotoGP’s current coverage, as BT Sport ushers in a new era, from 2014.

Friday 8th November 2013
12:05 to 15:00 – Practice (British Eurosport 2)

Saturday 9th November 2013
11:20 to 13:00 – Moto2 and Moto3: Qualifying (BBC Red Button)
11:30 to 15:00 – Qualifying (British Eurosport 2)
13:00 to 14:00 – MotoGP: Qualifying (BBC Two)

Sunday 10th November 2013
09:15 to 09:45 – MotoGP: Warm Up (British Eurosport 2)
09:45 to 12:25 – Moto2 and Moto3: Race (British Eurosport 2)
09:45 to 12:30 – Moto2 and Moto3: Race (BBC Red Button)
12:30 to 14:00 – MotoGP: Race (BBC Two)
14:00 to 14:30 – MotoGP: Extra (BBC Red Button)
14:00 to 15:30 – MotoGP: Race (British Eurosport 2)

I will update this blog post if any of the scheduling details change.

Five years since ITV F1

Today marks a fairly important anniversary in F1 Broadcasting folklore. At 19:15 on Sunday 2nd November 2008, Britain was celebrating a new Formula 1 champion. But, that day and time also marks the last time that ITV went off the air after a Formula 1 race, the corporation choosing to favour the UEFA Champions League and The FA Cup over broadcasting Formula 1.

I’ve blogged a lot about ITV F1 in the past eighteen months, some of which I have linked below:

– A look back at ITV’s first live Formula 1 broadcast in 1997
– International Motor Sport: why it desperately needs to return to terrestrial television
– The new face of Formula 1
– The [2008] deal that changed it all

It is easy to look back on ITV’s Formula 1 coverage like it was some kind of inferior product just because it had adverts. But in reality, ITV moved the goal posts from what BBC were offering before 1997. Based on site from day one, ITV had a full team led by Jim Rosenthal, Tony Jardine and Simon Taylor in the studio. James Allen and Louise Goodman were in pit lane with Martin Brundle and Murray Walker commentating. The air-time that ITV dedicated was significantly more than BBC before them, the build-up eventually becoming an hour in length as their air-time expanded further as years progressed.

The only major draw back for ITV aside from adverts was having to negotiate broadcasting hours for the early morning Asian races with GMTV, this notably resulted in many Asian Qualifying sessions not being broadcast live (this being an era where ITV were not allowed to broadcast ITV live on ITV2) and a trimmed down version of the race broadcast live from the London Studios. Undeniably their coverage did start to become stale throughout the Schumacher years, although given the quality of the racing, you could probably forgive them for that. Despite this, it is difficult to look back on their final three years of pre-race coverage, with Steve Rider and Mark Blundell with too many fond memories, sadly.

Replacing Murray Walker was an impossible job for Allen. It is a strange one for me, having grown up listening to Allen’s commentary, it didn’t feel or sound right at times, some of his moments especially in the early days sounded forced. Later on, his commentary did improve, although ITV’s coverage disappointingly turned into The Lewis Hamilton Show. Rider talked about this in his book, saying that after years of covering Schumacher’s dominance, there was a new stride in the team, with them finally able to cover a winning British driver at long last, and that it was only right that it would be covered adequately as possible. Allen’s replacement in the pit lane, Ted Kravitz worked on ITV’s F1 coverage from the beginning, starting off as an assistant producer in 1997, moving into an on-air role from 2002 onwards. It is somewhat disappointing looking back at Kravitz’s ITV days, only now with BBC’s and Sky’s expansive coverage do you realise how underused Kravitz was back then versus his BBC and Sky contributions since 2009.

Whilst Apollo 440’s ‘Blackbeat’ song was definitely no ‘The Chain’, the early intro titles for ITV were fairly good, although things went down hill in the latter years with Moby’s ‘Lift Me Up’ and the complete change of opening titles. In terms of their coverage highlights, USA 2005 has to be an instant highlight. ITV covered the events surrounding that race impeccably and fantastic. It was not all bad for Allen and Brundle, if USA 2005 was ITV’s best ever race, then Brazil 2008 will probably go down as one of the finest commentary calls in motor racing history, and by far their finest hour…

Brundle – Is that [Timo] Glock going slowly? That’s Glock!
Allen – Oh my goodness me! [Lewis] Hamilton’s back in position again! A hundred thousand Brazilian hearts sink as he crosses the line…
Brundle – YES!
Allen – …to become the 2008 Formula One World Champion!

It was one of those commentary moments, one that I will personally never forget watching. On that day, at that time, Allen and Brundle’s made that moment and critically, unlike many other Formula 1 commentators around the world, they called it right. A peak audience of over 13 million viewers watched that ending, the most watched Formula 1 moment in UK broadcasting history. I can’t finish off any nostalgia piece about ITV F1, without linking to this tribute, which they aired during their final weekend. Enjoy, if you can!