Lewis Hamilton’s victory at the Italian Grand Prix peaked strongly across BBC One and Sky Sports F1 yesterday, overnight viewing figures show.
Race
The race, broadcast live on both BBC and Sky, peaked with 5.29m (47.1%) at 14:20. The share it should be noted is particularly strong, showing that the total available TV audience was slightly lower than usual for this race; in 2011 the race peaked with a much stronger 5.78m but only peaked with a 43.9% share of the audience. It is definitely one of the better figures this year for a European race, although it is difficult to tell whether this was a result of what happened in Spa, or simply a result of their being no Premier League football. At the time of the peak, 4.39m were watching BBC One, with a further 903k on Sky, an 83:17 split, or to put it another way, for every one viewer that Sky had, BBC had nearly five times more. The peak, is higher than 2008, 2009 and 2010, only down on the aforementioned 2011 and 2012, which was a highlights race.
BBC One’s coverage from 12:10 to 15:30 averaged 2.99m (30.1%). Sky Sports F1, from 12:00 to 15:30 averaged 611k (6.2%). Unusually, both channels were up year-on-year which is nice to see. As thus, the combined average of 3.60m is up year-on-year. It is significantly down on 2011 and 2012, but up on 2010’s figure of 3.47m (33.7%). Elsewhere on Sky Sports F1, the Track Parade segment averaged 136k (1.8%) and Paddock Live’s billed slot of 15:30 to 16:15 averaged 160k (1.7%).
Qualifying, BTCC and BSB
Live coverage of qualifying on BBC One averaged 1.95m (23.4%) from 12:10 to 14:30. Sky Sports F1’s coverage from 12:00 to 14:35 averaged 370k (4.5%), bringing the combined figure to 2.32m. I think that figure is marginally down year-on-year, but it is by no means a disaster. Following the qualifying session, GP2 on Sky averaged 72k (0.9%).
Unsurprisingly, when Formula 1 is on, any other motor sport scheduled opposite it is harmed in the process. Both the British Touring Car Championship and British Superbikes were the affected parties yesterday. From 10:45 to 17:45, the BTCC averaged 95k (1.0%) on ITV4, which is much lower than their usual average of above 200k. The peak figure of 229k (2.0%) at 17:05 is significantly below what you would normally expect as a result. Live Superbikes Sunday from 09:15 to 18:00 on British Eurosport 2 averaged 69k (0.8%), peaking with 145k (1.4%) at 16:30.
The 2013 Italian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
I forgot to record the btcc. Btcc is another race series that seem much better in the day. the super tourers where great. But now with these adding weight if you win a race and lottery tyres it just seems wrong.
Hi Paul
I was out on my pedal bike while all this Sunday’s racing was on, and my tivo recorded it all. I watched the F1 on Sunday evening, the BSBs last night, and I’ll be watching the WSBKs tonight. How does time-shifting like this factor into your figures? Do I count as having watched the F1 and the bikes at the same time?
If you watched Btcc untill 12:50 records it and watched the F1 live you could(if you skipped all the crap between races) catch up to such an extent you could see the third Btcc race live which was nice although the BTCC does seem very artificial right now… Only reason you get all the excitement is because of ballast… But that’s for another place