Scheduling: The 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton may have wrapped the Drivers’ Championship up last time out in Mexico, but the battle continues between Mercedes and Ferrari for the Constructors’ Championship as Formula 1 heads to Interlagos for the penultimate round of the 2018 Formula One season.

Current schedules for the weekend indicate that the race will air live across both Sky Sports F1 and Sky One. If this does not change, it will be the first time ever that a Sky-exclusive race has aired live on Sky One, meaning that the race will be available to a much wider audience across pay-TV (satellite and cable).

The Grand Prix faces tough competition on Sunday afternoon however, with Manchester United taking on rivals Manchester City in the Premier League, that game airing live on Sky Sports Premier League and Main Event.

Meanwhile, Channel 4’s race day highlights programme airs at 22:30, later than their provisional billing of 22:00. The reason for this is that BBC One are running Dynasties across the 21:00 junction, with programmes beginning at 20:30, 21:30 and 22:30 respectively. ITV’s primetime programming was due to start at half past the hour anyway, but the other major channels have followed suit, including Channel 4.

On the personnel front, Louise Goodman is Channel 4’s pit lane reporter for their penultimate race in the current 2016 to 2018 contract. Elsewhere, BBC’s 5 Live preview show is a Hamilton special following his championship victory.

Channel 4 F1
Sessions
10/11 – 20:45 to 22:15 – Qualifying Highlights
11/11 – 22:30 to 00:45 – Race Highlights

Sky Sports F1
Sessions
09/11 – 12:45 to 14:50 – Practice 1
09/11 – 16:45 to 18:50 – Practice 2
10/11 – 13:45 to 15:15 – Practice 3
10/11 – 16:00 to 18:35 – Qualifying
=> 16:00 – Pre-Show
=> 16:55 – Qualifying
11/11 – 15:30 to 20:10 – Race
=> 15:30 – Pit Lane Live
=> 16:30 – On the Grid (also Sky One)
=> 17:05 – Race (also Sky One)
=> 19:30 – Paddock Live

Supplementary Programming
08/11 – 13:00 to 13:30 – Driver Press Conference
08/11 – 18:00 to 18:30 – Welcome to the Weekend
10/11 – 18:35 to 19:10 – The F1 Show

BBC Radio F1
08/11 – 20:30 to 21:30 – Lewis Hamilton: 5 Times Champion (BBC Radio 5 Live)
09/11 – 12:55 to 14:35 – Practice 1 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
10/11 – 16:55 to 18:05 – Qualifying (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
11/11 – 17:00 to 19:00 – Race (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)

The schedule above will be updated if anything changes.

IMG to produce BBC’s 5 Live F1 coverage with immediate effect; USP Content enters administration

IMG will produce the BBC’s 5 Live Formula 1 coverage for the next two seasons after winning a competitive tender process, this site can exclusively reveal.

The incumbents USP Content have been involved with BBC’s F1 coverage over the airwaves since 2006, an arrangement expected to end following the 2018 season. However, with no major contracts now in their portfolio and significant cash flow problems, I understand that USP called in the administrators following the US Grand Prix.

As a result of USP’s demise, IMG have stepped into the fold earlier than anticipated. IMG will cover the final portion of the 2018 season for 5 Live, starting with last weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix.

The production contract, valued by the BBC at around £325,000 per season, covers the same output as in previous seasons, including a preview show on Thursday evening, every session live, a pre and post-season review and the post-race Chequered Flag podcast.

Of particular note, the commissioning brief released by the BBC expressed a desire to increase their podcast download figures, as well as tackling Thursday’s preview show in a different manner. The brief also implies that the current line-up of Jack Nicholls, Jennie Gow and Jolyon Palmer will remain aboard the 5 Live ship for 2019.

Speaking to this site, a BBC spokesperson said “IMG will be producing our coverage next season after a competitive process.” A request for comment directed towards USP Content has gone unanswered, whilst their website is also offline as of writing.

A shoe-string budget, but high-quality programming
Since 2006, USP Content has helped launch the Formula 1 broadcasting careers of several names via their 5 Live coverage. Current Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft, Anthony Davidson, and reporter Natalie Pinkham all started their F1 exploits on 5 Live.

Speaking to me earlier this year, Croft said “I spent six years at 5 Live Formula 1, and it was brilliant. Holly Samos, Jason Swales, Maurice Hamilton, Ant Davidson, myself, and Natalie [Pinkham] were a small team, bringing a great sport to people on the radio, thoroughly enjoyable and hopefully the fun we had always came across on air.”

On the production side, Jason Swales led the 5 Live team from 2006 to 2012 before moving onto NBC and more recently Formula One Management alongside Will Buxton. “I always remember Jason’s adage, keep it simple, don’t try and do anything complicated, leave that to the experts,” says Croft.

Whilst their F1 coverage has been well-received across the 13 years, the problem for USP was that their portfolio consisted of F1 and very little else meaning that, as soon as the F1 contract disappeared, the writing was on the wall. 5 Live’s F1 team did the best they could under the circumstances, with tightening budget controls.

USP attempted to break into the F1 TV space in 2012, with a six-part series focusing on Britain’s next Grand Prix hopefuls. The series aired on Sky Sports F1, but no other major F1 television documentaries followed.

Who is IMG?
For readers unfamiliar, IMG is a big player in the sporting arena worldwide, with their subsidiary IMG Studios providing studio facilities in London. In the latter half of 2018, the production company grabbed hold of production rights to Quest’s Football League highlights and coverage of the US PGA Championship on Eleven Sports.

In the motor racing spectrum, the wider group is involved with World Rallycross and Virgin Australia Supercars.

Why the BBC chose this moment to not renew USP Content where 5 Live F1 is concerned is unclear, although it is possible that this is the first time USP has had serious competition for the F1 contract.

What is clear is that 2019 will be a big year for Formula 1 coverage on radio. With only one race live on free-to-air television, there will be a greater emphasis on the BBC’s radio coverage of F1 for the wider public, as more people tune in to listen.

Hamilton’s fifth title victory peaks with 1.8 million viewers live on Sky

A peak audience of nearly two million viewers watched Lewis Hamilton become a five-time Formula One Drivers’ Champion live on Sky, overnight audience figures show.

As with last year’s championship decider, the Mexican Grand Prix weekend aired exclusively live on Sky, with highlights airing on Channel 4 later in the evening.

Overnight audience figures exclude viewers who watched the action via on-demand platforms such as Sky Go and Now TV. In addition, the numbers presented do not include anyone who watched the programming after 02:00 the next morning.

Race
Live coverage of the race aired across two of Sky’s outlets to an audience of 1.28m (5.9%) from 18:00 to 21:30, an increase of 7.4 percent on last year’s audience of 1.09m (4.8%) across the same time slot and channels.

An audience of 857k (4.0%) watched via the dedicated F1 channel, with a further 490k (2.2%) watching via Sky Sports Main Event. The audience figures and shares do not add up to the combined figure, as Main Event joined the broadcast later at 18:30.

The race started with 1.79m (8.3%) at 19:10 across the two channels, reaching 1.86m (8.4%) at 19:25. After a mid-race dip, reaching a low of 1.57m (6.5%) at 20:10, audiences slowly climbed again towards the chequered flag.

A peak audience of 1.87m (8.3%) watched as Max Verstappen won the Grand Prix at 20:50, an increase of 241,000 viewers on Sky’s peak audience from 2017. At the time of the peak, 1.22m (5.4%) were watching Sky Sports F1’s broadcast, with 651k (2.9%) watching Main Event. Main Event’s broadcast peaked somewhat earlier, at 19:25, with 716k (3.2%).

By both average and peak metrics, Sky’s audience is their highest since the 2014 United States Grand Prix, which peaked with 1.93 million viewers. Back then, Hamilton was heading towards his second championship.

Sky’s audience figures for Mexico also mean that, barring any unusual trends for Brazil and Abu Dhabi, their live F1 programming never once peaked above two million viewers via the traditional television set during their 2012 to 2018 contract (with the BBC until the end of 2015 and more recently Channel 4).

Channel 4’s late-night broadcast struggled and, not for the first time, was beaten by its pay-TV counterpart. Their free-to-air broadcast averaged just 642k (13.9%) from 23:05 to 01:15, easily their lowest ever audience for a race day broadcast, and a significant decrease on last year’s figure of 1.05m (15.4%) which aired in a time slot that was 30-minutes earlier.

Hamilton’s title victories (average)
2008 – 8.9 million [Brazil]
2014 – 5.7 million [Abu Dhabi]
2015 – 3.3 million [USA]
2017 – 2.1 million [Mexico]
2018 – 1.9 million [Mexico]

Hamilton’s title victories (broadcast)
2008 – ITV [live]
2014 – Sky [live], BBC [live]
2015 – Sky [live], BBC [highlights]
2017 – Sky [live], C4 [highlights]
2018 – Sky [live], C4 [highlights]

Their highlights show peaked with 915k (14.5%) at 23:35 as the race edit started, the audience decreasing throughout the edit, finishing with 590k (18.9%) at 00:45.

The combined average audience of 1.92 million viewers is the lowest for the Mexican round for the championship on record, and a decrease on last year’s average of 2.13 million viewers. In addition, the combined peak audience of 2.82 million viewers is a decrease of 11.1 percent on last year’s figure of 3.17 million viewers.

To show how much Formula 1 loses out, and will continue to do so in future years, when the sport is not live on free-to-air television, last weekend’s United States Grand Prix averaged 3.46 million viewers, peaking with 5.54 million viewers.

In other words, F1 lost half of its audience between USA and Mexico in the UK because the latter was not live on free-to-air television. Sky’s peak audience may have increased by 452,000 viewers week-on-week, but that is small fish to fry compared to the overall difference week-on-week of 2.7 million viewers.

Qualifying
An audience of 334k (1.7%) watched Sky Sports F1’s live coverage of qualifying on Saturday evening, which aired from 18:00 to 20:30. Their programme peaked with 659k (3.4%) at 19:55 as Daniel Ricciardo claimed a shock pole position in his Red Bull.

However, Sky’s qualifying audience was some way down in both metrics compared with 2017, last year’s qualifying programme having brought in 423k (2.1%) across the F1 channel and Main Event.

Later in the evening, Channel 4’s highlights programme attracted 837k (6.1%) from 22:00 to 23:30, a slight decrease on last year’s figure of 873k (6.1%). The free-to-air broadcaster’s peak audience of 1.11m (9.7%) was up on the equivalent number from 2017 of 1.06m (8.8%).

The combined average audience of 1.17 million viewers is the lowest ever for Mexico and down 9.7 percent on last year’s average of 1.30 million viewers, with the peak audience of 1.77 million viewers down by 4.0 percent year-on-year.

Given that last year’s championship battle ended at the same stage, viewing figures for Brazil and Abu Dhabi should hold up year-on-year, but nevertheless low compared to what you would usually expect as the season heads to its climax.

The 2017 Mexican Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.