BBC to show majority of MotoGP Qualifying sessions on terrestrial TV

The BBC are to show the majority of this season’s MotoGP Qualifying sessions on either BBC One or BBC Two, it has been confirmed. As noted by Matt Roberts on Twitter:

“so guys… good news is majority of qualifying sessions will be shown live this season on BBC1 or BBC2!”

Schedules currently show that the Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying session will be live on BBC Two at 13:00 on Saturday 4th May, with the French Grand Prix Qualifying session on BBC One two weeks later.

Furthermore, it appears that they will also be broadcasting free practice behind the Red Button if this page is to go by.

The plight of the World Rally Championship

Ten years ago, the World Rally Championship in the United Kingdom was a fairly popular form of motor sport. Boasting terrestrial television coverage and audiences of millions of viewers and beyond, the championship enjoyed a high profile status. Fast forward ten years, and currently, the rights are non-existent. But why has this great form of motor sport experienced such a sharp decline in this country?

From the 1980’s through to 2001, the World Rally Championship alongside other forms of rallying made part of BBC Sport’s Grandstand programme. It was not all plain sailing for rallying on the BBC though. Two series’ of Mobil 1 Rally Challenge were produced and shown for BBC Two in 1989 and 1990, but this was not enough to persuade those high up to commit to rallying full time. The next opportunity for rallying to break out came with British stars Colin McRae and Richard Burns later that decade. This succeeded, somewhat, thanks to the Top Gear production team, with interesting being reignited in the product. Despite this, BBC’s motor sport portfolio was spiralling downwards, leading to Channel 4 winning the rights from 2002 onwards for an estimated £20 million over three years. At the time, then Channel 4 chief executive Michael Jackson said “The World Rally Championship has always been a thrilling and hugely popular event. However, new technology means we can now transform the coverage of this classic sport and make it accessible to a wider audience.” That statement, is such a stark contrast to what the World Rally Championship faces in the UK ten years on.

Unfortunately for Channel 4 though, their first season did not provide an exciting championship race as Marcus Grönholm stormed to championship victory in 2002. 2003 provided better luck with the championship going down to the wire. With neither Burns and McRae in the 2004 championship however, interest dropped. This did not stop a bidding war though for the broadcast rights between ITV and Channel 4, with ITV unexpectedly winning the rights at the start of 2004. The channel broadcasted the championship as stand-alone programmes, and as part of their Speed Sunday strand. Like Channel 4 before them, the ITV press release boasted about trying to “bring a wider audience to the sport”. That didn’t happen. It was a case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’. 2004 marked the beginning of Sébastien Loeb’s domination and, as was the case with Formula 1 at the same time, audiences dropped along with the interest that went alongside it. Unlike with Formula 1 however, where Michael Schumacher was challenged and eventually succeeded by Fernando Alonso, followed by the emergence of Lewis Hamilton, over in rallying there was no one to challenge Loeb, no one to ignite the interest of the British audience. The picture was stagnant, and a stagnant picture means that casual fans, such as myself, become less interested in the product.

It was with that lack of interest that ITV’s interest in the World Rally Championship dwindled. Despite still attracting healthy audiences, such as the 1.57 million viewers that watched the culmination of the 2006 championship, ITV made the decision to move the championship over to ITV4. In terms of viewership, the decision was catastrophic. Audiences slashed, with only 297,000 viewers watching the conclusion of the 2007 season, and average audiences hovering in the mid 100,000. At the start of 2008, Dave bought the rights to screen the championship in a deal lasting three years. Not being on a terrestrial television station continued to hurt the championship with audiences failing to reach the highs it had many years earlier. In 2011, coverage moved to ESPN. The official World Rally Championship promoted the move as giving fans ‘more coverage than ever before’. Whilst, technically, that is a factual statement, the reality was that the coverage was now available to fewer people than ever before. Viewing figures were below 100,000 and the World Rally Championship in the UK had hit its lowest point. By now, it had gone from being a mainstream sport with millions of followers to one where you would have to dig deep into the TV guide to find out just when and where it was on. Alongside the aforementioned, British Eurosport would provide coverage of the events, but that too has come to a grinding halt.

Today, the World Rally Championship in the UK is currently without a rights holder for this season. The championship has been hit by its failure to evolve with the times to those who demand to be closer to the action and see everything live nowadays instead of in highlights form, and also by being dominated by one man for such a long period. Steve Rider discusses this point fantastically in his new book, noting how broadcasters’ still have not got a grip on rallying: “The challenge for television, then and now, is also to add that ingredient and portray rallying in a far more competitive tone, and not just as a series of disjointed ‘up and past’ shots linked together by prolonged ‘in-car’ sequences. [..] Then there is the biggest question of all: could all this be done live? Can live coverage of rallying ever make practical, economic or editorial sense?”

For the sport, it will be a long road to recovery. Has Loeb caused more damage to the championship than anyone could have imagined? I think so. When one man dominates for so long, it is inevitable that interest drops worldwide. Formula 1 was lucky. Alonso, Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel emerged at the right time and thankfully for that form of motor sport, Schumacher retired. Rallying has not been so lucky. Loeb has not retired, and no one has emerged to sufficiently challenge Loeb to create a ‘great battle’ to bring back the lost fans. As a result, rallying finds itself in a sad state. Let’s not take anything away from Loeb, he will probably be remembered as one of the greats with nine championships. But the damage caused will not be rectified soon. With Loeb announcing his retirement at the end of 2012, 2013 needs to be the start of the recovery process for the championship in this country. No British drivers’, no future McRae or Burns, means that the recovery process starting this season is highly unlikely.

It will be a long road to recovery for the World Rally Championship. And I, for one, hope to see it standing tall again soon.

The quote from Steve Rider’s book ‘My Chequered Career’ comes from page 94.

24 Hours of Le Mans performs well as MotoGP and IndyCar ratings plunge

The 24 Hours of Le Mans performed in line with 2011 over the week, overnight television ratings show as MotoGP and IndyCar Series ratings dropped significantly here in the UK.

The endurance event, screened on British Eurosport and British Eurosport 2, averaged a solid 49,000 viewers, marginally up on the 47,000 average it had in 2011. The peak for 2011 was higher though than this year, with a peak of 162,000 at the end of the race. Unsurprisingly, the race had a higher viewership than in the opening few hours, tailing off in the night as you would expect, before increasing on Sunday morning, but to a lower number than in 2011, due to the race all but decided by that point this year.

24 Hours of Le Mans – 2011 vs 2012
13:45 to 19:30 – 46,000 vs 77,000
19:30 to 02:00 – 45,000 vs 39,000
02:00 to 09:00 – 16,000 vs 16,000
09:00 to 14:15 – 97,000 vs 76,000

As the breakdown shows, last year’s race was benefited by the battle between Audi and Peugeot for the victory which went down to the final hour, whereas this year it was pretty clear late on Saturday night after Anthony Davidson’s crash that it would be an Audi whitewash (even if they nearly did mess it up nearly on Sunday morning!).

Despite being up against the 24 Hours of Le Mans both years, the MotoGP from Silverstone on BBC Two found it’s ratings slashed year-on-year. Airing from 12:30 to 14:30 in both 2011 and 2012, the race averaged 1.76 million, with a 15.3 percent share for the programme. That compares with 882,000 viewers and a 10.0 percent share this year, a fairly significant drop year-on-year, even if it did win its slot. The race itself from 13:00 to 13:45 this past Sunday averaged 1.07 million viewers, which is still a big drop on the 2011 average. Eurosport’s coverage of the Moto2 and Moto3 races had 105,000 and 85,000 viewers respectively.

The biggest ouch, however, comes from the IndyCar Series’ IndyFest race on Saturday night. Between 18:00 and 22:00 on Saturday night, Sky Sports 3 averaged three thousand viewers, with the race itself from 20:00 averaging four thousand viewers, equating to a 0.02 percent share. That’s the lowest IndyCar Series rating that I have come across, and especially considering the primetime slot, an incredibly poor rating. You could argue it went against the football and Le Mans, but even so, no live sport should be averaging three thousand viewers unless there are extraordinary circumstances. Maybe it is about time that the Sky bods move it to Sky Sports F1, and give it some suitable promotion. I’ve outlined “why” multiple times on this blog, the most recent of which is here. It is a sad state of affairs when the Indianapolis 500 only gets 27,000 viewers.

As always, comments and thoughts on anything I publish and write about are welcome.