Channel 4 to air Formula 1 highlights in 2019

Channel 4 will continue to broadcast Formula 1 in 2019, it has been confirmed today.

The broadcaster will air the free-to-air element of the contract signed between Sky Sports and Formula One Management (FOM) in 2016, covering live coverage of the British Grand Prix, along with highlights of every other race.

As mooted back in July, the move is part of a wider ranging content deal between Sky and Channel 4. Series one of original Sky drama Tin Star will air on Channel 4 this Autumn before it returns on Sky Atlantic, whilst a select of dramas that have aired on Channel 4 will be available via Sky’s platforms as box sets.

In addition, Channel 4 have confirmed to this site that the F1 contract is for 2019 only, meaning that there is a possibility that this contract will not be in place for 2020 onwards; in other words, we will be having the same conversation this time next year. The likely reason behind this is that the future of the British Grand Prix is unknown beyond 2019.

Coverage details, including the structure of Channel 4’s highlights programming, and the presentation line-up, are to be announced. However, Channel 4 have ruled out using Sky’s presentation team. The likelihood is that Whisper Films will continue to produce Channel 4’s programming, but this is yet to be officially confirmed.

Alex Mahon, Chief Executive Officer of Channel 4, said, “I’m delighted that we’ve been able to establish such an exciting and innovative partnership with Sky which will ensure that the British Grand Prix and highlights of the 2019 Formula 1 Championship remain available on free-to-air television for UK viewers.”

Analysis: Good news for Channel 4, in the short-term at least
On the face of it, today’s news is good news for Formula 1 fans in the UK. The agreement between Channel 4 and Sky means that Formula 1 will remain on a major free-to-air platform in the UK next season, allowing the sport to continue to reach millions of viewers.

Inevitably, many will think “good news, how?” when compared to the current contract. We should remember that the 2019 to 2024 contract between Sky and FOM was confirmed in March 2016, when Bernie Ecclestone was still at the helm. Liberty Media walked into this problem, the 2019 agreement was not of their doing.

From Formula 1’s perspective, having races air in some form on Channel 4 is a significantly better proposition that highlights airing on one of Sky’s free-to-air channels, such as Pick TV.

Given the added extras exchanged between the two networks, it is difficult to place a specific price on how much Channel 4 have spent on this contract, but I suspect you are looking at between £5 million and £10 million, possibly the lower end of the spectrum as a compromise between the two.

Technical details about highlights, such as the length of each qualifying and race programme are unknown. There is a major difference between a two-hour highlights show in primetime on Sunday evenings, and a one-hour programme on Monday evenings. I cannot imagine it is the latter, as the value of it would decrease significantly.

The length of the highlights naturally dictates the level of resource involved: a one-hour programme gives you time for a quick introduction, the race edit, and wrap-up. At most, such a show requires four on-air talent (presenter, two commentators and a reporter). The longer the programme is, the more reason to add a further analyst.

Channel 4 have ruled out using Sky’s line-up, meaning that their programming will continue to have a distinctive feel to it, which is great news. There was a major risk that UK F1 fans were going to lose several excellent voices, such as Ben Edwards and David Coulthard. Assuming the line-up remains largely static, I am pleased that is not going to happen… for now at least.

We could spend a lot of time wondering why Channel 4 did not want to take Sky’s presentation team, or why the added extras came into play, but that would be veering into extreme speculation. Only those privy to the discussions at the negotiation table will know what order the events occurred in, and how we arrived at this position.

The loser in all of this could well be Formula E. There was (and still is) a possibility of Channel 4 airing Formula E live from the 2018-19 season, but that was under the assumption that Channel 4’s F1 coverage was no more. Now that we know Channel 4 have locked themselves into F1 for at least another year, the chances of the electric championship airing on Channel 4 reduces significantly. The money now should be with Formula E either staying at Channel 5, or returning to ITV.

As for 2020, time will tell as to whether the 2019 agreement between Channel 4 and Sky continues all the way through until 2024. Is it as simple as to whether the British Grand Prix is on the calendar, or are there many other factors, such as viewing figures, on-demand figures, and so on, at play? Next year, we will find out…

Scheduling: The 2018 Singapore Grand Prix

The 2018 Formula One season heads out of Europe and into Asia for the Singapore Grand Prix! Now in its eleventh year, action from the Marina Bay circuit airs live across Channel 4 and Sky Sports F1 over the weekend.

As we head into the fly-away period, the session times remain broadly identical between 2017 and 2018, the only change is that the races will start ten minutes later than in previous years.

Eddie Jordan returns to Channel 4’s coverage for Singapore, Jordan will be analysing the action alongside David Coulthard and Mark Webber. On the scheduling front, the only unusual note is that Channel 4 has a 20-minute build-up for the second practice session.

Singapore marks the last weekend in a little while for Martin Brundle, as Brundle will not be part of Sky’s coverage in either Russia or Japan.

Elsewhere, a variety of championships are heading towards their conclusion both domestically and overseas. In the UK, the British Superbikes series begins its ‘Showdown’ phase at Oulton Park, whilst the penultimate round of the British Touring Car Championship takes place at Silverstone.

Further afield, Sonoma plays host the final round of the 2018 IndyCar Series. The race airs live on BT Sport, with an extended build-up, which could be BT’s last covering the series, as IndyCar’s rights agreement with ESPN’s international arm is up for grabs.

Channel 4 F1
Sessions
14/09 – 09:25 to 11:05 – Practice 1
14/09 – 13:10 to 15:05 – Practice 2
15/09 – 10:55 to 12:25 – Practice 3
15/09 – 12:55 to 15:45 – Qualifying
16/09 – 12:00 to 16:15 – Race
=> 12:00 – Build-Up
=> 12:40 – Race
=> 15:30 – Reaction

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

Supplementary Programming
13/09 – 11:00 to 11:30 – Driver Press Conference
13/09 – 13:00 to 13:30 – Welcome to the Weekend
15/09 – 15:45 to 16:20 – The F1 Show

BBC Radio F1
14/09 – 09:25 to 11:05 – Practice 1 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
14/09 – 13:25 to 15:05 – Practice 2 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
16/09 – 13:00 to 15:00 – Race (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Blancpain GT Sprint Series – Nurburgring (BT Sport/ESPN)
15/09 – 12:45 to 14:30 – Race 1
16/09 – 15:00 to 16:30 – Race 2

British Superbikes – Oulton Park
15/09 – 15:30 to 18:00 – Qualifying (Eurosport 2)
16/09 – 12:30 to 15:15 – Race 1 (Eurosport 2)
16/09 – 16:15 to 18:00 – Race 2 (Eurosport 2)
19/09 – 20:00 to 21:00 – Highlights (ITV4)

British Touring Car Championship – Silverstone (ITV4)
16/09 – 11:15 to 18:30 – Races

Formula Renault Eurocup – Nurburgring (BT Sport/ESPN)
15/09 – 11:30 to 12:45 – Race 1
16/09 – 13:00 to 15:00 – Race 2

IndyCar Series – Sonoma (BT Sport 1)
16/09 – 23:00 to 02:30 – Race

Virgin Australia Supercars – Sandown 500 (Motorsport.tv)
16/09 – 03:55 to 08:00 – Race

World Rally Championship – Turkey
Every stage live via WRCPlus.com
14/09 – Day 1 Highlights
=> 22:30 to 23:00 (Motorsport.tv)
=> 23:30 to 00:00 (BT Sport 1)
15/09 – 13:00 to 14:00 – Live: Stage 12 (BT Sport 1)
15/09 – Day 2 Highlights
=> 22:30 to 23:00 (Motorsport.tv)
=> 00:00 to 00:30 (BT Sport 3)
16/09 – 08:00 to 09:00 – Live: Stage 14 (BT Sport 1)
16/09 – 11:00 to 12:30 – Live: Stage 17 [Power Stage] (BT Sport 1)
16/09 – Day 3 Highlights
=> 22:30 to 23:00 (Motorsport.tv)
=> 22:30 to 23:00 (BT Sport 3)
18/09 – 19:00 to 20:00 – Highlights (Channel 5)

World Superbikes – Portugal
14/09 – 09:30 to 10:30 – Practice 1 (Eurosport)
14/09 – 15:30 to 16:55 – Practice 2 and 3 (Eurosport 2)
15/09 – 10:00 to 14:00 – Qualifying and Race 1 (Eurosport 2)
16/09 – 11:30 to 12:30 – Support Races (Eurosport 2)
16/09 – 15:15 to 16:15 – Race 2 (Eurosport 2)
18/09 – 20:00 to 21:00 – Highlights (ITV4)

The schedule above will be updated if anything changes.

Channel 4 benefits from thrilling Italian Grand Prix

Channel 4 benefited from a thrilling Italian Grand Prix last Sunday, with the Whisper Films-produced highlights programme delivering their second biggest Formula 1 highlights audience on record, overnight viewing figures show.

What do these figures cover?
For newer readers of the regular viewing figures articles on this site, it is worth a reminder of what we are comparing. From the outset, all the numbers presented are overnight viewing figures, known in the industry as live plus VOSDAL (Video on Same Day as Live), supplied by Overnights.tv and exclude on demand outlets such as Sky Go and Now TV.

To ensure we paint a consistent picture across different seasons, this site typically uses a three-and-a-half-hour time slot for Sky’s Formula 1 coverage. As a general guideline, for European races, the slot is from 13:00 to 16:30, or 12:00 to 15:30 from 2012 to 2017.

The 210-minute block currently covers the final half of Sky’s ‘Pit Lane Live’ programme, ‘On the Grid’, and their billed ‘Race’ programme. There may be slight deviations to the time slot if the race ran shorter or longer than anticipated. Using just the ‘Race’ block paints an inaccurate picture as Sky have shortened the length of their ‘Race’ billing over the years.

For Channel 4, this site uses their complete highlights programme, and their ‘Build-Up’ and ‘Race’ segments for their live programming, the reasoning again to present a fair and accurate picture when comparing audience figures to previous years.

Race
Historically, the early season football international break has coincided with the Italian Grand Prix, which allows Formula 1 to hoover up casual sports viewers who may otherwise be engaged in football. This past weekend was the first time since 2011 that the race did not fall during the football international break period, and the UK audience figures echo that.

Live coverage of the race, which aired exclusively on Sky Sports F1, averaged 626k (7.6%) from 13:00 to 16:30, a decrease of 26.9 percent on last year’s average audience figure of 857k (9.5%) across a slightly shorter 200-minute time slot. Last year, Sky aired the race across their F1 channel, and Sky Sports Main Event, as well as going to their post-race show ten-minutes early, which the number published on this site reflected.

The race started with 1.09m (13.5%) at 14:15, quickly reaching a peak of 1.13m (14.0%) five-minutes later at 14:20 as the race restarted following the initial Safety Car period. Viewing figures hovered around one million viewers for the duration of the race, with 1.04m (11.9%) watching Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton overtake Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen at 15:15.

Sky’s peak audience dropped compared to last year’s peak figure of 1.38m (15.0%) across the F1 channel and Main Event. Without any context, a decrease in audience figures considering the quality of the race yesterday is poor. However, the competition on Sky, such as Cardiff versus Arsenal and the conclusion of the cricket test match between England versus India, meant that F1 lost potential viewers yesterday.

Some viewers may have streamed the Grand Prix off a second device, but not all. As a collective, over two million sports fans were watching Sky yesterday afternoon, an excellent number for them, but resulted in an isolated drop for their Formula 1 audience year-on-year. It is easy to go ‘that’s a huge drop’, but there are valid reasons why on this occasion.

Highlights of the race aired on Channel 4 from 18:45 to 21:00, to an audience of 2.33m (12.5%), an increase on last year’s number of 2.15m (11.6%). Against BBC One stalwart Countryfile and ITV’s The X Factor, Channel 4’s number is excellent. It is Channel 4’s second highest number ever for a highlights show, only behind Spain which averaged 4,000 more viewers!

Unlike last year’s highlights programme, which peaked with 2.72m (16.2%) at the start of the edit and lost viewers throughout, this year, the audience increased during the edit. The broadcast climbed to a peak of 3.02m (15.5%) at 20:00, showing how the quality of the racing can also impact the free-to-air highlights positively or negatively.

The combined average audience of 2.96 million viewers is marginally down on last year’s audience of 3.01 million viewers, but up on the 2016 figure of 2.57 million viewers. In contrast, the combined peak audience of 4.15 million viewers is the highest for Italy since 2015, an increase on the past two year’s peak audiences of 4.02 million viewers and 4.11 million viewers.

Qualifying
Coverage of Raikkonen grabbing pole position struggled across both Sky and Channel 4 on Saturday, with decreases in both audience and viewing share.

Live coverage of qualifying on Sky Sports F1 averaged 245k (3.6%) from 13:00 to 15:40. The average audience is down on last year’s number of 363k (5.0%), however this figure is over a much longer five-hour time slot due to the rain delays Formula 1 experienced last year.

The peak audience for Sky year-on-year is roughly identical: a peak of 539k (7.8%) at 14:55 last weekend compared with 543k (6.7%) last year. Nevertheless, Sky’s figures are their lowest ever for an Italian qualifying session.

Channel 4’s highlights programme brought in 1.03m (9.4%) from 17:00 to 18:30, a drop on last year’s figure of 1.39m (11.5%) in a later time slot. Their programme peaked with 1.46m (12.0%), also down on the peak audience in 2017 of 1.92m (14.0%). Certainly, the earlier time slot hurt both metrics for Channel 4.

The combined average audience of 1.27 million viewers is down by half a million viewers on the 2017 number of 1.75 million viewers; with the peak audience of 2.00 million viewers down by a similar margin.

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

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Scheduling: The 2018 Italian Grand Prix

Formula 1 heads straight from the Ardennes forest to Italy, for round 14 of the championship.

Channel 4 are showing highlights of the Monza round, with live coverage on Sky Sports F1 throughout the weekend. For those that like the added extras on Sky, you will be pleased to know the Sky Race Control from Italy onwards will be available on all devices as opposed to just the iPad.

On the personnel front, Nico Rosberg returns to Sky’s team for this weekend. Over on radio, the BBC have a half-hour special focusing on Fernando Alonso’s career on Friday evening. Into the weekend, they have truncated coverage of the race weekend, due to cricket action between England and India, and tennis action from the US Open.

Although an air-time is unconfirmed, expect Jennie Gow’s documentary featuring Billy Monger and Alex Zanardi to air on the BBC News Channel over the weekend. The documentary called Human Endeavour premieres on BBC World News at 13:30 local time next Saturday, so expect it to appear on BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards.

Elsewhere on the motor racing spectrum, the IndyCar Series heads into the final phase of its season, with the penultimate race at Portland taking place on Sunday evening.

Channel 4 F1
Sessions
01/09 – 17:00 to 18:30 – Qualifying Highlights
02/09 – 18:45 to 21:00 – Race Highlights

Sky Sports F1
Sessions
31/08 – 09:45 to 11:50 – Practice 1
31/08 – 13:45 to 15:50 – Practice 2
01/09 – 10:45 to 12:15 – Practice 3
01/09 – 13:00 to 15:40 – Qualifying
=> 13:00 – Pre-Show
=> 13:55 – Qualifying
02/09 – 12:30 to 17:10 – Race
=> 12:30 – Pit Lane Live
=> 13:30 – On the Grid
=> 14:05 – Race
=> 16:30 – Paddock Live

Supplementary Programming
30/08 – 14:00 to 14:30 – Driver Press Conference
30/08 – 17:00 to 17:30 – Welcome to the Weekend
01/09 – 16:55 to 17:30 – The F1 Show

BBC Radio F1
30/08 – 21:30 to 22:00 – Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
31/08 – 21:30 to 22:00 – Fernando Alonso Special (BBC Radio 5 Live)
02/09 – 14:00 to 16:00 – Race (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Blancpain GT Sprint Series – Hungary (BT Sport/ESPN)
01/09 – 13:15 to 15:00 – Race 1
02/09 – 13:45 to 15:45 – Race 2

Euroformula – Silverstone
01/09 – 14:00 to 15:00 – Race 1 (BT Sport 3)
02/09 – 12:30 to 13:30 – Race 2 (BT Sport 1)

Formula Renault Eurocup – Hungary (BT Sport/ESPN)
01/09 – 15:00 to 16:00 – Race 1
02/09 – 12:30 to 13:45 – Race 2

Formula Two – Italy (Sky Sports F1)
31/08 – 11:50 to 12:45 – Practice
31/08 – 15:50 to 16:30 – Qualifying
01/09 – 15:40 to 16:55 – Race 1
02/09 – 09:50 to 10:55 – Race 2

GP3 Series – Italy (Sky Sports F1)
31/08 – 16:45 to 17:25 – Qualifying
01/09 – 09:25 to 10:20 – Race 1
02/09 – 08:35 to 09:20 – Race 2

IndyCar Series – Portland (BT Sport 2)
02/09 – 19:30 to 22:00 – Race

International GT Open – Silverstone
01/09 – 15:00 to 16:45 – Race 1 (BT Sport 3)
02/09 – 13:30 to 15:00 – Race 2 (BT Sport X2)

Porsche Supercup – Italy
02/09 – Race
=> 11:00 to 12:00 (Eurosport 2)
=> 11:05 to 11:50 (Sky Sports F1)

The schedule above will be updated if anything changes.

Belgian Grand Prix records highest peak audience in five years

Formula 1 benefited from poor weather across the United Kingdom last Sunday, with excellent audience figures for the Belgian Grand Prix, overnight viewing figures show.

Race
Live coverage of the race aired on Channel 4 from 13:00 to 16:30, with 2.15m (18.4%) watching, an increase of around half a million viewers on last year’s audience of 1.65m (19.6%) across a shorter 190-minute time slot. It is the highest Belgium figure for the free-to-air component of the audience since 2015, when BBC One’s broadcast averaged 2.44m (22.3%).

Sky simulcast their programming across their F1 channel and Sky 1 to a weighted total audience of 657k (5.6%). Sky Sports F1’s broadcast averaged 582k (5.0%) from 13:00 to 16:30, with Sky 1’s shorter show from 14:00 averaging 104k (0.9%). It is Sky’s highest audience for Spa on record, beating their previous highest of 617k (6.3%) in 2016.

For both broadcasters, the audience shares are slightly down on previous years, the dip representative of a higher viewing audience due to the poor weather conditions experienced across the United Kingdom. However, the dips are marginal rather than anything profound, showing that F1 grew almost in-line with the total audience increase.

The race started with 4.26m (36.1%) at 14:15 across Channel 4 and Sky. Apart from a ten-minute period from 14:40 to 14:50 where the audience level dropped below four million viewers due to British Touring Car Championship action on ITV4, viewing figures remained north of four million viewers. There was a brief surge to 4.23m (34.8%) as the top of the hour hit, before dipping back towards four million viewers.

An audience of 4.04m (33.0%) watched Sebastian Vettel take victory at 15:30. In a parallel universe, the peak could have been closer to 4.5 million viewers if the action on-track was closer, but it was not to be: the peak occurred at the start of the race.

At the time of the peak, an audience of 3.22m (27.2%) were watching Channel 4’s coverage, with a further 1.04m (8.8%) watching across Sky’s two channels, a split of 76:24. Sky’s peak came later in the afternoon, as 1.06m (8.8%) watched in the five-minute segment from 15:25. The F1 channel peaked with 921k (7.8%) at 14:15, with Sky 1 peaking with 180k (1.5%) at 15:30.

It is easily Sky’s highest peak for Belgium ever, beating their previous best of 969k (9.3%) in 2016. For Channel 4, the same fact is true: their peak audience was only 164,000 viewers lower than the BBC’s peak in 2015 of 3.38m (27.5%).

The combined average audience of 2.80 million viewers is comfortably the best for Belgium since 2015, when 2.91 million viewers watched across BBC One and Sky Sports. Last Sunday’s audience increased by 27.8 percent compared with last year’s average audience figure of 2.19 million viewers.

The peak audience of 4.26 million viewers is the highest for the Belgian Grand Prix since the 2013 running of the event when a peak audience of 4.52m (41.9%) watched, a fantastic number. The peak audience increased year-on-year by 22.2 percent, and compared with 2016 was up by 8.2 percent.

To have a peak audience higher than two BBC years (4.04 million in 2014 and 4.15 million in 2015) is highly unusual, and shows just how good Belgium’s audience figures are in the grand scheme of things. Of course, some of that is down to the weather conditions last Sunday, but increases compared to the past two years are now becoming par for the course for F1 in 2018.

Qualifying
Both Channel 4 and Sky Sports recorded slightly higher numbers for qualifying than twelve months ago.

Channel 4’s live broadcast of qualifying aired from 12:55 to 15:45, to an audience of 940k (12.3%), an increase – just – on last year’s figure of 937k (12.5%). The audience for Sky’s qualifying show followed the same trajectory, averaging 269k (2.5%) compared with 262k (2.5%) last year.

The combined audience of 1.21 million viewers is as a result up marginally on last year’s number of 1.20 million viewers.

The bigger difference comes with the peak figure. The qualifying session peaked with 2.09m (25.5%) at 14:55 across Channel 4 and Sky, an increase compared with last year’s figure of 2.01m (25.1%), and the highest for Belgium since 2015.

A peak of 1.62m (19.8%) watched Channel 4’s programme, an increase of 108,000 viewers compared with last year, but Sky’s peak figure of 468k (5.7%) is down 26,000 viewers.

BTCC performs well, but average for Speed with Guy Martin
Elsewhere, live coverage of the British Touring Car Championship from a rainy Knockhill averaged 216k (2.0%) from 11:00 to 18:15 on ITV4 on Sunday, a good number considering the competition. Race 1 averaged 277k (3.5%) from 11:50, peaking with 320k (3.9%).

The second race of the day clashed with the F1, but still fared well, averaging 220k (1.8%) from 14:25, peaking with 271k (2.2%) as the race was red flagged due to the poor weather conditions. Later, 392k (2.9%) watched Tom Chilton win the third and final race from 17:20, his victory peaking with 405k (2.8%) at 17:50.

Impressively, not once during the F1 did the touring car support programme drop below 100,000 viewers, showing how well the extended show works for ITV4 overall.

On Monday evening, a new episode of Speed with Guy Martin, averaged 1.54m (7.9%) on Channel 4 from 21:00 to 22:30, the lowest number so far for Martin’s F1 themed specials.

The show faced tough competition from BBC One’s new drama Bodyguard, as well as Monday Night Football action on Sky Sports between Tottenham and Manchester United.

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