Spanish Grand Prix drops to four year low

The Spanish Grand Prix dropped to its lowest rating since 2009, overnight figures show. BBC One’s programme from 12:10 to 15:15 recorded an average of 3.285 million viewers, a 29 percent share. Sky Sports F1’s exact programme figure is unknown, however, it failed to make ITV Media’s top 10, meaning it had under 483,000 viewers from 11:30 to 16:20.

The joint average is therefore around about 3.77 million viewers – however that is an estimate and could be slightly lower depending on Sky’s exact figure. Either way, using my usual ‘35 percent theory‘, applied to Sky Sports F1 only to account for its longer run-time, brings the average up to 3.94 million.

Spanish Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 3.72 million
2003 – 3.20 million
2004 – 3.04 million
2005 – 2.72 million
2006 – 2.33 million
2007 – 3.15 million
2008 – 3.51 million
2009 – 3.89 million
2010 – 4.04 million
2011 – 4.75 million
2012 – 4.09 million / 4.28 million
2013 – 3.77 million / 3.94 million*

* overnight figure and approximation of Sky Sports F1 figure

The figures unfortunately do not point to a positive trend. The combined factors of lack of British success and football competition will not have helped. In 2011, Sebastian Vettel was fighting Lewis Hamilton for victory until the last lap, whereas in comparison yesterday was a Fernando Alonso dominating performance, a relative turn off for the British audience.

The peak figures are again not the greatest, a combined peak of 4.83 million viewers, with a 36.1 percent share. BBC had 4.13 million at its peak, with Sky recording 703,000 viewers. The split was 86 percent versus 14 percent, which compared to last year is bigger in BBC’s favour. BBC’s peak is down 470,000 year-on-year, with Sky’s peak down 350,000, despite having a much lower audience reach. The 2011 peak was 6.2 million, so the difference of having a last lap showdown can account for an extra 25 percent of your audience.

Monaco should be interesting from a ratings perspective, as it is a Sky exclusive race. Given that it is considered one of the ‘crown jewels’, surely Sky must see some kind of uplift from its usual exclusive race weekend ratings. I imagine they will be hoping for more viewers, at least a peak of nearly 2 million if the weather in the UK plays in their favour.

The 2012 Spanish Grand Prix ratings report can be found here. Note: The ratings information comes from Digital Spy, TV Ratings UK and BARB.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 5th May, 2013)

From BARB:

1 – 52k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 11k – The F1 Show (Friday, 22:31)
3 – 8k – Time of Our Lives: Grand Prix Greats (Friday, 19:00)
4 – 7k – Chinese Grand Prix Replay (Sunday, 10:00)
5 – 7k – 1983 French Grand Prix Highlights (Saturday, 21:40)
6 – 7k – Inside Track: Brundle and Hamilton (Friday, 23:47)
7 – 7k – Behind the Scenes with Lotus (Friday, 23:32)
8 – 7k – 1983 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights (Friday, 21:00)
9 – 6k – The F1 Show (Saturday, 14:30)
10 – 6k – Inside Track: Brundle and Hamilton (Thursday, 21:46)

Another fairly hideous set of ratings for a non-race week outside of The F1 Show, with no content bringing over ten thousand viewers. The biggest disappointment has to be the classic race highlights. Yes, it is great that they are showing them, but it counts for nothing when promotion is poor and scheduling is not good.

I like watching classic races and all, but in the middle of primetime on a Saturday night? Not happening when the majority of people will be watching Britain’s Got Talent, Doctor Who or The Voice. A better option would to schedule Bank Holiday Monday as follows:

14:30 – 1983 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights
15:00 – 1983 United Grand Prix West Highlights
15:45 – 1983 French Grand Prix Highlights
16:30 – 1983 San Marino Grand Prix Highlights
17:15 – 1983 Monaco Grand Prix Highlights

Extremely logical to have two and a half hours of back-to-back Classic F1 on a Bank Holiday seems fine, probably too logical for the Sky Sports F1 schedulers to consider. Consolidating to less than ten thousand viewers shows that something is going wrong somewhere. Promotion is an issue too, but that side is slowly getting better. For series’ like this however, there needs to be supplemental articles on the Sky Sports websites (retro 1983 articles) to give viewers a reason to tune in.

Elsewhere, the BTCC brought in 219,000 viewers on ITV4, a fairly low rating by its own standards, presumably a combination of Bank Holiday and good weather hitting the ratings.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 28th April, 2013)

From BARB, a day later than usual due to the May Day Bank Holiday:

1 – 71k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 17k – Legends (Friday, 21:00)
3 – 15k – The F1 Show (Saturday, 18:01)
4 – 10k – Legends (Wednesday, 22:32)
5 – 9k – Martin’s Bahrain Grid Walk (Tuesday, 20:00)
6 – 8k – Bahrain GP2 Sprint Race Replay (Tuesday, 23:24)
7 – 8k – Inside Track: Hill and Villeneuve (Saturday, 17:46)
8 – 7k – Ted’s Bahrain Race Notebook (Saturday, 20:30)
9 – 5k – Bahrain GP2 Feature Race Replay (Tuesday, 22:01)
10 – 5k – Ted’s China Race Notebook (Saturday, 17:32)

It appears viewers have been successfully trained into realising that The F1 Show is the only original content on Sky Sports F1 during a typical non-race week.

Looking at this week last year, The F1 Show is down marginally, however all other content is down. Last year, at least ten shows hit ten thousand viewers, this year only four can hit that figure. Maybe the Season Reviews need to return to the schedule alongside the Classic Races that are already in place. Reach was 482,000 viewers, versus 678,000 viewers last year.

Motors TV in comparison reached 359,000 viewers, their highest rated programme was the Mini Challenge on Friday evening with 23,000 viewers. The 2012 Tractor Pulling Competition also performed solidly for the channel, with 17,000 and 18,000 viewers respectively.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 21st April, 2013)

From BARB:

1 – 722k – Live Bahrain Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 487k – Live Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying (Saturday, 11:00)
3 – 130k – Live Bahrain Grand Prix Practice 3 (Saturday, 08:45)
4 – 97k – Live Bahrain Grand Prix Practice 1 (Friday, 07:45)
5 – 78k – The F1 Show (Friday, 16:00)
6 – 75k – Ted’s Bahrain Qualifying Notebook (Sunday, 11:15)
7 – 72k – Legends (Saturday, 10:13)
8 – 64k – Live Bahrain Grand Prix Practice 2 (Friday, 11:45)
9 – 50k – Legends (Saturday, 10:22)
10 – 45k – GP Uncovered (Sunday, 16:16)

The main disappointment for me, again, is the lack of GP2 action in the top ten. I do think Sky should consider putting a repeat of GP2 Qualifying in between Practice 3 and Qualifying as the slot appears to draw fairly well despite it consisting of yet more Legends repeats. Personally, I would for the European events have:

09:45 – LIVE Practice 3
11:20 – GP2 Qualifying (R)
12:00 – LIVE Qualifying

Although the idea of Sky increasing the length of their Practice 3 broadcast is potentially outrageous considering how quickly they get off the air. Either way, they need to consider in what way at all it benefits the channel by having a six month old repeat lead into new and live content. Elsewhere, live coverage of the British Touring Car Championship on ITV4 averaged 261,000 viewers, a good rating despite the F1 clash.

Bahrain Grand Prix ratings drop versus 2012

Coverage of the Bahrain Grand Prix dropped on both Sky Sports F1 and BBC One versus 2012 last Sunday, overnight ratings show. Whilst the two channels averaged 4.24 million in 2013, the number is down on the 4.39 million average in 2012.

Sky Sports F1’s race coverage on Sunday averaged 656,000 viewers (6.1% share), peaking with 1.29 million (12.0%) at 13:20. Both figures are down on the 2012 numbers of 738,000 viewers (6.2%) and a peak of 1.6 million, following the trend seen so far this season where Sky’s figures are down versus last year. The race average itself was 1.19 million, compared with 1.4 million in 2012. The closeness in the average and peak figures again shows how Sky’s figures stay very stable during the race, but fail to bring any big peaks.

BBC One’s highlights show averaged 3.58 million, down on the 3.65 million versus from 2012. The figures are by no means a big drop, in the grand scheme of things it is fairly small compared to some of the huge drops we seen late last year for the Asian flyaways.

Overall, the 2013 ratings will be below 2010 which averaged a high 4.76 million viewers due to it being a season opener, but the weighted number for 2013 (892,000 viewers for 12:10 to 15:15 for Sky and 3.58 million for BBC’s highlights) is above 2009’s number of 4.39 million viewers. So whilst there was a drop versus last year, it is not a big enough of a drop to be concerned about and appears to within the usual year-to-year fluctuations for Bahrain.