From BARB:

1 – 29k – F1 Legends (Saturday, 19:03)
2 – 15k – 2003 Season Review: Part 2 (Wednesday, 21:47)
3 – 13k – 2004 Season Review: Part 2 (Thursday, 22:00)
4 – 12k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:02)
5 – 12k – 2004 Season Review: Part 3 (Thursday, 23:10)
6 – 12k – 2005 Season Review: Part 1 (Friday, 21:01)
7 – 10k – 2002 Season Review: Part 2 (Monday, 21:41)
8 – 8k – 2003 Season Review: Part 1 (Wednesday, 20:30)
9 – 6k – F1 Legends (Tuesday, 18:31)
10 – 6k – 2004 Season Review: Part 1 (Thursday, 20:31)

A better set of figures compared to last week, although obviously still low due to the Olympics. Disappointing for The F1 Show, a pity because the Journalists edition there was a great watch, although the first airing was up on the 9k it recorded last week.

From BARB:

1 – 31k – The F1 Show (Friday, 22:01)
2 – 10k – F1 Legends (Friday, 19:30)
3 – 9k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
4 – 6k – Hungarian Grand Prix Highlights (Tuesday, 21:00)
5 – 5k – 1999 Season Review (Friday, 21:00)
6 – 4k – Hungarian Grand Prix Replay (Monday, 19:00)
7 – 4k – Hungarian Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 18:30)
8 – 4k – F1 Legends (Friday, 23:31)
9 – 3k – Fast Track (Tuesday, 19:30)
10 – 3k – Canadian Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 12:30)

When I first seen the figures, I thought to myself. Do I really need to state the obvious? I’ll simply say two things here, the first is that the channel reach is the lowest yet, and well, Olympics. The figures are not surprising, Formula 1 is on its Summer break and the Olympics destroyed all.

From BARB:

1 – 718k – Live Hungarian Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 366k – Live Hungarian Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 63k – Live Hungarian Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Friday, 12:45)
4 – 49k – Live Hungarian Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 09:45)
5 – 40k – Live Hungarian Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Friday, 08:45)
6 – 29k – The F1 Show (Friday, 17:00)
7 – 26k – Hungarian Grand Prix: Practice 1 Replay (Friday, 18:01)
8 – 25k – Behind the Scenes with Force India (Sunday, 16:18)
9 – 25k – Fast Track (Sunday, 10:58)
10 – 24k – Hungarian Grand Prix: Qualifying Replay (Saturday, 17:24)

This bit really is mainly directed to Formula One Management and the FIA, not Sky Sports, but the “Idiots Guide to Scheduling” tells you not to schedule a Formula 1 race during the Olympic Games period. Although the race itself did well considering, everything else fell down like a stack of cards. The practice ratings are dismally low – the lowest since the season opener in Australia for live sessions on Sky Sports F1 – while it seems anything to do with GP2 and GP3 was under 24,000 viewers during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. A major, major ouch. Not surprising, but still extremely low numbers.

Dumbstruck would be the word to describe the scheduling by those high up this season, as I outlined in this piece. Those at FIA and FOM appear to think that scheduling Formula 1 races during the European Championship’s and the Olympics will help ratings. Not true, it will only hurt ratings for those rounds as attention is diverted elsewhere.

Again, both Qualifying and Race figures are the worst since 2008, but as I said earlier, I think the race did well considering, and in fact was not that far down on the last three years.

As always, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

From BARB:

1 – 989k – Live German Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 608k – Live German Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 148k – Live German Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 09:45)
4 – 100k – Live German Grand Prix: GP2 Feature Race (Saturday, 14:35)
5 – 83k – Porsche Supercup: Britain (Saturday, 11:46)
6 – 82k – Live German Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Friday, 08:45)
7 – 82k – Jenson Button Interview (Saturday, 11:16)
8 – 77k – Jenson Button Interview (Sunday, 10:59)
9 – 75k – German Grand Prix: Qualifying Replay (Saturday, 21:02)
10 – 72k – Live German Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Friday, 12:45)

The first thing I need to note is that the channel reach was the highest ever, with a total reach of 3.515 million viewers, this partly thanks to its free weekend. If you compare it to Sky’s other exclusive races so far however:

– 3.515 million – Germany
– 3.473 million – Malaysia
– 3.419 million – Bahrain
– 3.405 million – Australia
– 3.270 million – Canada

And there is not a huge difference it has to be said between the reach for Germany and the previous highest channel reach for Malaysia.

Nevertheless, there is a marked improvement in the figures above. While Friday’s figures are nothing to write home about, Saturday’s and Sunday’s figures are up notably on normal. The Qualifying figure, GP2 Feature Race figure and the Race day figures were the highest ever respectively for the channel. Despite this, when looking at the full picture:

Qualifying: 0.608m [SSF1 live] + 1.14m [BBC2] + 0.12m [BBC HD] = 1.87 million
<bRace: 0.989m [SSF1 live] + 1.90m [BBC2] + 0.292m [BBC HD] = 3.18 million

Both figures are the lowest since 2008, the race turns out to be the lowest since 2006. You could argue “you’re using full programme averages, that’s unfair!”. But so are all of the other figures I am using, so it is a level playing field. Even if I did use Sky’s race average, which was about 1.5 million, that would be a total of 3.69 million, which would be the lowest figure since 2008. Figures are down year-on-year, whichever way you attempt to spin the figures.

Although the figures are down, I do think it is worth praising the GP2 Series figure. In my opinion, it is extremely important that the figures improve, and that Sky promote GP2 more, as these people are the future of Formula 1. The field features British talent such as James Calado and Max Chilton, yet the series does not get any airtime on Sky Sports News or outside of the main programme. Even ITV4 had a programme in 2008, it is about time Sky gives it a proper intro and outro!

As always, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.