Scheduling: The 2013 Spanish Grand Prix

After the four fly away races, Formula 1 heads back to Europe, starting with the Spanish Grand Prix. Both BBC and Sky Sports are live this weekend for the second time this season. Also this weekend is coverage of the GP2 Series, and round one of the GP3 Series with commentary as always from Will Buxton. One personnel addition to note for Spain, and that is Allan McNish making his first of six appearances for the BBC 5 Live F1 team, as revealed back in March.

Sky’s schedule also has several Classic F1 race highlights as outlined below, along with some 1983 action, more details on that can be found here. BBC’s schedule has slightly different practice lengths, with more post practice discussion for FP2 and FP3, a good move by them. Here’s how the schedule shapes up:

Monday 6th May
21:00 to 21:45 – F1: 1986 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and James Hunt
– repeated on Friday 10th May at 08:00
21:45 to 22:30 – F1: 1991 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and James Hunt
– repeated on Friday 10th May at 12:05

Tuesday 7th May
21:00 to 21:45 – F1: 1994 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Jonathan Palmer
– repeated on Saturday 11th May at 18:00
21:45 to 22:30 – F1: 1996 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Jonathan Palmer
– repeated on Saturday 11th May at 18:45

Wednesday 8th May
20:00 to 22:30 – F1: 2011 Spanish Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Martin Brundle and David Coulthard
– repeated on Sunday 12th May at 20:45

Thursday 9th May
14:00 to 14:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
17:45 to 18:00 – F1: Gear Up for Spain (Sky Sports F1)
22:00 to 22:30 – F1: Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Friday 10th May
08:45 to 11:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
11:00 to 11:40 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
12:45 to 14:50 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
13:00 to 14:45 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Two)
14:50 to 15:35 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:00 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 18:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 11th May
08:45 to 09:30 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
09:45 to 11:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:10 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 14:15 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
14:35 to 16:00 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:05 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)

Sunday 12th May
08:20 to 09:10 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:30 to 10:35 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
11:30 to 16:00 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 15:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:15 to 16:15 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
16:00 to 17:00 – Architects of F1: Max Mosley (Sky Sports F1)

Wednesday 15th May
19:00 to 19:30 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

If anything changes, I shall update the schedule.

Update on May 4th – Sky’s new online show ‘Midweek Report’ presented by Anna Woolhouse has been added to the schedules, as thus I have added it above.

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.

Sky add 1983 classic races to May Day weekend

For those of you that will be enjoying next weekend’s May Day Bank Holiday, good news as the first five races of 1983 are heading your way on Sky Sports F1. All races will air on the channel in highlights form.

Friday 3rd May
21:00 to 21:30 – 1983 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights

Saturday 4th May
21:00 – 1983 United States Grand Prix West Highlights
21:40 – 1983 French Grand Prix Highlights

Sunday 5th May
21:00 – 1983 San Marino Grand Prix Highlights
21:40 – 1983 Monaco Grand Prix Highlights

And then then the repeat airings:

Monday 6th May
22:30 to 23:00 – 1983 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights

Tuesday 7th May
22:30 to 23:10 – 1983 United States Grand Prix West Highlights

Wednesday 8th May
22:30 to 23:10 – 1983 French Grand Prix Highlights

Thursday 9th May
21:30 – 1983 San Marino Grand Prix Highlights
22:10 – 1983 Monaco Grand Prix Highlights

The reason, for those wondering, why it is only highlights airing, is because in some cases, only the highlights package exist in the FOM archive with commentary, therefore it is impossible for Sky to show the full race.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 14th April, 2013)

From BARB:

1 – 489k – Live Chinese Grand Prix (Sunday, 06:30)
2 – 290k – Live Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying (Saturday, 06:00)
3 – 105k – Chinese Grand Prix Qualifying Replay (Saturday, 12:30)
4 – 69k – The F1 Show (Friday, 11:00)
5 – 66k – 1993 European Grand Prix (Saturday, 08:49)
6 – 61k – Live Chinese Grand Prix Practice 2 (Friday, 06:45)
7 – 57k – Live Chinese Grand Prix Practice 1 (Thursday, 26:45)
8 – 44k – 1993 European Grand Prix (Sunday, 12:01)
9 – 41k – Chinese Grand Prix Practice 1 Replay (Friday, 15:31)
10 – 41k – Chinese Grand Prix Replay (Sunday, 12:30)

The main stand out here is the 1993 European Grand Prix ratings, over 100,000 viewers combined. Interesting as well to note that the Sunday airing made the top 10, but the preceding F1 Legends episode did not. Although I do think the series is a great strand by Sky, the choice of person (Tony Brooks) would be recognisable to very little of their current audience.

No Chinese Grand Prix airings made BBC’s top ten, but Driven: The Fastest Woman in the World (their title, not mine) scraped into BBC Two’s top ten with 1.15 million viewers.

Note: Bahrain Grand Prix overnight ratings will be on the site in the next day or two.