Indian Grand Prix viewing figures drop significantly year-on-year

The Indian Grand Prix coverage on BBC One and Sky Sports F1 peaked with 4.45 million viewers, overnight viewing figures show. The race, screened live on Sky Sports F1 peaked with 1.16 million at 11:00, whilst the BBC One repeat peaked with 3.29 million viewers at 15:10. Whilst that looks okay, year-on-year it is a steep drop, as last years inaugural peaked with a mammoth 7.34 million viewers – 5.55 million at 09:35 and 1.79 million at 15:55 on BBC One.

Last year, BBC One averaged 4.14 million for its live broadcast from 08:30 to 12:00, with a further 1.41 million for the re-run to bring an average of 5.55 million viewers. BBC One’s highlights programme this year brought to 2.78 million the sofa from 14:05 to 15:45. Sky Sports F1’s live broadcast averaged 561,000 viewers from 08:00 to 12:45. If we were to use the average from 08:30 to 12:00 (ie – the same slot as BBC One last year), the average would increase to a healthier 705,000 viewers. Nevertheless, combining that figure and the BBC One highlights figure brings you out with 3.48 million viewers, another low figure in a season that will probably record the lowest average since 2008.

Can we blame Vettel then? Well, not really. After all, last year’s figure was so high, yet the title was already decided! In fact, last year’s Indian Grand Prix figure was unusually high as it is very rare to see an Asian based race over 5 million viewers. So I’m not sure Vettel’s dominance is the cause when last year’s figures were quite frankly, astonishing for Formula 1. One thing that interests me from the breakdowns is that Sky Sports F1’s coverage at 08:00 began with 140,000 viewers. After the race between 11:30 and 12:00 it hovered in the mid-200,000 mark, but then at 12:00 the figures nearly by half to under 140,000 viewers. I can imagine why fans would tune out, after all it was not the most exciting of races, but the BBC F1 Forum still does well for BBC after live races, and it has been running for now four years so it must be somewhat successful. The sudden drop at 12:00 just seemed to confuse me. Maybe four hours constantly is the saturation point for people watching Formula 1?

In any case, the figures are a drop year-on-year and continues a run of mediocre viewing figures.

Thanks to gslam2 for kindly sending me the 2012 breakdown on Digital Spy Forums.

Sky Sports F1 schedule times for GP2 and GP3 season repeats starting this week

Following on from the announcement that Sky Sports F1 are to extend their schedule times for November, below is a list of all of the GP2 and GP3 season repeat times that start this Wednesday.

GP2 Series
23:00 – Wednesday 31st October – Malaysia, Race 1
00:25 – Thursday 1st November – Malaysia, Race 2
12:40 – Thursday 1st November – Bahrain, Race 1 (Round 1)
14:05 – Thursday 1st November – Bahrain, Race 2 (Round 1)
16:40 – Thursday 1st November – Bahrain, Race 1 (Round 2)
18:05 – Thursday 1st November – Bahrain, Race 2 (Round 2)
16:30 – Tuesday 6th November – Spain, Race 1
18:25 – Tuesday 6th November – Spain, Race 2
20:00 – Wednesday 7th November – Monaco, Race 1
22:55 – Wednesday 7th November – Monaco, Race 2
18:35 – Friday 9th November – Europe, Race 1
23:30 – Friday 9th November – Europe, Race 2
12:45 – Saturday 10th November – Britain, Race 1
14:10 – Saturday 10th November – Britain, Race 2
12:45 – Sunday 11th November – Germany, Race 1
14:10 – Sunday 11th November – Germany, Race 2
23:00 – Monday 12th November – Hungary, Race 1
00:25 – Tuesday 13th November – Hungary, Race 2
23:00 – Tuesday 13th November – Belgium, Race 1
00:25 – Wednesday 14th November – Belgium, Race 2
23:00 – Wednesday 14th November – Italy, Race 1
00:25 – Thursday 15th November – Italy, Race 2
15:20 – Thursday 15th November – Singapore, Race 1
16:50 – Thursday 15th November – Singapore, Race 2

GP3 Series
14:50 – Tuesday 6th November – Spain, Race 1
15:40 – Tuesday 6th November – Spain, Race 2
16:15 – Wednesday 7th November – Monaco, Race 1
17:05 – Wednesday 7th November – Monaco, Race 2
16:20 – Friday 9th November – Europe, Race 1
17:10 – Friday 9th November – Europe, Race 2
09:00 – Saturday 10th November – Britain, Race 1
09:55 – Saturday 10th November – Britain, Race 2
09:00 – Sunday 11th November – Germany, Race 1
09:55 – Sunday 11th November – Germany, Race 2
16:20 – Monday 12th November – Hungary, Race 1
17:10 – Monday 12th November – Hungary, Race 2
16:20 – Tuesday 13th November – Belgium, Race 1
17:10 – Tuesday 13th November – Belgium, Race 2
16:20 – Wednesday 14th November – Italy, Race 1
17:10 – Wednesday 14th November – Italy, Race 2

So if you want to relieve GP2 and GP3 again, or alternatively record all of them to watch over the Winter, then above are all the times you need to do so.

Scheduling: The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

From India, F1 heads to Abu Dhabi for round 18 of 20 in the 2012 Formula One season. Both BBC and Sky are live for this one, so full coverage is available from both sides.

On 5 Live F1, James Allen and Jaime Alguersuari are not with them this weekend, so it is John Watson alongside Jonathan Legard for the weekend. As is normal during live BBC TV weekends, however, Ben Edwards will be in the box too for practice 1, which I believe will be the first time since their A1 Grand Prix days that Edwards and Watson are commentating together!

Thursday 1st November
11:00 to 11:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
19:30 to 20:00 – Britain’s Next F1 Star (4/6) (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 2nd November
08:45 to 10:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Red Button)
12:45 to 15:00 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
12:55 to 14:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
15:00 to 15:45 – 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 3rd November
09:45 to 11:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:05 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Red Button)
12:00 to 14:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 14:15 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sunday 4th November
11:30 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 15:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:15 to 16:15 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)

As always, if anything changes I shall update this blog if necessary.

Sky Sports F1 channel to extend ‘opening times’ throughout November

Sky Sports F1 are to extend their channel scheduling hours throughout November, I can confirm. Normally, the channel is only open from 18:00 onwards on weekdays, however the schedules on the Radio Times website show that the channel will be open for longer, starting on Tuesday 6th November straight after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.

– Tuesday 6th November – 12:50 to 00:00 (mainly Legends, GP2 and GP3 repeats)
– Wednesday 7th November – 14:00 to 00:00
– Thursday 8th November – from 17:00
– Friday 9th November – from 14:00
– Saturday 10th November – from 07:00
– Sunday 11th November – from 07:00
– Monday 12th November – from 15:00
– Tuesday 13th November – from 15:00
– Wednesday 14th November – from 15:00
– Thursday 15th November – from 13:50
—> USA race weekend
– Tuesday 20th November – from 16:00
– Wednesday 21st November – from 16:00

As far as I can see, there is no new programming listed, although I am pleased to see the hours being extended. The possible reason for this may be regarding the closure of the channel throughout the Winter. Although nothing concrete has been confirmed on that front, the advertising document published by Sky Media before the start of the season (archived here by F1Fanatic.co.uk) noted dates of “Between March 9th and November 30th”, suggesting the channel will not operate over the Winter from December 1st.

It may also be that the channel will just operate X hours a day from December 1st, say two hours a day for sake of argument in ‘Winter shut down’ mode. Finalised schedules have not been publicly released yet so I don’t know whether the channel will close for definite. It harks back a bit to F1 Digital+ in 2002, in that case the channel closed forever, it is always entirely possible (but not very likely) that Sky could take the decision to move all content from Sky Sports F1 to their main Sky Sports channels.

I’ll update the opening part of this post in any case as the schedules update further through November. UPDATE at 16:30 – This article has now appeared on the Sky Sports F1 website, so the above has been updated earlier than I anticipated!

Behind the scenes show with Williams airing on Sky Sports F1 soon

As noted on their Twitter page, a behind the scenes show with Williams will be airing on Sky Sports F1 soon focussing on this weekend’s Indian Grand Prix. I suspect the show will be similar to the Marussia programme that aired last Friday.

Given that the Marussia programme focussed mainly on the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, I would expect the Williams programme to air on either Friday 2nd November or Friday 9th November after The F1 Show.

I can’t spot it in the schedules yet, but will update this page when it appears.