The Canadian Grand Prix pulled in solid numbers across the weekend, and was marginally up year-on-year, unofficial overnight viewing figures show.

Race
Live coverage of the race, screened live on BBC One averaged 4.59m (23.3%) from 18:20 to 21:00. It is down slightly on last year’s number of 4.61m (23.8%) despite a smaller timeslot, which may be considered a tad disappointing, but no doubt Soccer Aid took one or two viewers away. For the third race in a row, and what is now turning into a trend, Sky Sports F1’s coverage was up compared with 2013. The race show from 18:00 to 21:30 averaged 818k (4.2%), compared with 743k (3.8%) for the identical slot last year.

With both numbers not a million miles away from last year, the combined numbers are in the same ballpark: 2014’s combined average of 5.40m is 50k up on 5.35m from 2013. It will end up being the second most watched Canadian Grand Prix in the past decade and a bit, only behind the 2011 race which averaged a massive 6.12m across five and a half hours. Part of me wishes yesterday’s race did a little better, but it is still a very good rating.

Elsewhere, Paddock Live from 21:30 averaged 166k (0.8%), whilst the Track Parade brought 221k (1.6%) from 17:30 to 18:00.

Practice and Qualifying
Live coverage of Qualifying on BBC One from 17:00 to 19:20 averaged a solid 2.43m (16.6%), which is virtually identical to last year’s 2.41m. Sky Sports F1’s coverage brought in a further 435k (2.8%), up nearly 100k on last year’s number of 351k (2.6%). The combined figure of 2.87m will be the second highest in the past decade, only behind 2011 which had an extremely high number of above 3.5m.

It is worth mentioning Practice 3 which did very well on Saturday afternoon. BBC Two’s coverage averaged 850k (8.8%), with Sky Sports F1 adding 142k (1.5%) – so almost 1 million viewers watching practice which is a brilliant stat. Overall it has to be said another that on the ratings front, things are starting to come together and is really a complete 180 from the first four races, which is great to see. We’re also setting some fascinating trends: BBC’s numbers have largely stagnated whilst Sky is increasing its numbers every so slightly. Next up is Austria, meaning that there is nothing for me to compare against. The only potential comparison is with the European Grand Prix’s that were held in late June when it was held in Valencia, but I’ll pull together a ratings article for Austria nevertheless. Frustratingly, the race highlights are on BBC Two, which is going to hurt numbers.

The 2013 Canadian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Yesterday, AUTOSPORT published an article noting that BBC’s iPlayer figures for Formula 1 have increased 33 percent, whilst their Radio 5 Live figures have increased 53 percent. The paragraph concludes by noting that “there is a growing view that the way people consume F1 is changing dramatically”. Whilst I agree that habits are changing, I’m not entirely convinced by the validity of that sentence.

Let’s come back to that later, and instead look at some other statistics. Compared with the first six races last year, BBC’s Formula 1 coverage has dropped by 12 percent, whilst Sky Sports F1’s live race coverage has increased by 11 percent according to unofficial overnight viewing figures from Overnights.tv. If you knew absolutely nothing about viewing figures, you might be led to believe that Sky’s ratings are beginning to move mountains and are taking viewers off BBC hand over fist. Well…. not quite.

In fact, whilst BBC’s figures have dropped 426k for a variety of factors already covered in detail on this blog, Sky’s viewing figures have increased only 79k. See how things now look different? Because Sky Sports F1’s viewing figures are coming from a low base, it means that any increase it makes will seem massive percentage wise. The combined figures for the UK are down 8 percent or 350k. The point I’m making is that percentages do not always tell the full story, and they certainly don’t here.

All the percentages we have are listed below:

+ 53 percent = BBC Radio
+ 33 percent = BBC iPlayer
+ 11 percent = Sky TV (+79k)
– 8 percent = BBC TV + Sky TV (-350k)
– 12 percent = BBC TV (-426k)

Thanks to BBC’s monthly iPlayer reports, we have some Formula 1 figures dating back a few years, which are as follows:

2011
– 254k – Australia
– 297k – China
– 286k – Canada
– 277k – Germany
– 262k – Singapore

2012
– 417k – Australia highlights
– 316k – China live

2013
– 484k – Australia highlights

2014
– 521k – Bahrain highlights

From a percentage point of view, 33 percent seems like a huge increase. It’s worth noting that AUTOSPORT probably would not have been given the raw figures from BBC’s Media Centre team, I imagine that the only figures they were given were percentage increases. But what about from a raw figures perspective? The 33 percent increase is about 100k, which definitely does not cover the entirety of BBC TV’s drop this season, nor does it account for 350k drop overall. Or, for that matter, why Formula 1’s UK viewing figures have dropped over half a million viewers between 2011 and 2014. And if BBC iPlayer is ‘only’ averaging 500k for Formula 1, one assumes the Sky Go/On Demand effect is negligible. I’d also argue that the reason Bahrain is showing above is because of the TV timeslot it was in – had that race been broadcast live on free-to-air television, it definitely would not have had 521k via iPlayer.

Whilst there is changing viewing habits, you cannot escape the fact that there are fans no longer watching the sport and are not being replaced by new fans at the same rate, whether it is due to the on-track action changing (DRS, Pirelli’s, turbo’s), those in charge of the sport running into a power-trip with no direction thanks to rules nobody wishes to see (double points), fans feeling distant from the sport (expensive ticket prices) or because Formula 1 is moving to a pay TV model, thus pricing people out of the sport – MotoGP fans know what that feels like. I’ll let you decide…