Brazilian Grand Prix up year-on-year, but BBC highlights underperforms

The Brazilian Grand Prix recorded a rating that was higher than last year, however, the BBC’s highlights show underperformed when you consider its position in the schedule.

Race
Live coverage of the race show, screened exclusively live on Sky Sports F1, averaged 1.01m (6.4%) from 15:00 to 18:30. The number is marginally higher than the Swansea vs Arsenal Premier League game over on Sky Sports 1. That game averaged 1.00m (6.2%) from 15:30 to 19:00, the difference was approximately three thousand viewers between the two programmes. Thanks to airing the race exclusively live, Sky’s number is double last year’s 499k and up on the 734k recorded in 2012 for the equivalent slot.

BBC’s schedulers made the unusual decision of airing the Grand Prix highlights bang in the middle of primetime, after their juggernaut Strictly Come Dancing. Had yesterday been a title decider for Lewis Hamilton, the decision may well have a paid off. Sadly for them the highlights, airing from 20:30 to 22:00 on BBC One, averaged only 3.26m (13.2%) despite having a lead-in of ten million viewers from Strictly. Had the rating been a BBC Two number, it would have been really good. But considering Antiques Roadshow normally averages five million viewers, I think that number, and in particular the share, has to be considered a disappointment.

In hindsight, that slot probably was not the best for Formula 1. I applaud them for putting Formula 1 in the middle of primetime, but on this occasion, it did not work out. The number is down on all previous years for BBC’s Brazilian Grand Prix coverage, so it is fair to say that the highlights programme failed to bring in casual viewers. The combined figure of 4.27 million is up on 2013, but is the second lowest since at least 2006.

Qualifying
Sky Sports F1’s live coverage of qualifying averaged 382k (2.8%) from 15:00 to 17:45, with BBC Two’s highlights programme bringing in 1.47m (6.7%). The combined average of 1.85 million viewers makes it the lowest number since 2007 for a Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying session. Whether the relatively low numbers are because this was a ‘dud’ race or not, I don’t know.

So, as perhaps expected with double points, the championship race between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton will go down to the wire in Abu Dhabi. In 2010, the season finale between Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel at Abu Dhabi averaged a whopping 5.78m (41.4%), peaking with 7.36m (50.5%). It remains one of the most watched European based races over the two decades. Can Hamilton versus Rosberg beat that? It will be tough beating that, but time will tell.

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

overnights.tv-bannersF1

BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage: Your 2014 Verdict

The 2014 MotoGP season has finished, with Marc Marquez dominating the majority of the year. The Valencia Grand Prix programme has just concluded, which brings to an end BT Sport’s first year of covering MotoGP. So, how have they fared? This season marked a drop in viewing figures, thanks to a lack of free-to-air television coverage as a result of Dorna’s new deal with BT Sport, later followed by a deal with ITV4 for highlights coverage.

From their team announcement in February, through to Melanie Sykes’s departure in May and onto their fantastic coverage at Silverstone, it has been a roller-coaster ride for BT.

The comments section is open for you to have your thoughts: what did BT Sport do well in 2014, and what could they have done better? Should they appoint a permanent presenter for their MotoGP coverage in 2015? If so, who should that be? What should the channel do differently for 2015 where MotoGP is concerned?

As always at this time of year, the best thoughts will be put into a new blog post in a few weeks time.

Caterham’s “crowd-funding” – the facts

Crowd-funding is normally used to raise money for a particular cause. Whether it is for a charity, or getting a new project off the ground, you normally know what your money is going to. I’ll keep this relatively short.

Let’s look at Project Brabham. Project Brabham wants to:

Brabham Racing will initially compete in the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship, which includes the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours. The ultimate dream is to bring this same model to Formula 1 and potentially other exciting series such as the FIA Formula E Championship.

So far, 2,628 backers have raised £247,930. That’s an average of £94.34 a backer. I can see on the Indiegogo site who has backed Project Brabham. Donations range from £1.00 to £100.00, as you would expect. Project Brabham is a journey, and by being part of Project Brabham, you get to be part of that journey. This is a team effort. Project Brabham has an end goal. It has a target. It may happen, it may not. It has ambition.

On the other hand, Caterham. Caterham wants to:

The Caterham F1 Team is launching the #RefuelCaterhamF1 to power the team to go racing in Abu Dhabi and hopefully beyond. The team is giving both fans and sponsors a unique opportunity to be the driving force behind the team by crowdfunding its return to the grid in exchange for once in a lifetime rewards.

So far, 1,845 backers have raised £1,057,102. That’s an average of £572.96 a backer. Straight away, alarm bells. Either Formula 1 fans are extremely rich, or something dodgy is happening. I also question exactly what happens after Abu Dhabi. Where does that £2.3 million go? What is frustrating here is that, on the CrowdCube website, I cannot see who has backed the Caterham crowd-funding effort. Furthermore:

So, one person added £100k to the effort, and another added £300k to the effort. Which brings that £1.06m total down to about £500k (assuming there are one or two other large amounts in there).

Does it matter? At least with a lot of small amounts in Project Brabham, you can say it is legitimate, but when you start throwing large amounts in there with Caterham, alarm bells start ringing. Does it matter that Caterham’s administrators are also CrowdCube’s service accountancy and tax advisers?

I want Caterham to make it to Abu Dhabi. But, at the same time, I’m concerned by the very large amounts of money being thrown at this, by what appears to be a small group of people. By the looks of things, Formula 1 fans are making a small difference. One or two businessmen, on the other hand, are making a very large difference…

Update on November 14th – Another half a million has popped up out of nowhere.

BT Sport screening MotoGP testing, Macau Grand Prix this week

Although the MotoGP season comes to a conclusion this weekend, BT Sport’s motor sport coverage continues into this week and next weekend with both MotoGP testing and the Macau Grand Prix being screened live by BT. As noted by Keith Huewen on Twitter, BT Sport 2 will be covering MotoGP testing live on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th November, eight hours in total. Like last year, I imagine coverage will be the Dorna World Feed with no input from the BT team.

Alongside this, BT Sport will be airing an hour long show covering the FIM Awards Ceremony on Monday 10th November as Marc Marquez et al. pick up their trophies. The channel will also be airing live coverage of the the annual Macau Grand Prix next weekend, along with the final round of the 2014 World Rally Championship from Wales. Lastly, they are airing eight hours of their Motorsport Tonight show, with season reviews of several series. I don’t think it will be airing live, but it will feature many guests alongside the best action from the year. Elsewhere, British Eurosport and Motors TV will be covering the penultimate round of the World Endurance Championship from Bahrain.

Motorsport Tonight – BT Sport 2
Saturday 15th November – 16:30 to 20:30 [Part 1]
Sunday 16th November – 16:15 to 20:00 [Part 2]

MotoGP – BT Sport 2
Monday 10th November – 13:00 to 16:00 [Live Testing]
Monday 10th November – 21:30 to 22:30 [Awards]
Tuesday 11th November – 10:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:00 [Live Testing]

Live Macau Grand Prix – BT Sport 2
Saturday 15th November – 05:45 to 06:45 [F3 qualifying]
Saturday 15th November – 07:30 to 08:30 [Motorcycling]
Sunday 16th November – 01:00 to 02:00 [GT Cup race]
Sunday 16th November – 07:30 to 08:30 [F3 race]

Live World Endurance Championship: Bahrain
Saturday 15th November – 11:30 to 18:35 [Motors TV]
Saturday 15th November – 16:00 to 18:00 [Eurosport]

Live World Rally Championship: Wales Rally GB – BT Sport 2
Sunday 16th November – 11:45 to 13:15 [Day 3]

I will update the above throughout the week if anything does change.

Are FOM taking the first steps to create their own “F1 Network”?

The third and final challenge in the F1 Connectivity Innovation Prize was announced by Formula One Management and Tata Communications earlier this week, and it is one which is of significant interest to this writer. FOM are, and I quote from here, “looking for suggestions to encourage F1 fans to provide audio and text commentaries of the FOM archive via the internet so that the content is indexed to allow it to be used in new and exciting ways.”

New and exciting ways. Via the internet. Terms that you do not normally hear FOM say, after all, they only made their Twitter feed engaging a little less than two months ago. In the title of this piece, I use the term ‘F1 Network’, which is deliberate. Alongside being a Formula 1 fan, I am also a fan of professional wrestling. Which brings me onto the WWE Network. The network, dubbed as ‘over the top’, is available on a multitude of devices from the traditional desktop PC, through to the iPad and onto the Xbox One. It currently runs a linear schedule, but shows are also available for fans to watch On Demand. As of writing, not everything is available on the network. In fact, WWE are barely scraping the surface as to what is currently available, however new material is being released on an ad-hoc basis. The monthly price for the network is, yep… $9.99.

The challenge description claims that FOM has around 60,000 hours of footage dating back to 1981. In that time period, up until the end of 2013, there have been 555 races. That works out at an average of 131 hours of footage per race weekend stored in FOM’s archive. That is huge. To put it another way, it would take you seven years, without stopping, to watch the entire archive. In comparison though, the WWE’s archive holds around 150,000 hours of footage, although admittedly that does contain material from a lot of defunct wrestling organisations. Around a quarter of their archive is digitalised.

> Formula1.com article
> Tata Communications article
> Challenge 3 brief

Of course, it is worth noting that the WWE Network has not yet been launched in the UK, and could still launch here as a normal cable channel, like in Canada, which is basically a kick in the balls to the fans as that is just like what Sky Sports F1 is now. Sky Sports F1 is not an F1 Network. It is controlled BSkyB, who do not produce content 24/7 for the channel. An actual F1 Network, in the form of the US WWE Network, would be controlled 100 percent by FOM. Any F1 Network would need good grace from multiple providers, including Sky. FOM can not just launch an F1 Network online, the clause concerning online would have to be removed from every broadcasting contract, otherwise the network would be geo-blocked and Sky would kick up a huge fuss.

The brief says that “we need you to suggest how fans can be engaged to provide commentaries to the footage, and how these commentaries can then be converted into text form to provide a keyword index for easy searching and referencing. Once indexed, the footage archive can be used in many new and exciting ways, such as on-demand services. None of this is possible without the content being indexed in the first instance.” I would hope that any successful submission will involve some form of staggered approach. Does all of the archive need to be indexed before content can be rolled out? No. As I mentioned above, the WWE Network currently scrapes the surface and had WWE waited until all of their content was digitalised, we would be sitting here for many more years until that happens.

The quoted brief confuses me too, because it implies that the footage we hear will be fan commentary rather than the original commentary. Can I ask: who would listen to that? I’d like to hear the commentary in its original form, not dubbed commentary or anything of the like. I hope I have misread that, because fan-based commentary does not interest me in the slightest. Why can’t the original commentary be indexed? Most YouTube videos contain transcriptions, which is an automatic process with presumably little human intervention, surely something of this nature would be much more efficient than providing new commentary?

In terms of roll out, you could roll out ‘a season a year’ to the consumer with extra supplementary material surrounding that season, alongside any additional live streaming that may be considered. That might not sound like a lot for $9.99 per month, however the lifespan of the network would be increased, which is good for FOM in the long run. Release too much material at once, and you shorten the lifespan. The release of material needs to be logical for the network to be successful. Re-watching the 2011 Brazilian Grand Prix probably wouldn’t do much for me as it was recent, but watching the 1989 Italian Grand Prix on the other hand having seen the previous races that year would be fascinating.

The pessimist in me believes that we will not get a F1 Network for at least another two or three years, due to a variety of reasons that go beyond the status of current broadcasting contracts. Either way, it will be very interesting to see what the winning solution is for this challenge, and what time scales are involved.