A few thoughts on Jake Humphrey leaving the BBC

As noted earlier this morning, it has been confirmed today that Jake Humphrey is leaving the BBC at the end of 2012, to join BT Vision from 2013 as presenter for their Premier League football coverage.

Since I wrote that article, Media Guardian have revealed a few details about Humphrey’s contract. They say that Humphrey’s contract is four years long (so from January 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2016), at approximately £250,000-plus per year (the Daily Mail say £800,000 per year). Interestingly the article also says that the deal is ‘not exclusive’ and that he can work for the BBC outside of his contract period. I am not quite sure what that means, as far as I read it, he cannot work for the BBC between January 2013 and December 2016, I won’t claim to be an expert in how these things work, so I may be reading that wrong.

Some will argue that Humphrey has left the BBC, as a result of them sacrificing half of their Formula 1 rights to Sky Sports in July 2011. I do not believe that is necessarily true. If it was true, then why did Humphrey not move to pastures new at the end of 2011? Personally, I suspect the reason he is leaving is due to his wife having a baby, due in March 2013. It is a perfectly reasonable reason, after all if you want to start a family, would you rather have work based in England an hour or two away, or be travelling around the world twenty times a year? A no brainer for me. The interesting point for me is when did BBC find out that Humphrey was leaving? I can see why Humphrey wanted to continue with BBC for 2012, because of the Diamond Jubilee, Euro 2012 and the Olympics, whereas in the next few years on BBC, there is not much ahead for Humphrey apart from Formula 1. This tweet from Humphrey twelve days ago now makes a lot of sense: “If I was Lewis, I think I’d give it a go elsewhere. New faces, new challenges. As my old boss once said ‘never sit in the comfy chair’…” – new faces, and new challenges is what lie ahead in his future.

In my opinion, Humphrey has been the best Formula 1 presenter we have had in this country, and he will be missed on the BBC F1 show next year. The thing about Humphrey is that he makes presenting look effortless in the Formula 1 paddock, it is a joy to watch. Humphrey’s four year stay as BBC F1 presenter between 2009 and 2012 compares with Jim Rosenthal’s nine year stay as ITV F1 presenter between 1997 and 2005, and Steve Rider’s three years as ITV presenter from 2006 to 2008. Hopefully the three amigos, Humphrey, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan can go out with a bang at the end of the season.

The question now is, who will replace Humphrey? The most obvious, and likely, choice is Lee McKenzie. This year, she has hosted the Canadian, German and Hungarian highlights shows as well as presenting live coverage of the Japanese Grand Prix in 2010. McKenzie is a safe pair of hands, has motor sport presenting experience, and is already a BBC employee, so is therefore the most likely candidate. Outside of McKenzie, could David Coulthard step up to be presenter? Unlikely, but we seen Martin Brundle present the Japanese Grand Prix in 2008 on ITV, so it is not impossible. I don’t see that myself. Moving outside of the BBC Formula 1 team, but staying within the BBC, one sports presenters I was thinking of is Gabby Logan. Logan does not do a lot of work at present at BBC Sport and if they do draw up a shortlist, I think Logan would be on there with nearly fifteen years of sports presenting. As far as I know (someone correct me if I am wrong), she has not presented a motor sports programme before, which may count against her. The other BBC Sport presenter I was thinking of is Matt Roberts, the current MotoGP presenter. Surprisingly, his name has not been mentioned once, but Roberts I think is a definite contender, having already ousted Suzi Perry as MotoGP presenter at the end of 2010. I’m unsure of whether Roberts is contracted through BBC directly or whether he is contracted through Century TV, the company which produces BBC’s MotoGP coverage, so that may complicate things slightly.

Outside of the BBC? Steve Rider potentially, but I don’t see him wanting to present on location at every race again, his current deal with ITV for the British Touring Car Championship and Sky for the F1 Legends programming seems to suit him at the moment. There are no other obvious people to me, I don’t forsee anyone moving over from the Sky Sports F1 team to present Formula 1 on the BBC. The shortlist is a short one, but I think McKenzie and Roberts are the front runners here.

The above however all relies on one assumption: that BBC are not planning on pulling out of Formula 1 at the end of the year. I don’t think they are, personally I anticipate the deal that was signed last July will remain in place. But no doubt the announcement today may well fuel speculation that the BBC may be about to pull out of showing Formula 1 live altogether. I sincerely hope that does not happen, but we were surprised with the news last July. I just hope, we are not about to be surprised again with news for the worse…

As always, your comments, thoughts and speculation about the future of Formula 1 on BBC, as well as who will be the new host of BBC F1 are welcome.

Jake Humphrey to join BT Vision, leaving BBC at the end of 2012

Jake Humphrey is to leave the BBC at the end of 2012, becoming the host of BT Vision’s coverage of the 2013-14 Premier League season, the company has announced, as few days ago by Charles Sale.

In the press release, Humphrey says “I am incredibly excited to be joining the team at BT not just because I get to fulfil a lifelong dream of presenting the Barclays Premier League but because of the fresh perspective that BT will bring to both sport and broadcasting in this country. To be a part of this young, vibrant team who are as passionate about sport, as I am, is a privilege.

“I’ve grown up at the BBC, and whilst I hope to work with them in the future, I’d also like to place on record my thanks to them. I am incredibly grateful to all colleagues, and of course the viewers, for their incredible support from CBBC all the way to Formula 1. My focus from the start of 2013 is on making BT’s coverage of football the best this country has ever seen.”

Marc Watson, chief executive of BT Vision, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Jake has chosen to join our new sports channel to anchor our Premier League programming.

“Jake is a tremendously experienced and popular sports broadcaster and a fresh, young and innovative talent. He impressed us with his willingness to get deeply involved in the development of our live football programming and we took into account his track record of excellent presenting across many sports. He fits our plans for the new channel perfectly and we are very excited to be working with him.”

With that news, BBC are looking for a new Formula 1 presenter. I don’t think they will be looking far though, as I imagine Lee McKenzie will step up to the presenters’ breach with Tom Clarkson taking over McKenzie’s role, like what happened earlier this year when Humphrey was presenting Euro 2012 and the Olympics.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 9th September, 2012)

Updated on November 5th, 2012: From BARB:

1 – 723k – Live Italian Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 404k – Live Italian Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 110k – Live Italian Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 09:45)
4 – 52k – Fast Track (Saturday, 11:29)
5 – 50k – Live Italian Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Friday, 12:45)
6 – 47k – The F1 Show (Friday, 17:00)
7 – 47k – Porsche Supercup: Europe (Saturday, 11:15)
8 – 43k – Live Italian GP2 Feature Race (Saturday, 14:35)
9 – 35k – Live Italian Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Friday, 08:45)
10 – 32k – Legends (Sunday, 16:05) (Sunday, 16:05)

The channel reached 2.522 million people, which is slightly higher than the Hungarian Grand Prix back in July, which reached 2.439 million people. Excluding Germany, which was open to all Sky and Virgin Media viewers, the channel had it’s highest reach for a European round since the Bahrain Grand Prix in April which reached 3.419 million people.

Outside of the Sky Sports F1 channel, the Italian Grand Prix highlights made BBC One’s top 30, the programme recording an official average figure of 3.67 million viewers, the 24th highest programme on BBC One that week. This compares with an overnight figure of 3.57 million viewers, so the programme timeshifted only 100,000 viewers which is unsurprising as sporting events rarely do timeshift in large proportions.

Back over to Sky, and the speedway made two of their top 10’s, with the Elite League Speedway being watched by 74,000 at 19:30 on Sky Sports 3 on Wednesday 4th September, while the Grand Prix Speedway was seen by 50,000 the following Saturday over on Sky Sports 4.

Updated on November 5th, 2012: Now that we have the top ten, the Friday practice figures are low, particularly first practice which is half the usual figure. For whatever reason, the Belgian and Italy double bounce did not do well for the Sky F1 channel, the Paralympics being one possible reason. It is also disappointing to see no GP3 figures here given the very exciting race two on Sunday morning.

The Twitter outlook

Last week in this blog post, we seen two drivers’ jump over one million followers. Last weekend, on the race track, one of those drivers’ won the Italian Grand Prix. But how did that affect the Twitter outlook? It is time, to reveal all…

Drivers – The Top 10
01 – 1,118,290 – Jenson Button (McLaren)
02 – 1,074,044 – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
03 – 1,053,948 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
04 – 481,855 – Bruno Senna (Williams)
05 – 430,599 – Mark Webber (Red Bull)
06 – 267,796 – Sergio Perez (Sauber)
07 – 258,616 – Pastor Maldonaldo (Williams)
08 – 194,781 – Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
09 – 175,663 – Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
10 – 173,898 – Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)

Drivers – Biggest Increases
01 – 37,168 – Fernando Alonso
02 – 25,321 – Lewis Hamilton
03 – 14,490 – Jenson Button
04 – 10,169 – Sergio Perez
05 – 6,363 – Mark Webber

Drivers – Smallest Increases
01 – 790 – Charles Pic
02 – 1,063 – Jean-Eric Vergne
03 – 1,083 – Timo Glock
04 – 1,275 – Daniel Ricciardo
05 – 1,548 – Kamui Kobayashi

No change inside the top ten, Romain Grosjean moves ahead of Kamui Kobayashi thanks to the start-line accident at the Belgian Grand Prix, and the one race ban that followed it. As I noted last week, after that Grand Prix, the ban spread far and wide on Twitter. Although I don’t intend to follow his follower progress, Jerome d’Ambrosio has nearly 22,000 followers at the time of writing this, which would put him ahead of Charles Pic. He is not a regular tweeter, however, but as far as I know that is his real account.

In terms of smallest and largest increases, Sergio Perez had the fourth largest increase, thanks to his second place in the Italian Grand Prix. Status quo remains at the opposite end of the table.

Teams – The Top 10
01 – 334,535 – Ferrari
02 – 230,688 – McLaren
03 – 154,092 – Red Bull
04 – 146,803 – Mercedes
05 – 134,269 – Lotus
06 – 85,707 – Caterham
07 – 79,852 – Marussia
08 – 76,713 – Force India
09 – 74,585 – Williams
10 – 74,068 – Sauber

Teams – Biggest Increases
01 – 6,952 – Ferrari
02 – 5,142 – McLaren
03 – 3,961 – Red Bull

Teams – Smallest Increases
01 – 986 – Toro Rosso
02 – 991 – Caterham
03 – 1,123 – Marussia

Interestingly, Ferrari’s raw gain is lower than last week, somewhat oddly. Further down, Sauber recorded their highest gain since the Spanish Grand Prix week, I’m certain that Sauber will be jumping up to seventh within the next few weeks.

Driver and Team statistics as of Monday 10th September 2012.

Scheduling: The Singapore Grand Prix

The European leg of the 2012 Formula One season is over, now it is time for the flyaways, starting with the Singapore Grand Prix night race and the good news is that both BBC and Sky are live. As expected, the time difference means that the schedule is slightly different, with Practice happening later on Friday, and Qualifying an hour later on Saturday (although coincidentally, it is an hour earlier than in previous years). Both broadcasters’ have an identical build-up length for Qualifying, so if you wish, you can make direct comparisons as Sky will not be running adverts.

The GP2 season also comes to a fascinating climax in Singapore with Davide Valsecchi and Luiz Razia fighting for the championship title. As always, every GP2 session during the weekend is live on Sky Sports F1 with commentary from Will Buxton and Jerome d’Ambrosio, who returns to the commentary box after his Lotus F1 drive in Monza. While on the subject of GP2, I should note that it is unclear whether Sky Sports will continue airing GP2 and GP3 next season. The press release at the start of the year did not specify a length for the contract (after all, Sky did not have to take up the option to air the support races live) and the races have not set the ratings alight. I suspect GP2 and GP3 will continue next year live on Sky Sports if the Sky Sports F1 channel remains in its current vein.

Thursday 20th September
11:00 to 11:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 21st September
08:40 to 09:20 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
10:45 to 12:55 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
10:55 to 12:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Red Button)
12:55 to 13:45 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
14:15 to 16:15 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
14:25 to 16:05 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
16:15 to 17:00 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
18:30 to 19:30 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 22nd September
08:55 to 10:25 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
10:45 to 12:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
10:55 to 12:05 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Red Button)
13:00 to 15:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
13:00 to 15:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sunday 23rd September
09:05 to 10:10 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
11:30 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 15:20 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:20 to 16:20 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)

Update on September 14th, 20:35, as noted on The F1 Show, Georgie Thompson is staying in London for the Singapore Grand Prix weekend, so expect her along with Anthony Davidson on the Sky Pad from the Sky studios.