Scheduling: The 2013 British Grand Prix

After a three week break, Formula 1 is back, and it is back home. The roadshow moves to Silverstone and the British Grand Prix! Sky Sports F1’s schedule has made strides in the right direction compared with last season, with a total of fourteen extra programmes in the schedule. The GP Uncovered series looks back at the 1972, 1974 and 1976 British Grand Prix’s, whilst there are a plethora of highlights and full races nearer to the current day. I should note that some of the GP Uncovered’s have already been shown previously, but not all of them. For those wondering, the reason for the differing names (GP Uncovered vs Classic F1) is because the latter all comes out of FOM’s archive post-1981 whereas GP Uncovered comes from many different archives.

There are actually two separate Classic F1 strands: ‘Mansell’ and ‘Great Britain’, which is why 1987 Austria, 1991 Britain and 1994 Australia are not repeated as they are in the ‘Mansell’ strand. Strands aside, all of the details are listed below where that is concerned. To tie in with the Mansell theme, Sky Sports F1’s F1 Legends series is back this weekend with Sir Frank Williams next to be interviewed by Steve Rider. Rider will also be presenting ‘British Grand Prix: Home Advantage’, which is similar in nature to his Monaco Grand Prix programme from May, as Rider talks to drivers past and present about the race. As in 2012, there is also an extra editon of The F1 Show on Thursday 27th June.

Over on BBC, unfortunately neither Practice 1 or 2 is on BBC Two due to Wimbledon. Instead, the sessions will be live on BBC Red Button. BBC Two will show Practice 1, 2 and 3 back to back on Saturday morning, Practice 3 airing live. Unlike last year, where both Qualifying and the Race were on BBC Two, thankfully this year the proceedings take place on BBC One. It should remain that way as Wimbledon is on middle Sunday when the race is taking place, but heavy rain could change that.

Elsewhere, also lost in the BBC scheduling congestion is MotoGP. With no room in Saturday’s schedules, the MotoGP race live from Assen is bumped to the Red Button, with BBC Two airing a re-run on Sunday morning at 10:30. I suspect this means British Eurosport will air it live as is normally the case in these cases.

And, as this is Silverstone, The F1 Broadcasting Blog wants to know: which channel will you be watching?

The full schedule is as follows… keep an eye out for any updates!

Friday 21st June
20:00 to 21:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
21:00 to 21:45 – F1: 1987 Austrian Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and James Hunt

Saturday 22nd June
20:00 to 20:15 – GP Uncovered: First Time Out (Sky Sports F1)
20:15 to 21:15 – F1: 1991 British Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and James Hunt
– repeated on Tuesday 25th June at 21:20 and Saturday 29th June at 18:00

Sunday 23rd June
20:00 to 21:00 – GP Uncovered: Nine Days of Summer (Sky Sports F1)
– first shown in March, see here for more information
21:00 to 21:50 – F1: 1994 Australian Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Jonathan Palmer

Monday 24th June
20:00 to 20:30 – GP Uncovered: 1972 British Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
20:30 to 21:15 – F1: 1989 British Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and James Hunt
– repeated on Friday 28th June at 08:00
– EPG says it is 1987, but apparently it is 1989

Tuesday 25th June
20:00 to 20:40 – GP Uncovered: 1974 British Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
20:40 to 21:20 – F1: 1994 British Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Jonathan Palmer
– repeated on Saturday 29th June at 17:20
21:00 to 22:00 – James Hunt: Pitstop Playboy (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Wednesday 26th June
20:00 to 20:30 – GP Uncovered: 1976 British Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
20:30 to 22:15 – F1: 2003 British Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from James Allen and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Saturday 29th June at 21:50

Thursday 27th June
15:00 to 15:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
19:00 to 20:00 – F1: Preview (Sky Sports News Radio)
19:45 to 20:00 – F1: Gear Up for Great Britain (Sky Sports F1)
20:00 to 21:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
20:00 to 21:00 – F1: Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
21:00 to 21:30 – British Grand Prix: Home Advantage (Sky Sports F1)
– repeated at various times throughout the weekend
21:30 to 23:30 – F1: 2008 British Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from James Allen and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Sunday 30th June at 23:30

Friday 28th June
09:45 to 12:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Red Button)
12:00 to 12:35 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
13:45 to 15:50 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
13:55 to 15:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
15:50 to 16:35 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 17:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
18:00 to 19:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 29th June
06:40 to 11:05 – F1: Practice (BBC Two)
08:45 to 09:20 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
09:45 to 11:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:15 to 14:20 – 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)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sunday 30th June
08:25 to 09:15 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:35 to 10:40 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
11:30 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 15:30 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:30 to 16:30 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
16:15 to 17:15 – Legends: Sir Frank Williams (Sky Sports F1)
18:00 to 19:00 – Slicks-o-Six (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Wednesday 3rd July
19:00 to 19:30 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Update on June 24th – Unfortunately 1995 has been dropped from Sky’s Classic F1 schedule, with two repeats of 1991 now in its place.

Looking back at BBC’s Canadian Grand Prix weekend

With the Canadian Grand Prix being broadcast live on both BBC and Sky, viewers had a choice of which channel they wished to watch. Throughout the weekend I mostly channel hopped between each channel for the build-up and round-up after each session, but stuck with BBC for the majority of the sessions. As I have outlined before, personally I find Ben Edwards and David Coulthard a better commentary duo than David Croft and Martin Brundle, but at the same point that is my own personal taste than the overriding consensus from F1 fans.

For Practice 1, BBC had Ben Edwards and Susi Wolff in the commentary box. Unfortunately, I’m not keen on Wolff, because most of her exploits seem to be PR driven rather than talent driven, so I’m afraid here I switched to Sky Sports F1. If you are to have a woman in the commentary box, it should be someone who has proven themselves within a fairly high level of motor sport, take Alice Powell. Powell was in GP3 performed solidly throughout the season, but was unable to find the budget. In comparison, Wolff spent seven seasons in DTM and only scored four points. The only reason she is in the Formula 1 paddock, in my opinion, is because she is married to Toto. I’m unsure why I am meant to take her opinion seriously in the commentary box when she has not got anywhere near to the top. If a woman does make it to F1, I hope it is on talent alone, and not a PR driven exercise as it appears to be with Wolff, as a recent BBC documentary portrayed her as. Danica Patrick says hello…

Also, it was disappointing to see that only the last 45 minutes of Practice 1 were on BBC Two, but I suspect that was out of BBC F1’s hands. On the other hand, however, they were granted 30 minutes of air-time after Practice 2 on BBC Three. The time was well used, with Suzi Perry and Gary Anderson walking up and down the paddock discussing the day along with the latest technical developments and interviewing Christian Horner and Jacques Villeneuve. You may argue that Sky Sports also had half an hour of air-time after Practice Two, but with their broadcast you had ad breaks along with the usual ‘off the air six minutes early’, so for me, BBC won hands down here. As an extra plus, the benefit of being on BBC Three is that the channel brings a younger demographic to the show, which may have benefited the F1 and brought a slightly different audience to practice.

Unfortunately, the delay to the start of Practice 3 meant that the first half an hour of their BBC Two broadcast was a bit of a mess. I know that the practice sessions are now on BBC Two for the live races rather than behind the Red Button – therefore there is need for presentation before and after the session, but I didn’t understand the need to go back down to the paddock to have Perry and Wolff filling for twenty minutes without any obvious direction. It would have been simpler to have stuck with Edwards and Anderson in the commentary box, running through some tweets and answering viewers questions. Moving onto Qualifying, and I felt that the build-up with Perry, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan flowed well and was one of their better broadcasts that I had seen this season. Yes, there was inevitably focus on ‘testgate’, but this shouldn’t really be much of a surprise as this was BBC’s first proper show since Monaco – whereas Sky have had two editions of The F1 Show in between. The highlight for me though was Tom Clarkson’s interview was Robert Kubica. Clarkson’s interview was the first time a British broadcaster had gone out and properly interviewed Kubica since his rallying crash at the beginning of 2011. Very pleasing to see Kubica doing what he does best, and I do hope one day he makes it back up to single seater racing.

Whilst the build-up was great, BBC’s commitment lacked significantly afterwards. I understand that other shows may take priority, but on a day when BBC One’s prime time line-up was inevitably going to be beaten by Britain’s Got Talent quite convincingly, would there have been any harm in scheduling a ten minute extension? I personally, don’t think so. Even a little mini forum online after Qualifying would have sufficed here, to take us until 19:30. BBC’s Race programme began with a not so serious VT, as they took a look back at the previous ‘Wall of Champion’ victims, accompanied by a member of the BBC F1 team leaning up against the wall and a song with the words “its my wall”. Not serious in its nature, but it got the point across perfectly, that the wall can end your race in the blink of an eye. I enjoyed this.

Admittedly with BBC’s pre-race broadcast half the length of Sky’s, I channel hopped until the race start as some of the content did overlap, but I enjoyed the piece with Lewis Hamilton and Stirling Moss, filmed at Silverstone. I stuck with Sky after the race, but for the purposes of this blog I caught up with BBC’s Forum on Tuesday after the race had long concluded. Despite the sporadic nature of it, I again thought it worked well, although there was some confusion at times with regards what and where they were supposed to be going next! Yes, it was rough around the edges and by no means a perfect broadcast, but that is the nature of live television. The only real criticism I feel is of Perry reading a tweet out and then dismissing it half way through, but this only happened in one case. Overall, I did enjoy the forum. Was it as analytical as Sky’s post-race? Probably not, but I did enjoy seeing Anderson join Perry, Jordan and Coulthard at the end to round off the weekend. I also don’t think you should expect it to be as analytical as Sky’s, after all BBC’s broadcast is trying to cater for more casual viewers.

I thought on the whole their programmes were an enjoyable watch over the weekend, and a step up from the programmes they produced earlier this season. The fact that they are showing practice on terrestrial television definitely has its advantages, and it is good to see that they are exploiting it, whilst Perry, Jordan and Coulthard are gelling more and more as each race go by.

5.2 million watch Canadian Grand Prix

An average of 5.2 million viewers watched the Canadian Grand Prix across BBC One and Sky Sports F1 yesterday, overnight viewing figures show. The figures are up on last year’s ratings, which hit a six year low thanks to coverage being exclusively live on Sky Sports.

Yesterday’s coverage on BBC One from 18:15 to 21:10 averaged 4.61 million viewers, a 23.6 percent viewing share. A further 624,000 viewers watched on Sky Sports F1 from 17:30 to 22:00, bringing a combined average of approximately 5.2 million viewers. Amusingly, the combined average is higher than last year’s combined peak figure – which shows the significant effect that live free to air prime time viewing can have on the overall figures. As of writing, I have not seen a peak figure yet, but looking at the numbers above, I imagine it is between 6.5 million and 7 million viewers.

It is worth noting that the average is down on the 6.1 million number and the 8.5 million peak seen in 2011. This should not be considered a surprise really when you compare yesterday’s race to 2011’s race – the latter is much more likely to bring in casual viewers thanks to how that race developed.

Canadian Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 5.74 million
2003 – 4.00 million
2004 – 3.58 million
2005 – 4.97 million
2006 – 2.74 million
2007 – 4.69 million
2008 – 3.99 million
2009 – no race
2010 – 5.31 million
2011 – 6.21 million
2012 – 3.46 million / 3.79 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
2013 – 5.23 million / 5.45 million

One thing that you will spot is how the ratings fluctuate for Canada massively year-on-year. The odd years tend to do better than the even years, the reason being that the even years tend to find themselves either against the European Championship or the World Cup football, which inevitably dents the F1. I think overall yesterday’s rating is good, not fantastic, but a solid performance nevertheless.

Qualifying on BBC One averaged 2.41 million viewers from 17:00 to 19:10. Once Sky’s rating is factored in, it will be down on 2011 but up on 2010’s number of 2.35 million (albeit that was on BBC Two) and level with 2012’s number of 2.68 million. The more impressive number of the weekend for me was for practice three, which averaged a very respectable 700,000 viewers on BBC Two.

As of writing, I have not yet done the year-on-year comparisons ready for the mid-season blog posts in August, but I think (barring any significant decreases or increases) that the numbers will be in-line with 2012, but again down on the ratings highs we were used to seeing in 2011.

The 2012 Canadian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here. Note: The ratings information comes from Digital Spy, Media Guardian and BARB.

Scheduling: The 2013 Canadian Grand Prix

The controversy of ‘secret’ testing looks set to boil over into next week, as the Formula 1 roller-coaster moves into its first trip to North America this year for the standalone Canadian Grand Prix. Unlike last year, both BBC and Sky Sports F1 have live coverage of the race. From a ratings perspective, I am very pleased about that as it means I should not have to repeat headlines such as this. It also means that Formula 1 blockades BBC One in primetime, which should lead to nice viewing figures.

There are some schedule changes compared to the usual BBC live race, though. Firstly, practice two is on BBC Three, however, the bigger oddity is that the first 45 minutes of practice one is not on BBC Two, instead a Springwatch repeat taking priority. Why? I’m not entirely sure. It seems to be one of them strange decisions without any logic or thought. You could argue that the first half of practice will probably have little action, but still strange regardless. I assume that practice one in full will be on the Red Button, but have not seen that confirmed anywhere.

On the Sky side of things, Natalie Pinkham will not be with the team this weekend as confirmed on her Twitter. Rachel Brookes, who will be out in Montreal for Sky Sports News, will also be presenting The F1 Show alongside Ted Kravitz as a result, a good move by the channel and one that I’m pleased about. Don’t forget that there is no GP2 or GP3 action in Canada. GP2 returns at Silverstone, whilst GP3 has a standalone weekend in Valencia. The Sky Sports F1 schedule details for the latter will be up on the blog early next week.

Sunday 2nd June
20:00 to 20:45 – F1: 1991 Canadian Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and James Hunt
– repeated on Saturday 8th June at 19:45

Monday 3rd June
20:00 to 20:45 – F1: 1995 Canadian Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Jonathan Palmer
– repeated on Saturday 8th June at 20:30

Tuesday 4th June
20:00 to 22:00 – F1: 2007 Canadian Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from James Allen and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Sunday 9th June at 00:15

Wednesday 5th June
20:00 to 22:15 – F1: 2008 Canadian Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from James Allen and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Sunday 9th June at 09:25

Thursday 6th June
16:00 to 16:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – F1: Gear Up for Canada (Sky Sports F1)
19:45 to 22:30 – F1: 2011 Canadian Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Martin Brundle and David Coulthard
– repeated on Sunday 9th June at 14:30

Friday 7th June
14:45 to 16:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
14:55 to 16:45 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Red Button)
15:45 to 16:45 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
18:45 to 21:00 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
19:00 to 21:00 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Three)
21:00 to 21:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:00 to 00:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)

Saturday 8th June
14:45 to 16:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
14:55 to 16:10 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
17:00 to 19:10 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
17:00 to 19:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)

Sunday 9th June
17:30 to 22:00 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
18:15 to 21:10 – F1: Race (BBC One)
21:10 to 22:10 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
22:00 to 22:45 – GP Uncovered: The Ringmasters 1967 (Sky Sports F1)

Wednesday 12th June
19:00 to 19:30 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Last updated on June 5th.

Monaco Grand Prix ratings improve versus 2012

The Monaco Grand Prix ratings this past weekend improved versus low numbers in 2012, but failed to reach previous highs, overnight ratings show. As in 2012, the weather in the United Kingdom on the day of the race was very warm which no doubt hurt the ratings slightly.

Sky Sports F1’s live coverage averaged 855,000 viewers with an 11.3 percent share according to ITV Media’s top 10. What I do not know is what the average covers. It either covers 11:30 to 16:00 or 11:30 to 17:00, which is when Sky Sports F1 went off air in the end. If it is the former, then the entire average will be nearer 750,000 viewers, but we will only know that for definite when BARB updates next week with the official ratings. In terms of peak viewership, I think we are looking at between 1.5 million to 1.7 million viewers. Sky will be happy with that all considering, as the weather could have hit the Grand Prix harder. I should note that the ratings do not include anyone who watched via Sky Go or NOW TV, but they will only add about 100,000 viewers at most to the viewership numbers.

BBC One’s highlights programme averaged 3.11 million viewers from 17:35 to 19:05, a 22 percent share. The combined figure is therefore in the region of 3.9 million viewers, marginally up on 2012. I really don’t think you could have expected much more than that, it was a Bank Holiday weekend, the weather was fantastic so the Formula 1 was bound to be affected – as it was in 2009 and 2012. Here are the past Monaco Grand Prix ratings:

Monaco Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 4.16 million
2003 – 3.76 million
2004 – 3.19 million
2005 – 3.33 million
2006 – 2.64 million
2007 – 3.70 million
2008 – 3.98 million
2009 – 3.64 million
2010 – 4.74 million
2011 – 5.15 million
2012 – 3.77 million / 3.97 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
2013 – 3.96 million / 4.26 million*

* note, assuming that the programme average is indeed 855,000 viewers

Qualifying averaged 2.35 million on BBC One, with Sky’s live coverage bringing 413,000 viewers to the channel from 12:00 to 15:05. GP2 after the Formula 1 averaged 54,000 viewers. The combined Qualifying rating is therefore 2.76 million viewers, a nice rise on last year’s 2.49 million, and is the second highest Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying rating on record. It peaked with 3.66 million viewers – 2.80 million on BBC and 857,000 on Sky. Only 2011 recorded higher, that particular Qualifying session recording a mammoth 3.30 million viewers and a peak of 4 million viewers.

Looking ahead to Canada, and the rating will definitely be higher than last year as there will be live free to air coverage in primetime, which will help.

The 2012 Monaco Grand Prix ratings report can be found here. Note: The ratings information comes from Digital Spy, TV Ratings UK and BARB.