BBC receive complaints about swearing and late iPlayer uploads

The BBC have today revealed that they received complaints about the swearing during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix podium procedure. Out of the 4.5 million people that watched the podium procedure, BBC received 22 phone calls about the incident, 21 of them complained with one person commenting on it.

It should be noted however that more complaints were received about the late upload of the race to BBC iPlayer due to the incident than the incident itself. 30 people contacted the BBC about the late iPlayer upload, 28 people complained with a further two commenting about it. I think the fact that more people complained about the late iPlayer upload than the swearing incident itself says it all here in that it was not a major incident to viewers, although it will be interesting to see if Ofcom received further complaints.

Furthermore, the BBC article reveals that a letter has been sent by FIA director of communications Norman Howell to every team on behalf of FIA president Jean Todt. Howell sais “”Since it happened twice on the same weekend, I thought I’d send a friendly note. We need to remind the drivers they are professionals. If you’re a racing driver at that level you have to realise that part of your job description is to talk to the media, and to do so in a way that is acceptable.”

As I talked about earlier today, I do hope Formula One Management (alongside FIA) do not take a knee-jerk reaction and drop the new podium procedure. As always, time will tell.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix peaks with nearly six million viewers

Yesterday’s live coverage for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix peaked with nearly six million viewers across BBC One and Sky Sports F1, overnight figures show. According to James Allen, BBC One’s coverage peaked with 4.8 million, with Sky Sports F1’s coverage expected to add a further 0.8 million to 1.0 million to that figure, bringing the figure to near 6 million. When you put that into context with the remainder of this season against sporting competition at times, that is a very solid figure in my opinion.

The peak figure is up on last year’s 5.52 million five-minute peak figure recorded at 13:35, whilst it is in-line with a fifteen-minute peak of 5.9 million in 2009. It is, however, down on the mammoth peak of 7.35 million viewers from 2010, although that was thanks to the 2010 race being a title decider involving four different drivers.

On BBC One, ITV Media reports that the BBC coverage averaged 3.895 million viewers, with a 29 percent share from 12:10 to 15:30. Sky Sports F1’s coverage averaged under 574,000 viewers from 11:30 to 16:15, meaning a combined average around the 4.4 million mark, which would be the lowest average yet. If you were to compare like to like though, taking the Sky Sports F1 average from 12:10 to 15:30, you would probably find that rise slightly, albeit marginally below the 4.56 million from 2011 and below 4.8 million (2009) and 5.78 million (2010).

Admittedly there is not a plethora of information above, so I note that Sascha Mohr, who runs a German media blog posted the German ratings from yesterday over on his Twitter feed. In Germany, 7.18 million viewers watched on RTL, 430k on Sky Deutschland and 780k on ORF. Compared to the 85% to 15% or 80% to 20% we see here for BBC versus Sky, in Germany it is a similar split it seems between RTL and Sky/ORF if not slightly higher. The figures are very good for Germany, as this historical comparison shows figures over there peaked with 10.4 million viewers average in 2001 during Michael Schumacher’s third title defence.

Figures were always above 8 million during his title reigns with Ferrari, although as the graph shows they were not as high during his first two title reigns at Benetton. In any case, it appears that Sebastian Vettel is definitely popular in Germany, whether he is as popular as Schumacher was at his peak remains to be seen though. Nevertheless, I thought it would be good to include German figures seeing as I spotted though as we rarely get those figures.

Chris Evans rules himself out of BBC F1 presenter

Chris Evans has today ruled himself out the BBC Formula 1 presenter position, following the vacancy left by Jake Humphrey in September. Evans, in his Daily Mail column, said that he went to a meeting for the role, but said “it would be unfair on everyone involved for me to be given a job I don’t really have the time to do.” It is not particularly surprising to see him linked to the role in the first place being a big Formula 1 fan, but at the same point, not surprising to see him not taking it. The thing with Formula 1 is that it takes up a major proportion of the year, 20 races and four or five days at each weekend takes up a significant amount of time.

Whilst Evans has ruled himself out, he does suggest Clare Balding or Gabby Logan for the presenter position, the latter I suggested as a main possibility on the day of Humphrey’s departure. Being a BBC employee helps and Logan as far as I am aware does not do a lot of work currently with BBC. Balding, however, is unlikely to zero on the basis that she was unveiled as presenter of Channel 4’s racing coverage a few months ago.

The interesting thing about Evans blog on the Daily Mail website is that it also includes a list of suggestions for the BBC Formula 1 presenter’s job… directly from Jake Humphrey. Humphrey suggests, and I’ll go through this one by one:

– Julia Bradbury: I had to Google this, I knew she presents Countryfile currently, but did not realise that she presented Speedway on Channel 4 in the early 2000’s. I guess it is always possible, but she does a lot of work for BBC at the moment, and I don’t see her ditching that for Formula 1 around the world. I’d rate this as unlikely.
– Lee McKenzie: The lead candidate having been with BBC F1 since its inception in 2009. A safe pair of hands, a lot of experience means McKenzie is highly likely to get the position.
– Suzi Perry: Perry was ousted as MotoGP presenter on BBC at the end of 2010, so I don’t forsee her joining the Formula 1 team. I think this is unlikely to happen.
– Steve Rider: Like McKenzie, Rider would be a safe pair of hands. But would he want to exchange the BTCC and his F1 Legends commitments at Sky with presenting BBC F1 for a second time? Possibly, but I’m not so sure he would want to go travelling around the world with an ever demanding Formula 1 schedule.
– Phillip Schofield: No chance. One of ITV’s biggest presenters (This Morning, Dancing on Ice, Mr and Mrs to name three shows), and if BBC tried to get him, they’d have to offer him a lot of money to get him to do it.

As always, I may be completely wrong, but they are my thoughts looking at the suggestions. I still think McKenzie is the most likely. We’re in November now, so we should know in the next month or two for definite what is happening.

5 Live F1 vs Sky Sports F1: A practice comparison

Yesterday morning, after finding out that Ben Edwards would be alongside John Watson for Free Practice 1, I decided that I would deviate from my normal practice of watching practice on Sky Sports F1. As good as David Croft and Anthony Davidson are, for me, Edwards and Watson are one of the best motor sport commentary duo’s out there past and present from Eurosport in 1995 and 1996 to F1 Digital+ in 2002 to A1 Grand Prix from 2005 to 2009.

For those unfamiliar, BBC 5 Live’s practice coverage is simulcast on the BBC Red Button service for BBC’s live Formula 1 weekends from five to the hour (the five minute FOM sting) to five minutes after the session has finished, whilst Sky Sports F1 has a short build-up and short outro. Unlike their TV coverage, 5 Live’s coverage is produced by USP Content, so in other words they are not made by the same people, which is why they have different teams. Because the TV people are not doing much on Friday, they help with the radio output, hence why Edwards and Gary Anderson pop up on 5 Live occasionally.

The 5 Live format followed the same discussion style format that was seen from 2009 and 2011 with Edwards and Watson discussing the latest stories depending on what was shown on screen, as well as answering people’s Twitter questions from time to time. Anderson and Jennie Gow joined in the discussions too and talked to one another down in pit-lane, the two doing a fantastic job in grabbing information, and of course without a camera. A camera can be good, there was a point where Anderson was explaining the latest upgrades for (I think?) the Mercedes and I was thinking that a camera down in pit-lane just to illustrate the upgrades would be useful – as long as the camera is used appropriately (see below). From a cost-perspective you can see why there is no camera, as staying on the World Feed for 100 minutes is significantly more cheaper than switching between a BBC pit-lane camera and the Formula One Management World Feed.

I think the good thing about having someone like John Watson as well is that he can say what he feels, he’s not in the Paddock for the entire year, so he has no Paddock Pass to lose, whereas other people do, so it was refreshing to hear him criticise the FIA and GPDA, labelling the latter organisation “toothless” for failing to clamp down on the poor driving that we have seen this year.

Over on Sky, there is the instant negative in that there are commercials. Even in the BBC live weekends, they choose to run commercials in practice. Some will moan, on the other hand, I would just say “press Red and go onboard”. That is what it is there for, to be used, so it may as well be used, plus the Onboard and Pitlane channels can pick up things that may not be seen on the main feed. I do find that they don’t answer many Twitter questions though when you compare 5 Live from 2009 through to today. I’m not sure whether it is because they don’t want to or because they don’t get enough questions through, but the interactivity has not done much for me this year in terms of getting the viewers involved. Even on The F1 Show on Friday’s there is no interaction at all for what is meant to be a magazine style show. I raised the Twitter point back in June and it still applies now.

The camera issue still frustrates me as well, and does not appear to have changed one bit. Watching practice two this afternoon on Sky and every time they cut to Martin Brundle, so does the camera. Why? It does not enhance the broadcast, plus you only cut away from the World Feed when someone is setting a competitive lap-time. Another thing is that the cut-away’s are too long, almost as if the director has fallen asleep. Five to ten seconds is enough to illustrate a point, not half a minute. Hopefully they re-evaluate this for 2013. I should make it clear that I do not mind it if something is being shown, ie. Ted Kravitz showing us an upgrade because that is very useful (and something I prefer over the BBC here) and helps the viewer see clearly what is being explained. I think the problem is that they have too many cameras down in pit-lane, for example in Practice 1 on BBC, I spotted about 16 minutes in on the World Feed a Sky Sports F1 camera following Lewis Hamilton despite FOM doing a perfectly capable job there. It seems a waste of resources to me.

A better use of cut-away’s would be sending Martin Brundle to a fast corner (say Mergulho in Interlagos, turns 11 and 12 in Melbourne) and putting the camera there and getting him to do pieces to camera live analysing X, Y and Z and saying what he sees from the naked eye. I’m surprised Sky have not done a feature like that this year, because I’d find that more informative than keeping Brundle in pit-lane restrained. Sky have practice build-up and outro, the build-up is not very much, just talk-and-chalk, but the outro is a good half an hour length which includes interviews, today had Martin Whitmarsh, Mark Webber and Monisha Kaltenborn, so this is worth watching.

Overall, if you remove Watson, then the Sky commentary and Kravitz because of the camera would mean that I would choose Sky over BBC, whereas Gow would mean I choose BBC over Sky as I find Natalie Pinkham too lightweight for F1 coverage. However, on days like today, I do find 5 Live’s coverage more informative and interesting to watch than Sky Sports F1’s practice coverage.

As always, I am interested to hear your thoughts, so comments are welcome!

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.