Wimbledon set to shunt the British Grand Prix to BBC Two

The respective Men’s and Women’s finals at this years Wimbledon looks set to bump the British Grand Prix to BBC Two. According to the schedules page on the BBC F1 website, the schedule is as follows:

Saturday 7th July
12:10 to 14:30 – Qualifying: BBC Two

Sunday 8th July
12:10 to 12:55 – Race Build-up: BBC One
12:55 to 15:30 – Race Live: BBC Two

I imagine a man named Bernie won’t be too pleased if this turns out to be true. That particular page has made errors before with channel listings, so it shall be interesting if this is true in the finalised schedules in a few weeks time.

In an already difficult season ratings wise for Formula 1 with the change in the contract as a result of the licence fee reductions, it appears this will be the latest blow for Formula 1 in the UK this season. One has to wonder if the conclusion of the British Grand Prix is less important than the first few sets of the Wimbledon Men’s Singles final, and also whether the Qualifying session is less important than the Women’s Singles final.

Either way, F1 is definitely drawing the short straw this year…

As always, I shall publish the confirmed schedules in a few weeks time.

Canadian Grand Prix ratings hit six year low

The Canadian Grand Prix disappointed with it’s live viewership yesterday, overnight ratings show, with figures hitting a six year low. The race average on Sky Sports F1 was 1.63 million, with a peak of 1.77 million. One thing I have noticed a lot with the race average versus peak is that the gap between the two is small. Unlike with BBC, where the audience can increase a lot throughout due to casuals joining in the middle of a exciting race, that appears to be not happening on Sky Sports F1. Despite an exciting race yesterday, the peak is only 140 thousand above the race average.

With regards, to the peak, there is an argument that it did okay given the Euro 2012 opposition. I’m not sure I agree. Even with the Euro 2012 opposition, in my opinion the peak should have been at least above 2 million. In comparison, the Bahrain Grand Prix had a peak of 1.6 million in daytime, so Canada only bettered that by 170 thousand. I would have thought the primetime slot, plus the BBC highlights being in a late-night timeslot would have helped the Sky Sports F1 figures more. Unlike Qualifying, the race had a free run for the first 45 minutes in the ‘gap’ between the two games, so I would have thought it may have caught a few floating viewers between the games.

The BBC F1 highlights programme peaked with 3.1 million according to James Allen, resulting in a combined peak of 4.87 million.

The averages don’t make for a pretty picture. The BBC programme had a 2.39 million average (21.2% share), and when factoring in Sky, that will be an average of 3.39 million, which will be the lowest average since 2006, which had an average of 2.72 million. The 2006 race was up against the conclusion of England vs Ecuador.

Canadian Grand Prix – UK TV Ratings
2005 – 4.97 million
2006 – 2.72 million
2007 – 4.58 million
2008 – 3.99 million
2009 – no race
2010 – 5.20 million
2011 – 6.12 million
2012 – ~3.39 million

As for Qualifying, the BBC One highlights show fared solidly with 2.05 million, albeit with only a 13.9% viewing share. Once factoring in Sky Sports F1, the number will be significantly down on the 3.69 million that watched Qualifying in 2011, but in-line with the 2010 average of 2.40 million. I would have expected a significant drop this year, even if Qualifying was on BBC One live, as it would have faced very tough opposition in Euro 2012. The Netherlands versus Denmark match, which went against the live showing of Qualifying had a mammoth 7.59 million peak figure, which I think shows that had F1 been live on BBC this weekend, then Qualifying would not have fared at all well.

Note: The ratings information comes from Sky Media Updates, Digital Spy and Attentional.

Tom Clarkson doing Lee McKenzie’s job this weekend

As noted by Ben Constanduros on Twitter, Tom Clarkson is in Lee McKenzie’s role of interviewing the drivers for BBC F1 this weekend. Clarkson has been part of the BBC team in some capacity before, he worked as co-commentator alongside David Croft for BBC Radio 5 Live at Korea 2010, commentating on the first practice session.

This is not Clarkson’s first Formula 1 broadcasting role this year. As Australian readers may know, he was part of the TEN Sport line-up for the Australian Grand Prix back in March. Looking at some other sites on the internet, it appears Clarkson was part of the TEN Sport line-up last year, although I’m not sure what exactly.

Aside from his roles in broadcasting, he is also one of the editors for F1 Racing magazine, so chances are if you have bought that particular publication in the past, you have read one of his articles.

Constanduros has not stated on Twitter if Clarkson is covering Europe, Germany and Hungary as well while the roles are adjusted slightly in the BBC F1 team.

Update on 14th June: Clarkson is indeed covering Europe, Germany and Hungary as noted here by McKenzie.

Ecclestone suggests the end is near for BBC F1… or is it?

Yesterday, The Guardian published an article, written by Christian Sylt with the headline “Bernie Ecclestone suggests free-to-air Formula One could end on BBC”.

Interesting headline, I’m sure you will think. Any substance to the article? Not really, if I’m to be brutally honest. The only quotes that come from Ecclestone are as follows:

– “We will never move all countries to pay‑per‑view only though it wouldn’t make any difference here in the UK”
– “Sky reaches over 10m. We don’t get 10m on the BBC, normally about 6m or 7m.”
– “The thing that TV stations want to buy most is live sport. People don’t want to watch delayed stuff because nowadays it’s hard not to know the result if you don’t want to.”
– “Sky have done a super job. The Beeb were sure we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere else”

The first point, Sky is not pay-per-view. It is not like with movies, where you have to buy each one individually. You could call Sky pay-per-month but not pay-per-view. A PPV service model would be F1 Digital+ from back in 2002. Moving onto the second point, and I wonder if that is like for like. Does the Sky Sports F1 channel reach over 10 million, or does the race show reach over 10 million? Looking on BARB, the channel has not reached over 10 million viewers once. If you’re to say “Well, Sky reaches 10 million” then you may as well respond by saying BBC reaches five times that number with a reach of over 50 million.

“People don’t want to watch delayed stuff…”, I don’t know about the don’t want part, but if we’re to look at the viewing figures, 3.65 million viewers (or a 20.2% share) watched highlights of the Bahrain Grand Prix on BBC One, whereas only a peak of 1.6 million viewers watched that race on Sky Sports F1. So people not watching delayed stuff as Ecclestone puts it is a factually inaccurate statement. The last statement is odd, because as far as I know, and as far as what was discussed around the time of the announcement, BBC wanted out of the deal because they could not afford to screen all of the races live, therefore went to Sky to get the deal we currently have now (as Channel 4 and ITV1 were tied up with 2012 commitments already). In other words, the four quotes from Ecclestone have either been spun, or are inaccurate.

Looking outside of the Ecclestone quotes, there are several other factual inaccuracies.

“At an estimated cost of £25m annually Sky is broadcasting all races, qualifying and practice sessions live while the BBC is paying around £15m to show half of the races live with delayed highlights of the others.”

If that is true, it means that Formula One Management have not benefited financially from the deal, when you consider that the previous BBC deal from 2009 to 2011 was also in the region of £40 million. The Guardian themselves reported on the day of the deal that the rights were believed to be worth £65 million now, £40 million being paid by Sky with £25 million being paid by BBC. The amounts above are significantly lower than I expected.

Finally, we’re into month six of a seven year deal, so why have we got headlines like this already? I would expect better from The Guardian rather than trying to twist the story. This reminds me of some kind of tabloid sensationalism, something I don’t really associate The Guardian with. As far as I can see, this is a blatant anti-BBC article with little substance, and as thus the article I’m afraid is cobblers.

Scheduling: The Canadian Grand Prix

From the streets of Monte Carlo to the traditional June trip to North America as the 12 teams and 24 drivers head to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal, Canada. Due to the time difference between the UK and Canada, the majority of proceedings are in primetime. Also, Sky Sports F1 have exclusive live coverage for this weekend, with BBC showing highlights at 22:30 on both days. As with previous years, the GP2 Series and GP3 Series do not travel to North America – their races shall continue in two weeks time in Valencia.

It looks like the Race programme is again at the 4 hours, 45 minutes length it was for Monaco. Saying that, there is a Legends programme featuring Murray Walker on immediately afterwards, which will be worth watching.

As previously reported on this blog, there are several personnel changes on both the BBC and Sky sides this weekend. On the BBC side, Lee McKenzie is replacing Jake Humphrey as presenter, with Humphrey presenting Euro 2012, while for 5 Live, Jonathan Legard replaces James Allen. On Sky Sports F1, Jacques Villeneuve is joining their team for the weekend alongside the usual line-up.

I’ve added the 5 Live F1 schedule below in italics for those without access to Sky Sports F1. Due to test match cricket and Euro 2012, only Practice 2 and the Race will be on 5 Live Sports Extra, with the rest of the sessions online only, hence why they are not listed below. The forum is also listed, but I suspect that will be uploaded to the BBC website at some point on Monday.

Thursday 7th June
16:00 to 16:30 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 8th June
14:45 to 16:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 21:00 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
18:55 to 20:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
21:00 to 21:30 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:00 to 00:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)

Saturday 9th June
14:45 to 16:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 19:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
22:30 to 23:45 – F1: Qualifying Highlights (BBC One)

Sunday 10th June
17:30 to 22:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 21:00 – F1: Race (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
22:15 to 22:45 – F1: Legends: Murray Walker (Sky Sports F1)
22:30 to 00:30 – F1: Race Highlights (BBC One)
00:30 to 01:30 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)