News Articles – Monaco Grand Prix

Rather than do a written summary for the news articles piece, I thought it would be better if I do it in bullet points so it is easier to follow with BBC’s pieces in one section and Sky’s in another.

BBC
– Gary Anderson‘s explains Red Bull’s floor design
– Andrew Benson‘s Post-Race blog
– Gary Anderson‘s Technical Review
– Andrew Benson blogs about Lewis Hamilton’s future
– Jaime Alguersuari‘s Column
– Mark Webber‘s Column

Sky
– Ted Kravitz‘s Notebook
– Mike Wise‘s Diary
– Pete Gill‘s Conclusions
– Mark Hughes analysis on Kimi Raikkonen
– Martin Brundle reflects on the weekend
– William Esler‘s Qualifying comparison

There’s a wider range of viewpoints and blogs on the Sky website, but on the other hand BBC have two blogs from two ‘present’ drivers’, something that Sky lack.

BBC release iPlayer figures for first quarter, some F1 included

The BBC have released some Top 20 iPlayer figures for TV and Radio for each month of the first quarter of the year, and included are some Formula 1 ratings of note. All the figures below cover the 7 days from original upload, as the Formula 1 material is only available on iPlayer for 7 days.

On the television side of things, 417,000 people watched highlights of the Australian Grand Prix on iPlayer after it was broadcast. A week later, 58,000 people chose to listen the 5 Live commentary of the Malaysian Grand Prix. Moving onto April, the Chinese Grand Prix live broadcast was watched by 316,000 people on iPlayer within the seven days after original transmission. I can see the logic in the 316,000 people, getting up later and straight onto the iPlayer knowing that the programme would be online, ready to watch.

I’m surprised though that 417,000 watched the highlights after it was broadcast, as it was broadcast at a daytime hour and not early-morning. In any case, you may ask “why don’t I add these to the other figures I publish on here?”. The simple reason is that you don’t know how many of the 417,000 people watched it on TV. How many of the 417,000 that were watching wanted to compare it to what Sky did? How many of the 417,000 people missed something earlier and watched it again? There’s no way to say that all 417,000 viewers are ‘new’. So for that reason, I tend to keep it fairly simple with just the live and first re-run.

In any event, I thought these figures would be worth publishing as there are not many Formula 1 viewing figures available for online, so it still makes for interesting reading nevertheless. As always, comments and queries are welcome.

Monaco Grand Prix ratings suffer under British heat [UPDATED]

The Monaco Grand Prix plunged from its 2010 and 2011 highs yesterday unsurprisingly as the UK experienced its first heat-wave of the year. The race attracted a peak of 4.16 million viewers on BBC One, lower than the average for last year’s programme.

Yesterday’s programme averaged 3.13 million, which I believe is the lowest rating for a live BBC F1 race programme in daytime since Formula 1’s return to the corporation in 2009. Sky Sports F1 added a further 565 thousand viewers, bringing the total viewership to 3.69 million, the lowest since 2009. This split is 84.9% to 15.1% in BBC’s favour, the biggest split ratio yet between the two. Given the weather, a drop was expected, and it’s not a concerning drop, this was round about expected. All ratings in the past few days have been hit hard by the warm weather, and the F1 was another victim of that.

Looking at the figures compared to last year, only one of the five races so far (Bahrain does not count) has been up year-on-year, that being China. All the rest of the races have recorded declines of some sort.

Qualifying held up fairly well, with 2.07 million watching on BBC One. Sky Sports F1 added 388 thousand, with the overall total in line with 2009 and 2010. 2011 was abnormally high due to the session overrunning as a result of Sergio Perez’s crash.

Note: The ratings information comes from Digital Spy and Attentional.

Changes to the BBC line-up for the Summer

There will two significant changes to the BBC line-up for the Summer as the Formula 1 season approaches its halfway point. On the TV side of things, Jake Humphrey will only be ‘travelling’ to one of the five Summer races, that being the British Grand Prix. Humphrey will not be at Canada or Europe due to his Euro 2012 presenting duties, while he will not be attending Germany or Hungary due to his presenting duties at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Lee McKenzie will be stepping up from her pit lane duties to present from these four races. No one will be joining the team for these four races, so they will be operating with one less member for these races, although three of them are in the form of highlights so it is not a major depletion.

On the radio side of things, James Allen will not be covering the Canadian or European Grand Prix’s, with Jonathan Legard commentating alongside Jaime Alguersuari for those particular races. Allen will also be missing several races in the second half of the season from Belgium, although the specific races have not yet been confirmed.

Did the media brush the Hamilton and Schumacher incident from Spain under the carpet?

One thing I forgot to blog about yesterday was how the media treated the Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher incident from practice three in Spain. It, to me, had a ‘brushed under the carpet’ feel to it.

The incident started at turn ten when Schumacher was behind Hamilton. As they came into the chicane, Schumacher took to the old race track (thus overtaking Hamilton) and then appeared to brake test Hamilton. It was difficult to see how close Schumacher was to Hamilton as the camera was on the left hand side of Hamilton’s car, so you could not see how close they were to colliding. Even as a Schumacher fan however, the incident appeared unacceptable to me.

Schumacher got off with a reprimand, but I was surprised to see how the media treated the incident. In their Qualifying build-up show, BBC looked at Hamilton’s onboard shot, with the camera placed on the left-hand side of the car, while Sky on The F1 Show the following Friday showed both the Schumacher onboard and Hamilton’s onboard shot (they claimed the Schumacher onboard was ‘new’ footage), see this video. BBC briefly brought it up yesterday, showing the same Schumacher footage, but it appeared thrown in there, with no opinion or thoughts from either Schumacher or Hill to go alongside it.

What I did not get though, is why the media did not ask Hamilton or Schumacher how they interpreted the incident. This is in contrast to the Pastor Maldonaldo and Sergio Perez incident yesterday, where Maldonaldo was moved ten places back on the grid, and both were asked by Sky or BBC on their opinions on the incident. Neither Sky or BBC (or any other media outlet for that matter) asked Hamilton or Schumacher for their thoughts. Which I thought was odd. It was not mentioned in the Saturday post-qualifying press conference in Spain to Hamilton. Looking at Autosport’s news archive, I can see no article covering the incident.

Fast forward to Monaco. Both Schumacher and Hamilton were in the Wednesday drivers’ press conference. Despite this, no one asked them for their thoughts on the incident, and whether any punishment should have been given.

It all seemed a bit odd…