The ratings picture: The Verdict so Far

To begin my Formula 1 broadcasting blog, I thought it would be a good idea to write a five-part series looking at the new broadcasting deal in the UK that has come into force this year. The fifth and final part of the series looks at the effect the BBC and Sky deal has had on television ratings this year, in comparison to previous years on the first four rounds of the championship.

For those unfamiliar, Formula 1 has been broadcast live regularly on terrestrial television in the UK since the late 1970’s. The 2012 to 2018 deal, which was announced last July, meant that only 50 percent of races will be broadcast live on BBC television. Since the 2000 Japanese Grand Prix, every race has been broadcast live on BBC1 or ITV1, or every race since the ill-fated 1994 San Marino Grand Prix if you ignore the 2000 US Grand Prix which was shown live on ITV2.

Figure 1.1. shows the percentage of live races that have been shown on terrestrial television since 1992. The graph shows that at no time since then onwards has the amount of live races dropped below 75%, until this year. In 1993, the year in question where the percentage was 75% – the 4 out of 16 races that were not shown were Brazil, Canada, Japan and Australia – the two American timezone races and the two Asian timezone races. Had this year BBC and Sky decided that Sky had all the Asian and American races (excluding Brazil), I think they would have accepted that – but as it turns out the contract stipulated that Sky gets the first three exclusive picks, with the picks alternating after BBC’s first three picks, meaning that they get some of the European races exclusively to themselves. In any event the 50 percent is the lowest percentage of races live on terrestrial TV since at least 1991 – although in reality it is probably the lowest since the early 1980’s. For those without Sky, you can understand their anger towards the deal given the above statistics.

The ratings picture has been an interesting picture to follow for the past few years. As a Formula 1 fan, however, the trajectory the ratings have taken in this country in the past 15 to 20 years is probably an unsurprising one.

Percentage of races on terrestrial television in the UK — Figure 1.2.

Straight away, you can probably see where the ratings increased, and also where the ratings took a plunge. Although I won’t claim to have every single rating, see the note at the bottom of this post, you can make trends from the majority of ratings that I have. If you are to trace the graph over from 1992, 1992 was a high rating season with an average of over 5 million viewers per race, thanks to Nigel Mansell’s dominance in that season. With Mansell’s departure at the end of the 1992 season, figures in the UK plunged to an average of under 4 million viewers. This would turn out to be a ‘low level’ until the 2002 season. The emergence of Damon Hill though as a title contender, and the rise of German youngster Michael Schumacher, helped play their part as viewing figures rose from 4.1 million in 1994, to 5.3 million in 1996. That season, was also the last on BBC.

The move to ITV in 1997, and Hill’s move to Arrows in 1997 meant that figures dipped (with longer airtime and adverts), but still stayed extremely healthy for the titanic title battle between Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve, followed by the Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen battles in 1998 – the 1998 season claiming the highest ratings of the ITV F1 era. Further healthy ratings in the 1999 season followed, before figures took a nose-dive for 2000 and the start of Michael Schumacher’s dominance. From that point onwards, the viewing figures dropped each and every year until the emergence of Lewis Hamilton in 2007. The 2000 season on ITV1 averaged over 4 million viewers, whereas the 2006 season had under 3 million viewers. The lowest point of that year was when the 2006 French Grand Prix recorded an average of 1.8 million viewers, while the Italian Grand Prix only bettered that by 100,000 – these figures quite possibly the lowest figures Formula 1 had ever seen in this country. Why the turn off? At the time, there was no major British title challengers in the UK. Jenson Button and David Coulthard were there or there abouts, but neither looked realistic title challengers. Schumacher’s dominance ended in 2004, Fernando Alonso’s emergence in 2005 did nothing to help the ratings picture. The European rounds in 2005 averaged 2.9 million viewers, while the daytime rounds in 2006 averaged 2.66 million viewers.

The 2007 season reversed Formula 1’s viewing figures trend in the United Kingdom, recording an average of 3.55 million. The title decider that season in Brazil recorded a mammoth 7.15 million viewers. The increase was only a sign of things to come however, as the 2008 season finished with a peak of 13.1 million viewers and an 8.8 million average for the Brazilian Grand Prix as ITV F1’s coverage came to a close. The average for Lewis Hamilton’s title winning season was 3.87 million, the highest average since 2001, and close to reversing the damage that the Schumacher years had done to the ratings. You may be thinking that the 3.87 million average is lower than that recorded in Damon Hill’s winning season, which recorded an average of 5.3 million. While all figures are for the programme averages, the BBC show was a lot shorter than ITV’s, hence why the 1996 figures are higher. But, the programme length since 1997 for ITV1’s coverage, and since BBC1’s coverage has stayed the same, so you can make valid comparisons.

With the start of Formula 1’s new broadcasting contract in 2009, Jenson Button’s title winning year live on the BBC brought an average of over 4 million viewers per race, bringing with him the highest viewership in a decade – since 1999 to be exact. The lack of commercials and the BBC’s more compelling pre and post-race format and punditry will no doubt have also helped here. The winning streak of Hamilton and Button ended for 2010, as here comes the rise of another German. This one is called Vettel. Another plunge in ratings, I hear you say? Nope. An increase, rather bizarrely in fact. This is due to fascinating and close-racing in my opinion more than anything else, with Pirelli’s tyres, DRS and KERS becoming a hit with casual viewers, lighting up ratings. Moments such as Button’s overtake on Vettel in Canada last year have helped keep viewership high in this country. Last year’s viewership averaged 4.55 million, a fantastic figure in the multichannel television age, and higher than a ton of shows get today on terrestrial television. On the track, there was only one aim for Vettel. Just Drive. To make it to the line. First.

Which leads us nicely to the mid-Summer bombshell that greeted the Hungaroring paddock in July 2011. The news that Sky Sports were joining the Formula 1 party in 2012. And how have they done? So far, okay. Their figures are massively down on BBC’s figures, but that is to be expected. BBC is available to everyone, Sky Sports is not. The name of the game here is to combine the BBC and Sky figures, throw them together and then do a comparison. Which I’ve done underneath:

Averages (Australia, Malaysia and China)
2007 – 3.45 million
2008 – 4.14 million
2009 – 4.66 million
2010 – 4.25 million
2011 – 4.46 million
2012 – 3.96 million

Bahrain is not included in the above figures because the race was not held last year, so to keep it a fair comparison, it is excluded. With an average of 3.96 million, the season has the lowest average since 2007, which had 3.45 million for those three rounds. If you bring back Bahrain into the equation, but ignore 2011, you get the following:

Averages (Australia, Malaysia, China and Bahrain)
2007 – 3.21 million
2008 – 3.96 million
2009 – 4.59 million
2010 – 4.38 million
2011 – n/a
2012 – 4.07 million

Which brings the 2012 average to 4.07 million, lower than 2009 and 2010 but higher than 2007 and 2008. One final way to look at it is to bundle the average for the opening four races, after all if you remember China was only moved to the start of the season in 2009, which may complicate the picture slightly.

Averages (first 4 rounds of the championship)
2004 – 3.05 million
2005 – 3.10 million
2006 – 3.22 million
2007 – 3.28 million
2008 – 3.70 million
2009 – 4.59 million
2010 – 4.38 million
2011 – 4.29 million
2012 – 4.07 million

You can’t go back further than 2004 as the Brazilian Grand Prix was one of the first four rounds, thus inflating the average. Although the figures are down on the past few seasons, taking it to not as low as the ITV F1 level but lower than the BBC F1 level. One thing worth noting is that the opening round in Australia did not do as well as in previous years, recording 3.31 million viewers on BBC One for the highlights and Sky Sports F1 live, the lowest average since 2004. Since Australia though, figures have increased to higher levels. If we are to look at the split for China, the only race where both BBC and Sky Sports were live, BBC live had 2.85m (39.4%), while Sky Sports live had 480k (6.98%). Both channels had a peak of 4.21m and 887k respectively. Once the BBC re-run is factored in, the averages work out at a total of 4.93 million, a fantastic figure. Although Sky, one might argue, only had 480k tuning in overall, I think they and BBC individually will be very pleased with the figures, Sky with their near 1 million peak for that race, and BBC with losing only 420k compared to the previous years. It shall be interesting to trace the picture over the next few months, but I don’t forsee any of the averages above overtaking the BBC averages from 2009 to 2011. I suspect the BBC average from 2011 will be the highest for several years and won’t be overtaken.

Over the Summer, F1 will face incredibly tricky competition, with Euro 2012 and the Olympic Games in London meaning that you can expect the Canadian, European, German and Hungarian figures to record very low figures. Will F1 whether the Summer storm, or will the Summer figures sink below 3 million and without trace? Or will a competitive season keep viewers watching? Time, shall tell.

This marks the end of my five part ‘The Verdict so Far’ series. I hope you’ve enjoyed the read. Although that particular series ends, this blog is only just beginning, so I hope you keep on reading. Comments, as always, are welcome!

Note: All the figures quoted here are the averages for the whole race programme, not the race average as these figures are unavailable. Figures are mostly official figures from BARB and Broadcast magazine. While I have made comparisons and analysis of figures, I should note that I do not have every single ratings figure. The figures for that races that I am missing are:

1992 – Australia, San Marino, France, Portugal, Japan (live and both for AUS, JPN)
1993 – France (live), Japan (highlights)
1994 – Pacific (highlights), San Marino, France, Hungary, Japan (live)
1995 – Australia, Argentina, San Marino, Spain, Japan (all live)
1996 – Canada, Japan (all live)
1997 – Japan (live)
1998 – Australia,France, Japan (all live)
2000 – Malaysia (live and re-run), Japan (live)
2001 – Japan (live)
2003 – Malaysia; Japan (both live)
2004 – China (live)
2006 – China (live)

If anyone is reading and has any of them ratings, leave a comment.

The BBC F1 Team: The Verdict so far

In the first part of my series at looking at Formula 1 broadcasting in the UK, I focussed on the newly formed Sky Sports F1 team and analysed each person, giving my perspective on each member of the team. I move on from that in Part 2 of the series, to focussing on the BBC TV team. As noted in Part 1, I will not be focussing on BBC Radio or Sky Sports News for the purposes of this series.

Ben Edwards
If you haven’t heard of Ben Edwards, you’ve probably been living under a rock. If you are not a broadcasting ‘expert’ or stick purely to F1, then you’re forgiven. Either way, Edwards is considered one of the best, if not the best current motor sport commentator at the moment. So good, that he is compared to Murray Walker. I’ll leave you to discuss that comparison…. Edwards began his commentary journey in the early 1990’s at Eurosport. His first Formula 1 commentary was at the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix for Eurosport, which was the beginning of a long partnership with John Watson. The two commentated on Eurosport until the end of 1996 (when Eurosport lost the F1 rights due to the new ITV deal), before reuniting for the pay-per-view series F1 Digital+ in 2002, and again commentating on the A1 Grand Prix world feed.

Edwards’ commentary is renowned for having a similar style to Walker, with his ability to commentate fluently during all stages of the race and keep the viewer engaged, whether the action is pedestrian and you are struggling to keep awake, or whether a pass is about to take place on the last lap – in which case Edwards will probably shout at the top of his voice with the emotion in his voice clearly on display. Edwards puts the action across to the viewer informatively and articulately. Although he’s with BBC for 2012, and there are absolutely no faults with him, one has to question why BBC did not pick him up in 2009, nor did ITV pick him up after Murray Walker retired? The fact that Jonathan Legard got the BBC TV gig in 2009 and Edwards didn’t, robbing us of the Edwards and Martin Brundle combination fans have wanted for years, is staggering. No disrespect to Legard, but his and Brundle’s commentary was a bigger disappointment than Shrek 2…

David Coulthard
One of the more familiar faces of BBC’s 2012 coverage, Coulthard’s Formula 1 career began at the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix. Initially a Williams test driver, Coulthard was drafted in place of Ayrton Senna, who was tragically killed at the San Marino Grand Prix. Coulthard had 13 wins in a career that spanned 15 years, through Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. Coulthard, like Martin Brundle did 13 years earlier, moved into broadcasting, becoming a pundit for BBC’s Formula One coverage in 2009 alongside the outspoken Eddie Jordan. Coulthard suited the role very well, and quickly grew into it, once he realised Jordan was outspoken in just about everything he said!

Seriously though, the combination of Coulthard and Jordan works well because there is someone like Coulthard that quickly counters insane argument 138 that Jordan throws in his direction. Coulthard moved into the commentary box alongside Brundle in 2011 after Jonathan Legard was dropped, the two having a good rapture in the box together. With Brundle moving to Sky for 2012, Coulthard opted to stay at BBC, partnering Ben Edwards. The combination between the two is just as good as that with David Croft and Brundle on Sky, giving viewers that have access to both platforms an extremely difficult decision to make with regards which commentary line-up to watch.

Eddie Jordan
Eddie Jordan started up his own Formula 1 team in 1991, running the team until 2005 when the team was sold to Midland F1 (now known as Force India). During his 15 years, he was known for his outspoken opinions, or opinions that were extremely easy to challenge and disagree with. Jordan’s team had three wins, the memorable 1998 Belgian Grand Prix with Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher scoring the team a 1-2, along with two victories in 1999 season with Heinz-Harald Frentzen at the helm.

Jordan was announced as a pundit for BBC beginning with the 2009 season, in which was actually a move of genius by the broadcaster. Why? In the years’ preceding that ITV were criticised for having a dull pre-show, partially down to having a ‘wooden’ pundit in Mark Blundell, so having someone who has outspoken opinions, along with someone in Coulthard to counter argue him was a genius move and a brilliant way to keep viewers engaged. Although obviously this won’t be very necessary in the highlights shows, he will be definitely a plus for them during the live races and give them an edge over Sky with regards the punditry line-up. His role, has however, led him to being thrown into a Red Bull swimming pool on more than one occasion….

Gary Anderson
From the team owner, to someone who worked for him, we lead on nicely to Gary Anderson. Anderson replaces Ted Kravitz as BBC’s technical analysis. Due to the fact that BBC have had three highlights shows so far and only one live race, its difficult to analyse Anderson so far. My initial thoughts so far is that, while he is a solid replacement for Kravitz, he needs to speak up a bit on camera and in the pit lane and explain his point more clearly to the novice viewer. I do believe though, he will improve on the latter point sooner rather than later as the races go along and he gets more use to the role. One of the things Anderson also has is a pen and piece of paper. An interesting, but effective way to show ‘what does what’ and a car. Sometimes the Sky Pad will work better, sometimes though I guess nothing will beat a pen and piece of paper. Time shall tell.

Jake Humphrey
Starting off his BBC career at Cbeebies, Jake moved onto BBC Sport, fronting portions of Olympics 2008 and Euro 2008 before moving onto the new BBC F1 at the start of 2009. It was evident clearly from day 1 that Humphrey was suited to this job and that this was one of the right decisions that those at BBC Sport made. I remember reading that Humphrey went and asked if he could be host, although I can’t remember where I read that, so I may be wrong. If that is true, then that shows his enthusiasm for F1 and that he is a fan of the sport. Humphrey’s presenting style is one that keeps both the hardcore viewer and casual viewer engaged.

In my honest opinion, Humphrey is the best F1 presenter in the UK, both past and present, ahead of Jim Rosenthal and Simon Lazenby, while as good as, if not better than Steve Rider. Humphrey has the tools to be BBC F1’s presenter for many years to come, something that I hope does happen as I can imagine him being in the role 5, or even 10 years down the line. While Humphrey is a brilliant presenter, there is no questioning that, sometimes he does let his ‘smugness’ get in the way of things. Take for example in China with ‘Lau’, there was no need to big up BBC F1 on camera over Sky Sports. The digs at the competition are unnecessary both on TV and on Twitter, although I understand at times they may be ‘in jest’. Nevertheless, I hope to see Humphrey presenting BBC’s Formula 1 coverage for years to come.

Lee McKenzie
Lee McKenzie comes from a background full of motor sport. Her father, Bob McKenzie is a writer for the Daily Express. Before joining the BBC F1 team, Lee was pit lane reporter for the now-defunct A1 Grand Prix series. She also was a presenter of the short-lived Speed Sunday show, a show which aired on ITV1 on Sunday afternoons in 2004 when F1 races were not airing. These attributes made Lee a clear contender for the pit lane job. It is clear when interviewing people that Lee has a good relationship with many of the drivers’, something that is critical if you want to get the right words out of someone, or whether you want their style to come across to the audience at home.

I think Lee does her role well, there’s not much more to ask from her, nor would I expect her to do any more in her role. Her role is the same as Natalie Pinkham’s on Sky Sports, there’s not much else expected out of a pit lane reporter. Lee also presents the Inside F1 show on BBC News. It’s unfortunate, because I feel the show is somewhat hidden away on the BBC News channel, I’m pretty sure the target audience on that channel is not interested in Inside F1, so I would like to see Inside F1 get a higher priority in the BBC line-up, maybe Saturday teatimes on BBC One for the live races, although given the cutbacks at BBC, this is highly unlikely.

The crucial thing for BBC in 2012 was keeping the majority of the line-up. Although they were served big blows by losing Martin Brundle and Ted Kravitz, the fact that they retained the ‘three amigos’ (Humphrey, Coulthard and Jordan) was definitely a big relief for them, as it meant that their renowned pre-show style from 2009 to 2011 stayed largely intact. Arguably, in hindsight one could argue that losing Brundle or Kravitz was not as big as first. Both, are replaceable, as we’ve seen. Brundle has been replaced by Ben Edwards, who has fitted into the commentary role on BBC, as expected very well. Kravitz has been replaced by Gary Anderson, who I’m sure will be a brilliant technical analyst by the end of the year (he is already, but I’m talking about translating what he is thinking to something that makes sense to the casual viewer on TV). The only thing you are losing is Brundle’s gridwalk, which is a loss, but it’s not a big loss, given that Coulthard and Jordan will try and get people on the grid instead. In reality, I imagine when BBC were discussing 2012, they would have been wanting to keep Eddie Jordan more, as he brings the most to the pre and post-race shows with his opinions and flamboyant styles. Overall, BBC have coped with the changes very, very well and the new team will continue to blend even more in together as the season rolls along.

Part 3 shall focus on how Sky can improve on their product during the race weekend, while Part 4 shall focus on their other programming and why they are focussing on the wrong areas at the moment. Part 5 will move onto the television ratings and how this deal is affecting the ratings picture. Comments, suggestions, things you agree with, and disagree with are welcome!