The merry-go-round: what we know

With just 19 days until the Australian Grand Prix and the Qatar MotoGP, we are none the wiser to the identity of Channel 4’s Formula 1 team or BT Sport’s MotoGP team. But, there are some things that we do know. And, as always, it looks like we could have some shocks on the cards…

BBC part company with James Allen
The F1 Broadcasting Blog can confirm that BBC Radio 5 Live have parted company with James Allen. Allen has been part of BBC’s 5 Live F1 team since the beginning of 2012, working as lead commentator for the majority of races. In the races that Allen did not cover, either Jonathan Legard or Jack Nicholls substituted for Allen. It is understood that the decision to drop Allen for 2016 was made prior to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Allen has since updated his LinkedIn to confirm his BBC exit.

Jack Nicholls will again be commentating on some of the races with 5 Live. We do not yet know which races, but Nicholls is unlikely to be commentating on any race which clashes with the Formula E Championship. Alongside Nicholls will be Jennie Gow, who is staying with 5 Live. As that link shows though, what exactly the ‘team’ consists of appears to be shrouded in some mystery. The problem we have is that: the BBC took a decision to exit its Formula 1 TV contract. Anyone under a BBC F1 TV contract for 2015 is therefore still under contract with BBC, unless they are able to escape from said contract. Even though Gow is radio, inevitably no TV coverage means that the radio operation is being downsized.

Allan McNish looks like he is staying with BBC F1. Recent tweets certainly give the indication that McNish is remaining with the BBC, and will be by default be 5 Live’s co-commentator one would imagine. At this stage, we don’t know about the status of Tom Clarkson in all of this. Who will be Allan McNish’s partner when Nicholls is not around? Your guess is as good as mine. However…

Is a shock on the cards at Channel 4?
This blog understands that the Channel 4 team does contain at least one major surprise. And given that Allen is not tied to the BBC any more, the chances of him turning up as part of Channel 4’s team increases significantly. Inevitably, thoughts turn to Allen potentially grabbing the lead commentator role instead of Ben Edwards, a move which would shock a lot of people reading this post.

A more likely thought I feel is that Allen could be one of Channel 4’s pit lane reporters alongside Lee McKenzie, with Edwards remaining in the commentary box. Bear in mind that Alex Kalinauckas, writing on James Allen’s website on February 9th, stated that McKenzie and Edwards would be part of Channel 4’s team. You would not write something that is knowingly inaccurate. Allen becoming pit lane reporter would not be surprising if Tom Clarkson is tied into a BBC contract. Bear in mind that the Channel 4 photo shoot occurred in the week beginning February 8th, so the team would have been finalised at the time of Kalinauckas’ post.

If Allen is Channel 4’s pit lane reporter, then it would be a role that I would be happy to see him in given that I enjoy reading his thoughts and also enjoyed his original stint as pit lane reporter with ITV. Allen is good in front of the camera too, and given that Channel 4 are having two presentation teams in one, Allen could be the face they want to help in that respect, not necessarily as presenter but in a journalist style role. Like I said though, if Allen though was announced as lead commentator, that would be major shock. And, I imagine for those reading this, not exactly a positive shock either. Assuming for a second that Allen is in as lead commentator and Edwards is not, then the latter is presumably still locked into a BBC contract.

Alternatively, Allen may not be part of Channel 4’s team at all…

Suzi Perry set to join BT’s MotoGP team
According to Charles Sale writing in the Daily Mail, Suzi Perry has been signed up by BT Sport to work on their MotoGP coverage. Sale does not elaborate much further, saying that Perry has been signed up to “work on a variety of roles” for their coverage. If true, it is a fantastic signing for BT Sport and bolsters their MotoGP coverage following a successful second season. It is difficult to read much into a small paragraph, but the implication is that there is some change to the BT Sport team.

Craig Doyle was understood to be one of the four on Channel 4’s shortlist to host their Formula 1 coverage. Whether we can expect Doyle to jump, I don’t know. My instinct is that BT want Doyle to focus on their rugby coverage as opposed to juggling between rugby and MotoGP. A tweet from Ben Constanduros on Monday 29th February went as follows: “Last week was a good one, spoke to People from BBC, C4, Sky and FOM – enlightening! broadcasting shocks coming – not involving me though!” The follow-up was that it doesn’t involve Channel 4, so we will have to wait and see on that front.

Finalised television listings go to press on Wednesday 9th March. No matter what, we will all know the answers soon. Unless we hear anything more in the next few days, this will probably be the final piece of this nature. So, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday. Or next week, whenever it may be. Let the announcements begin!

Update on March 1st at 19:55 – As I said, before Wednesday 9th March. David Coulthard has gone on public record on yesterday’s Hawksbee and Jacobs Show on talkSPORT (14:30 to 15:00 segment, 20 minutes in) that the Channel 4 press launch will be taking place on Tuesday 8th March.

Update on March 2nd at 21:25 – This blog learnt late last night that the announcement of Perry to join BT’s MotoGP team, which was scheduled for today, had been pushed back at the last minute. Perry was due to appear at the MotoGP test in Qatar, but has not showed up.

Scheduling: The 2015 Race of Champions / Macau Grand Prix

Next weekend is a fairly big weekend of motor sport, with two annual events taking place. The Race of Champions will take place at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and is being broadcast exclusively live on Sky Sports F1. It looks like they have taken the live rights from Motors TV, I suspect that is a ‘one year only’ thing given that the event is in London.

Given the number of Formula 1 stars competing, such as Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, the channel are presumably hoping that the event will do better than usual non-race weekend coverage, which should be do-able. Sky are providing their own studio coverage, hence a 30-minute edition of The F1 Show live from the Olympic Park. They are taking the World Feed commentary, which is being provided by Martin Haven and Jennie Gow, the first time I believe that either voice has been heard on the channel.

Elsewhere on Sky Sports F1, there is live GP2 and GP3 action from Bahrain, the two series supporting the World Endurance Championship this weekend, itself airing on Motors TV. What this means is that Sky Sports F1 has six and a half hours of live action on Friday, none of which actually contains F1! This is a good thing though, it is about time Sky airs non-F1 content on non-F1 weekends, a case of all things falling at once here.

The other big annual event is the Macau Grand Prix, which will air exclusively live on BT Sport. The channel will be airing just over eight hours of coverage next Saturday and Sunday including the 33rd running of the Formula 3 race.

Race of Champions – London (Sky Sports F1)
20/11 – 19:00 to 23:00
=> 19:00 – The F1 Show
=> 19:30 – Nations Cup
21/11 – 15:00 to 18:00

GP2 Series – Bahrain (Sky Sports F1)
~~19/11 – 08:30 to 09:20 – Practice~~
~~19/11 – 11:15 to 11:55 – Qualifying~~
20/11 – 12:25 to 13:55 – Race 1
21/11 – 07:40 to 08:55 – Race 2

GP3 Series – Bahrain (Sky Sports F1)
~~19/11 – 09:40 to 10:15 – Qualifying~~
20/11 – 10:15 to 11:15 – Race 1
21/11 – 05:55 to 06:55 – Race 2

Macau Grand Prix (BT Sport 1)
21/11 – 04:15 to 08:15
=> 04:15 – FIA GT World Cup Qualifying and F3 Grand Prix
=> 07:00 – Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix
22/11 – 04:45 to 09:00
=> 04:45 – FIA GT World Cup
=> 07:00 – F3 Grand Prix

V8 Supercars – Philip Island
21/11 – 03:45 to 04:45 – Race 31 (BT Sport 2)
21/11 – 05:45 to 06:45 – Race 32 (BT Sport 2)
22/11 – 02:45 to 04:45 – Race 33 (BT Sport 1)

World Endurance Championship – Bahrain
21/11 – 11:30 to 18:35 – Race (Motors TV)
21/11 – 17:00 to 18:15 – Race (British Eurosport)
25/11 – 18:00 to 19:00 – Highlights (Quest)

If anything changes, I will update the above.

Update on November 19th at 09:15 – Per GP2’s official Twitter page, it looks like no World Feed is being provided for practice or qualifying (same applies for GP3), meaning that the scheduled programmes on Sky Sports F1 will no longer air.

MotoGP finale peaks with 433k on BT Sport

A peak audience of 433k watched Jorge Lorenzo clinch the 2015 MotoGP championship live on BT Sport, overnight viewing figures show.

MotoGP and Moto3 hit BT Sport highs
Live coverage of the final MotoGP round of the season from Valencia averaged 345k (3.3%) from 12:30 to 14:00 on BT Sport 2, peaking with 433k (3.9%) in the 5-minute period from 13:40. Unsurprisingly, the peak figure is nearly triple last year’s peak of 151k (1.5%) when the title had already been decided.

The Moto3 race, which saw Danny Kent claim Britain’s first Grand Prix motorcycle title since 1977, peaked with 217k (2.4%) at 10:40. The entire programme, excluding Chequered Flag from 09:30 to 14:15, averaged a strong 205k (2.1%). ITV4’s highlights programme actually fared worse than BT Sport’s live MotoGP race. An average audience of 331k (1.5%) watched ITV4’s highlights on Monday evening at 20:00, peaking with 381k (1.7%) in the 5-minutes from 20:35. ITV4’s MotoGP shows have performed worse year-on-year, for the Monday airings at least, with the pendulum swinging towards BT Sport – noticeably there is now around a 50/50 audience split between the two broadcasters, something that was not the case last year.

It should be noted that ITV4 have added a lot of MotoGP repeats into their schedule this year, but my motto is not to add in multiple highlights, otherwise where do you stop? In 2013, when Marc Marquez beat Lorenzo to the championship, an average audience of 1.21m (11.9%) watched on BBC Two, with a peak of 1.49m (14.0%) recorded. Including British Eurosport, that number jumps to around 1.7m. The combined peak in 2015 of 814k is not the highest under this current contract, that honour remains with Qatar 2014 which recorded a combined peak of 833k. So viewing figures for the finale were down around half what they were in 2013, on your traditional devices at least.

I believe Sunday’s figures were BT Sport’s highest ever outside of football, so they will be happy with the numbers. As always, all figures exclude the BT Sport app and similarly BBC iPlayer from 2013.

Formula E struggles, but up year-on-year
Elsewhere, live coverage of Formula E from Putrajaya averaged just 23k (1.6%) from 05:00 to 07:30 on Saturday on ITV4. That number includes anyone who recorded the live programme and watched it before 02:00 on Sunday morning. The audience peaked (5-minute measure) with 58k (4.9%) ten minutes into the race. Last year, Putrajaya averaged 66k (5.1%), peaking with 137k (7.2%).

Highlights on Sunday morning fared significantly better, benefiting from the slot on ITV’s flagship channel. An audience of 201k (2.8%) watched, which compares with the 95k (0.5%) that watched ITV4’s highlights programme on Saturday evening last year. Formula E’s figures can be spun two different ways. Here are the facts. ITV4’s live coverage, in an identical slot to 2014, dropped 65 percent year-on-year, a very similar percentage drop to Beijing two weeks ago. Including the highlights show, the combined audience is up 40 percent year-on-year, from 160k to 224k.

It is a confusing picture. On one hand you can say, that the combined number is up or you can say that the live airing is down. What you also need to remember is the respective channel slot averages. By default, a programme airing on ITV should get a lot more viewers than on ITV4. However, Formula E’s number of 201k (2.8%) is down on ITV’s slot average. I think Punta del Este will tell a clearer story. My own opinion is that the numbers so far for Formula E’s second season are not good. Punta will either confirm that, or reverse the decline shown for the live numbers on ITV4.

There’s an interesting pattern here. Formula E, MotoGP and BTCC have recorded drops on ITV4 this year/recently, which could imply a wider issue to do with the broadcaster itself rather than an issue with a particular series…

Scheduling: The 2015 Brazilian Grand Prix

Both titles may have been won, but there are two more races still to go as the Formula 1 paddock heads to Interlagos for the Brazilian Grand Prix. All the action for this round and Abu Dhabi will be live on both BBC and Sky Sports.

I have listed Inside F1 instead of F1 Focus because the latter is not currently scheduled on the Red Button for this upcoming week. As mentioned before, I don’t know if F1 Focus is a replacement for Inside F1 but time will tell, I’ll update the below if F1 Focus appears anywhere. With it being a BBC live weekend, expect Eddie Jordan to be back with the team. Given the way things went in USA, BBC probably wish they had Jordan with them for Austin, but that is the luck of the draw.

Over on Sky, Natalie Pinkham has not travelled to a Grand Prix since Singapore, although she has presented The F1 Show recently and has been part of a few features here and there (notably Fogglebox, filmed during the US Grand Prix). I would be surprised to see her in Brazil, but she should be back with the team in Abu Dhabi, I imagine. This also explains why Rachel Brookes and Craig Slater have been more involved recently. The edition of Architects of F1 with Flavio Briatore is back in the schedule, scheduled for straight after the Grand Prix on Sunday. It was originally scheduled for post-Mexico, but was moved to the Brazil schedule instead.

Elsewhere, BT Sport are covering MotoGP testing live this week, with Dorna’s World Feed crew staying in Valencia to film the post-season test from Valencia on Tuesday and Wednesday. The channel is also running a ‘Motorsport Weekend’ with reviews of the series that they cover, such as the aforementioned MotoGP along with IndyCar and Blancpain GT. Guests will appear throughout both live programmes, including Nick Tandy and Moto3 champion Danny Kent.

BBC F1
BBC TV – Sessions
13/11 – 11:55 to 13:45 – Practice 1 (BBC Two)
13/11 – 15:45 to 17:35 – Practice 2 (BBC Two)
14/11 – 12:55 to 14:05 – Practice 3 (BBC Two)
14/11 – 15:10 to 17:20 – Qualifying (BBC One)
15/11 – 15:20 to 18:00 – Race (BBC One)
15/11 – 18:00 to 19:00 – Forum (BBC Red Button)

BBC Radio – Sessions
14/11 – 16:00 to 17:15 – Qualifying (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
15/11 – 16:00 to 18:06 – Race (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Supplementary Programming
12/11 – 21:00 to 22:00 – Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
13/11 – 18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)
14/11 – 11:55 to 12:55 – F1 Rewind: Great Results (BBC Two)
14/11 – 19:45 to 20:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sky Sports F1
Sessions
13/11 – 11:45 to 13:50 – Practice 1
13/11 – 15:45 to 18:00 – Practice 2
14/11 – 12:45 to 14:15 – Practice 3
14/11 – 15:00 to 17:45 – Qualifying
15/11 – 14:30 to 19:15 – Race
=> 14:30 – Track Parade
=> 15:00 – Pit Lane Live
=> 15:30 – Race
=> 18:30 – Paddock Live

Supplementary Programming
12/11 – 13:00 to 13:30 – Driver Press Conference
12/11 – 20:45 to 21:00 – Paddock Uncut: Brazil
13/11 – 18:00 to 18:45 – Team Press Conference
13/11 – 20:00 to 21:00 – The F1 Show
15/11 – 19:15 to 20:15 – Architects of F1: Flavio Briatore
18/11 – 20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report

MotoGP – Testing (BT Sport 1)
10/11 – 09:00 to 12:00 – Day 1: Morning
10/11 – 13:00 to 16:00 – Day 1: Afternoon
11/11 – 09:00 to 12:00 – Day 2: Morning
11/11 – 13:00 to 16:00 – Day 2: Afternoon

Motorsport Weekender (BT Sport 1)
14/11 – 16:30 to 20:00 – Part 1
15/11 – 11:30 to 14:30 – World Rally Championship
15/11 – 14:30 to 18:30 – Part 2

As always, I will update the schedule if any amendments need to be made.

Update on November 14th – BBC Radio’s Qualifying coverage will be on 5 Live Sports Extra now due to the events over the past twelve hours in Paris.

BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage: Your 2015 Verdict

The 2015 MotoGP season has come to a nail-biting conclusion in Valencia with Jorge Lorenzo winning the championship at the last opportunity! Controversial, tense, thrilling, many superlatives can describe this year. It also brings to an end BT Sport’s second season of covering MotoGP, having taken over the rights from the BBC. Viewing figures have increased significantly year-on-year, and whilst they are still down on BBC’s numbers by some margin, more people have been following BT’s coverage.

This year has not been a roller-coaster for the team like 2014, instead we have had the same stable line-up throughout the year fronted by Abi Griffiths and Craig Doyle, with Keith Huewen and Julian Ryder commentating on each and every lap. 2015 also saw the first MotoGP race broadcast in Ultra HD, the British MotoGP back in August.

Now, it is your chance to have your say: what did BT Sport do better this year than 2014, and what aspects of the coverage do they need to improve on further? How well have BT covered the drama in your eyes, or have you been reliant on ITV4’s highlights on Monday evenings? How can BT Sport build on 2015’s numbers heading into 2016?

The best thoughts from this blog post will be trimmed and sliced into a new article in a couple of weeks time.