The new kids on the block

It is fair to say that the biggest news heading into 2014 was the announcement that BT Sport would be broadcasting MotoGP, along with feeder series’ Moto2 and Moto3, exclusively live, ending BBC’s and British Eurosport’s commitment to the sport. The move was controversial for several reasons, as has been discussed before on this blog.

The first half of 2014 has not been the smoothest for BT, however is filled with both positive and negatives. Starting off with the positives, I think we can all agree that BT Sport’s coverage is in general the most expansive that any broadcaster has ever provided to UK viewers. From classic MotoGP races, to Moto3 practice and onto MotoGP Tonight on the Tuesday following the race, the channel has it covered. Admittedly, the weekend coverage is not too different to what Eurosport provided before them aside from the fact that BT are providing a bit more ‘colour’ to the coverage. Strangely, the one thing that they don’t cover is the warm-ups for all three classes, but apart from that, they show every other session live. Alongside this, the channel has also produced documentaries, such as the Mike Hailwood documentary that aired a few months back, to positive praise from those in the motorcycling world.

One other positive from me has to be the commentary line-up of Keith Huewen and Julian Ryder. I did admit back in February to being sceptical to Huewen being brought back into the fold, especially as it meant that they chose not to go for Toby Moody. In a poll on this site before the start of the year, results were mixed in relation to BT’s team: only 10 percent of readers thought the line-up was good with nearly 50 percent disappointed in the line-up. However, I’ve been happy with the commentary team, and they have been a joy to listen to throughout the first half of 2014, Huewen quickly settling back in I feel. That’s not to say that they were right to make the change, but at least it has not backfired on them. I’ve enjoyed too the contributions of Matt Birt and Gavin Emmett, BT definitely made the right decision in bringing both men on board.

BT Sport's balcony position at the 2014 Qatar MotoGP. As of writing, never to be seen again. — BT Sport’s balcony position at the 2014 Qatar MotoGP. As of writing, never to be seen again.

Whilst there have been some aspects that BT Sport have got right, there are very well publicised negatives, which the poll before the start of the season appears to foreshadow. If I’m going to review the coverage objectively, then I cannot sweep the terrible decision making of who they appointed as presenter under the mat. On February 14th, the channel announced Melanie Sykes as their MotoGP presenter, a move which surprised many at the time. It was clear early on that Sykes was out of her depth, and not suited to presenting live sport. Why BT chose Sykes as their presenter is anyone’s guess. After four rounds, the two parties posted company. Whether it was to do with her personal issues or not, we will never know (although she has since presented several weeks worth of Let’s Do Lunch on ITV, a live daytime programme), but either way I think we can say that this was BT’s biggest mistake of the season so far. Why did they hire a presenter who had no experience presenting live sport? Apparently Sykes was supposed to bring a new audience to MotoGP, obviously that never happened.

Since then, Craig Doyle and Abi Griffiths, their rugby and Motorsport Tonight presenters respectively, have taken over presenting duties. What is unclear is whether Sykes’s departure has had any knock on effect. Qatar aside, every race has had some studio presence. Was that the intention from the get-go? If so, one has to consider if going down this route was a second mistake from BT Sport. Jake Humphrey, BT Sport’s lead football presenter and former BBC F1 presenter blogged this week, and noted that “This job is all about being at the centre of the story, which is where the real thrill lies with being a sports broadcaster. It’s why I always press to be next to the pitch, track or court when I’m working. For me, studios can’t convey an atmosphere the same.” The same applies for MotoGP.

The picture a few paragraphs up show the balcony position that BT Sport used in Qatar. It was unique. It was different. It was something that neither BBC and Sky had used before in their Formula 1 coverage. So why did it disappear after Qatar? Again, maybe it was the intention for Qatar to be the only race fully on site (along with potentially Britain and Valencia, we shall see), but it seems like a completely wasted opportunity. The balcony position could have been fantastic at showing off the atmosphere in places like Barcelona and Mugello where grandstands are rammed on race day. I assume BT Sport will be looking for a permanent MotoGP presenter for 2015 onwards, and, as they’ve done with the Premier League coverage for this season, hopefully the coverage in 2015 will be fully on-site. What they are currently doing on-site is great, it just needs a fully uniformed approach, with the studio aspects being removed from their live coverage.

As the motto goes, “you learn from your mistakes”, and I hope BT Sport learn from what has gone wrong with the MotoGP coverage so far as we head into the latter stages of the year.

Scheduling: The 2014 Belgian Grand Prix

The battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg heads into the second half of the season as the Formula 1 teams and drivers reconvene in Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix! With eleven points separating the two, it is pretty much a guarantee that the title battle will, barring a miracle, go down to the wire at the last race of the season, the controversial ‘double points’ round in Abu Dhabi. For those wishing to jump to the scheduling, click the links below…

– Thursday 21st August
– Friday 22nd August
– Saturday 23rd August
– Sunday 24th August
– Wednesday 27th August
– Classic F1

On the broadcasting front, the situation is interesting in the championship run-in. Sky have only three exclusive races left this year, compared with BBC’s five live races. One of the BBC’s five live races is Russia. In the unlikely event that Formula 1 chooses to avoid the situation in Russia and removes it from the calendar, it poses an interesting question of whether BBC could ‘claim’ another live race in the championship run in, because the removal of Russia would leave BBC with eight live races and ten highlight races across the entire season, obviously that is not a 50/50 split. I’ll follow that line in the run up to Russia if it is axed, it would be interesting to see what the contract stipulates (there is the more serious point as to whether BBC and Sky choose to send their teams to Russia, but that is a separate subject and one that will probably be monitored nearer to the event).

Back to Belgium, and the BBC side is at full strength again, both Lee McKenzie and Eddie Jordan will be back with the team. Over on Sky, their new show with unseen footage from Formula One Management’s archive will première on Sunday 24th August on the channel. The first edition will focus on team-mates with Nigel Mansell and Christian Horner alongside Steve Rider. I hope this doesn’t fly under the radar, but that relies on Sky to promote it. And by that I mean get the message out to the wider F1 media. The key phrase, as I’ve said before should be “unseen footage”. If that isn’t a trigger for an interesting article or two on whatever footage they’ve got hold of, I don’t know what is. It depends how good/revealing the footage is too as to whether they can ‘sell’ it to the F1 journalists to write about, or whether it is just another Sky F1 programme which probably won’t be written about in the future (hopefully not, mind).

Elsewhere, ESPN have the penultimate round of the IndyCar Series on Sunday evening, whilst ITV4 have live coverage of the British Touring Car Championship from Knockhill. Below are all the details you need:

Thursday 21st August
14:00 to 14:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:30 to 23:45 – F1: Gear Up for Belgium (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 22nd August
08:45 to 11:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
11:00 to 11:50 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
12:45 to 14:50 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
12:55 to 14:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Two)
14:50 to 15:30 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
16:00 to 16:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 18:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 23rd August
08:45 to 09:20 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
09:45 to 11:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:10 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 14:20 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
14:35 to 16:05 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:15 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sunday 24th August
08:20 to 09:05 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:30 to 10:45 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
10:45 to 18:00 – BTCC: Knockhill (ITV4)
11:30 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 11:30 – Track Parade
=> 12:00 – Race
=> 15:30 – Paddock Live
12:10 to 15:30 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:30 to 16:30 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
16:15 to 17:15 – Tales from the Vault (Sky Sports F1)
21:30 to 00:00 – IndyCars: Sonoma (ESPN)

Wednesday 27th August
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
16/08 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1996 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights
17/08 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2011 German Grand Prix
18/08 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2005 Japanese Grand Prix
19/08 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1985 Belgian Grand Prix Highlights
20/08 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 1998 Belgian Grand Prix
21/08 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2010 Belgian Grand Prix
22/08 – 18:00 to 19:45 – 2000 Belgian Grand Prix
23/08 – 21:20 to 22:05 – 1982 Belgian Grand Prix Highlights
24/08 – 17:15 to 18:15 – 1972 Season Review
24/08 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2005 Belgian Grand Prix
25/08 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2012 Spanish Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
26/08 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2011 Chinese Grand Prix
27/08 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix
28/08 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1986 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights
29/08 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2012 European Grand Prix (Sky commentary)

As always, any scheduling updates will be posted here as well.

MotoGP’s UK viewing figures halve year on year

Halfway through the 2014 MotoGP season, and the move to pay TV for live coverage is having a profound effect on the UK ratings, unofficial overnight viewing figures show.

> Half a million viewers across BT and ITV
> BT Sport “expect numbers to grow with time”
> ITV decline to comment

For the best part of fifteen years, BBC had screened every race live, with further more extensive coverage on British Eurosport. With an average of one million viewers every race, BBC’s coverage was motorcycling’s gateway to a new generation of fans, should a British rider rise to the top. In May 2013, it was announced that BT Sport would be taking over exclusive coverage of the championship from 2014 onwards, unsurprisingly provoking a backlash from fans. The exclusivity aspect failed to make it to the first race, just two weeks before the start of the 2014 season, it was announced that ITV4 would be screening highlights of the championship, a move aimed at appeasing a larger portion of the MotoGP fan base. And the viewing figures, in my opinion, back that up.

All the viewing figures below exclude BBC iPlayer for 2013, and similarly BT Sport’s app and ITV Player for this season. So far in 2014, BT Sport’s live race day coverage for the MotoGP portion of proceedings – from 12:30 to approximately 14:00 – have averaged 155k, peaking at just over 200k the majority of the time. ITV4’s highlights programming on Monday evenings have averaged 366k, this number including their +1 timeshift channel. The combined audience of 521k is significantly down on figures in previous years, when MotoGP was live on terrestrial television.

In comparison, BBC Two’s MotoGP coverage for the first half of the 2013 season, excluding Austin and Assen, which were not covered live by the channel, averaged exactly 1.00m, regularly peaking around 1.3m. In addition to that, an additional audience in the region of 150k watched on British Eurosport an hour later, bringing the combined audience is 1.15m. Traditionally, UK’s audiences have remained around that level for many years, with slight fluctuations about 100k either way depending on that season’s circumstances and other sporting competition in that calendar year. As mentioned above, audiences this year have more than halved in comparison to last year.

Looking into the figures, I maintain that ITV were brought on board to save face. BT Sport exclusivity would have been a catastrophic disaster for all concerned. Yes, they may be providing more in-depth coverage than BBC (albeit, with the use of a studio at every race weekend), but that in my opinion is meaningless if audiences are 10 percent of what BBC were getting. BT Sport’s coverage is not going to bring in new fans. If it does, it’ll be tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands as BBC’s coverage could have done if the likes of Bradley Smith get to the front of the field in the years to come.

I would be surprised if Dorna are happy with BT’s viewing figures, however it was them that made the decision to go with BT Sport’s money rather than BBC’s viewers. Whether ITV4’s highlights programming was a nice compromise, the jury is out. In any case, I’m not at all surprised about the drop. There is a valid point about the dominance of Marc Marquez having a detrimental effect on viewing figures. From BT’s perspective, viewing figures have stayed consistent (in fact, their Qatar programme only peaked with 230k), whilst ITV4’s highlights have dropped to around the 350k mark. Because of the football in the past month, there is no direct yes or no answer where the Marquez theory is concerned.

A BT Sport spokesperson said: “BT Sport is a brand new channel and less than a year old and MotoGP launched on the channel in March of this year. BT Sport show some of the most extensive coverage of MotoGP seen in the UK across Friday, Saturday and Sunday on a race weekend. We are pleased with the number of people watching MotoGP as well as MotoGP Tonight so far and feedback on our coverage has also been extremely positive. We expect numbers to grow with time.” ITV declined to comment.

MotoGP and Le Mans close in UK ratings battle

Live coverage of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on British Eurosport drew similar numbers to that who watched BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage, unofficial overnight UK viewing figures show.

24 Hours of Le Mans
The famous endurance race was screened live across British Eurosport and its sister channel British Eurosport 2 from 13:45 on Saturday to 14:15 on Sunday, the numbers below take into account the various channel switches. The race, in the UK, averaged 56k (0.7%), down on the 70k (1.0%) for last year’s race. The 5-minute peak of 148k (2.0%) recorded at 14:00 on Saturday is down on last year’s peak of 248k, which occurred at the end of the race. The average number is up on 2011 and 2012, however.

The numbers are as you would expect for an endurance race. Hovering around 100k for the first few hours, figures spiked at 15:50 with 141k (1.7%) as heavy rain hit the Circuit de la Sarthe. Numbers stayed around 70k to 90k into the evening, before dropping into the early hours – at some points recording a figure of ‘zero’ (which in ratings terms means less than 5k!). Numbers picked back up on Sunday morning, 75k (1.1%) were watching at 09:25, hitting 100k (1.4%) just over an hour later, climbing to 140k (1.9%) at 12:05 as Porsche’s charge came to a halt. Figures dipped to under 100k, re-peaking with 119k (1.4%) at the end of the race.

Considering the World Cup competition, the figures are perfectly fine, although as always I would have liked to see figures a bit higher. The same analysis applies here as it does for the IndyCar Series, if none of the mainstream media are going to cover it, then ratings will remain relatively low. Personally, I’d love to see a bit of coverage on ITV4 again to get endurance racing back on the agenda, time will tell. One series that was getting attention, but decided to reject live free-to-air coverage was MotoGP. And depending on which time frame you choose to use from Sunday, you’ll get interesting results.

MotoGP
BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage on Sunday from 09:30 to 14:15 averaged 95k (1.2%). The Moto3 race peaked with 79k (1.1%) at 10:00, whilst the Moto2 race peaked with 78k (1.1%) at 11:25. The brilliant MotoGP race, won by Marc Marquez, peaked with 196k (2.4%) at 13:35. It goes without saying that the BT Sport 2 figures pale into comparison to what BBC Two averaged last year. BBC Two’s programme last year, from 12:30 to 14:05 averaged 914k (10.1%). BT Sport 2, for the same timeslot yesterday averaged 142k (1.8%). The Barcelona race last year peaked with 1.22m (13.3%), meaning that BBC Two, on average and peak was six times higher than BT Sport’s figures.

From race to race the ratio fluctuates from between four and nine times higher for BT Sport compared with BBC in 2013, but the difference is still alarming. I haven’t mentioned British Eurosport where MotoGP is concerned as their figures are not readily available, however it would result in approximately an extra 100k being added to 2013’s figures, making the ratio wider. I still maintain that Dorna’s choice to have ITV4 on-board was an eleventh hour deal, after all, why would BT Sport and MotoGP have the word ‘exclusive’ in a press release just a few weeks earlier? In my view, the ITV deal was the saving grace, something that the masses would still be able to access, and are doing with up to half a million viewers watching the Monday night highlight shows. It doesn’t fully bridge the gap left by BBC’s absence, but it closes the gap.

Comparison
It is worth noting that all the numbers exclude those who watched via BT Sport’s and Eurosport’s respective apps and, for the 2013 MotoGP comparison above, exclude those who watched on BBC iPlayer. There are several comparisons that can be made, for complete clarity, all the potential comparisons are below so blog readers can make up their own minds.

From 09:30 to 14:15, the 24 Hours of Le Mans averaged higher than BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage. In that time period, 93k (1.2%) were watching British Eurosport and 89k (1.2%) were watching BT Sport 2. Of course, that figure includes Moto2 and Moto3. If you take the MotoGP portion, as defined by BT from 12:45 to 14:15, then the averages for Eurosport and BT are 95k (1.2%) and 143k (1.8%) respectively. The peak figures, as noted above, for Le Mans was 148k (2.0%) and 196k (2.4%) for the MotoGP on BT.

Either way, the gap between the two races was close, perhaps closer than what BT Sport would have liked.

BT Sport announces Melanie Sykes’s MotoGP departure

Melanie Sykes has parted company with BT Sport, it has been confirmed this evening, with Craig Doyle taking on more responsibilities with the team.

In a statement issued to The F1 Broadcasting Blog, BT Sport said: “We regret to say that Mel Sykes will no longer be a part of the presenting team on MotoGP for BT Sport. BT Sport’s approach is to operate a team of presenters and experts who work across both live and magazine programmes. Mel has other broadcasting commitments which prevent her from being able to do this and as a result working across BT Sport MotoGP programming is no longer viable. We wish Mel all the best in the future. Our team remain the same, we have a fantastic team of presenters and experts working across MotoGP, as the rugby season comes to an end, Craig Doyle will present more live MotoGP.”

Sykes was announced as BT Sport’s MotoGP presenter on February 14th after emerging as a late front runner for the role. Three and a half months later, and the partnership has ended. I made comments about the announcement at the same time, however, her parting company with BT Sport after four races was something that no one predicted. She was absent from BT’s Le Mans coverage, which their press office said was due to “personal circumstances”. Like I said at the time, I don’t want to be drawn into that on this blog because it has nothing to do with her presenting. The phrase that I do not understand at all from BT’s press release is ‘other broadcasting commitments’. Surely this is something that is agreed before the final contract is signed? If personal circumstances is the reason for her departure, then fair enough, but that phrase really confuses me, because it suggests that either BT did not negotiate the contract properly or Sykes was unaware of what was involved. At this point, I wonder who else was in the frame, not that they can go and approach them because I imagine none of those candidates are free.

On the presenting side of things, I don’t think the studio helped her one bit. Whilst she looked out of her depth in Qatar, you know what, part of me would have liked to see her out in Argentina and Texas. I’m not saying she would have been amazing, however, having her present from the studio in Argentina and Texas was completely the wrong decision and meant that she could not get used to the live and vibrant MotoGP paddock. The opening weekend in Qatar was not great to put it lightly, but what is done is done. BT have to take some blame here, and clearly their calculated risk to take Sykes on has not paid off. In some ways, I think BT have thrown Sykes under a bus through no fault of her own.

It looks like we will be getting Craig Doyle on Sunday’s and Chris Hollins possibly on Saturday’s. Whilst the rugby season has finished, so has the football season. With that in mind, surely Jake Humphrey has to be a contender to front some of BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage through the Summer? Personally, I’d say that is a no-brainer, however I’m not convinced that it will happen. It’s fair to say that BT’s coverage from a personnel stand-point has got off to the worst possible start. I think some will call that an exaggeration, but can you imagine if Suzi Perry or Simon Lazenby decided to leave their respective teams a quarter of the way through a season? No, me neither.