Hamilton’s win not as big as “multi 21” but remains solid

With no race drama in another “multi 21” controversy up front to draw in viewers, nor plumes of snow in the United Kingdom, the Malaysian Grand Prix dropped off year-on-year, but didn’t disgrace itself.

Race
Yesterday’s live coverage on BBC One from 08:00 to 11:15 averaged 2.45m (32.7%) with Sky Sports F1’s race show, also from 08:00 bringing 574k (7.7%) to the channel. Highlights on BBC One added 1.07m (12.5%), according to unofficial overnight viewing figures, bringing the combined average to 4.09m viewers. In 2013, the race averaged 4.01m (27.1%) for the highlights show on BBC One and 908k (13.0%) from 07:00 to 10:30 on Sky Sports F1. With a combined figure of 4.92m, it means a drop of over 20 percent. However, given the controversy that surrounded last years’ race, and the British weather doing what it does best, this shouldn’t be too surprising. Does that make it a bad rating? I don’t think so, as last year was clearly a set of freak circumstances all coming together.

In 2012, perhaps a better reflection, the race averaged 2.73m (27.9%) on BBC One from 14:45 to 16:40 and about 1.03m (14.0%) on Sky Sports F1. An exact slot comparison is difficult for 2012 as the race was red flagged and overran. This brings us to a combined average of 3.76m in 2012, so 2014 is up on that. It should be noted that yesterday’s figure is down on the BBC exclusive years: 2009, 2010 and 2011. So whilst, yes its a solid rating and not a disaster, it is definitely by no means great.

Elsewhere, live coverage of the opening round of the 2014 British Touring Car Championship averaged a disappointing 192k (2.1%) on ITV4 (including +1) from 10:30 to 18:00, peaking with 278k (3.4%) at 14:20. By the championship’s standards, that is an unusually low rating, and is the lowest season opener since at least 2010. I don’t know the reasoning behind it, but in the past, BTCC races have tended to peak upwards of half a million viewers so that strikes me as low. The F1 highlights could have knocked a few hundred thousand off it, however it is a seven and a half hour show where viewers traditionally dip ‘in’ for the main BTCC races, except that clearly didn’t happen yesterday. Over on ESPN, IndyCar averaged 5k (0.01%). BT Sport haven’t promoted IndyCar once this year, so this should come as no surprise. In their view, it is simply there to fill the hours.

Qualifying
Saturday’s Qualifying session brought in the second largest ever audience for a Malaysian Qualifying session, only behind 2013, unofficial overnight viewing figures show. Extended live coverage on BBC One from 07:00 to 10:10 averaged a respectable 1.41m (24.0%). I use the word ‘respectable’ as it is not that much better than BBC One’s usual Saturday morning line-up, but it is still good for what it is. Sky Sports F1’s coverage averaged approximately 282k (4.8%), with BBC One’s afternoon highlights from 13:15 to 15:30 adding a further 850k (11.0%).

This brings the combined figure to 2.55m viewers, a far cry from the 3.17m combined average in 2013 – split 336k for Sky and 2.83m for BBC, but above every other year. In the grand scheme of things, it has to be said that 2013 is an anomaly due to the weather: the preceding years from 2009 to 2012 were all in the ~2.2m region.

The 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

MotoGP viewership drops without FTA live coverage

A new era in the broadcasting scene began for MotoGP this past weekend on BT Sport and ITV4, with diminishing returns, as the sport found itself being watched by less people than the previous BBC and Eurosport deal, unofficial overnight viewing figures show. In 2013, the race was screened exclusively live on BBC Two from 19:30 to 21:00, the race starting an hour later in 2013 compared with this season. The programme averaged 1.67m (6.9%), peaking with 2.12m (8.4%) at 20:40.

Compare that to last weekend. BT Sport’s programme, from 15:00 to 20:30, averaged 126k (0.8%). When comparing with the equivalent BBC slot for the MotoGP race last year, from 18:30 to 20:00, that averaged 187k (0.8%), peaking with 230k (1.1%) at 19:05. ITV4’s hour long highlights show last night average 492k (2.2%), peaking with 603k (2.6%) according to unofficial overnight viewing figures, including +1. This brings us to a combined average of 679k, and a combined peak of 833k. For both years, viewing excludes anyone who viewed via the internet, so all viewing via the BT Sport app or their website is excluded, whilst the same also applies for anyone who viewed MotoGP in 2013 through BBC iPlayer. I would hazard a bet that the latter figures would be higher than the former, meaning that the overall effect is negligible.

So, are the figures any good? I said previously that if BT’s average, for the MotoGP part, was around 200k to 250k, then that would be acceptable (250k being their rumoured expectation), with ITV4’s highlights adding a further 400k. That would bring a combined figure in the 600k region, with a peak realistically near to 1 million. I’d say the figures are positive, but also a tale of two halves. Given the amount of promotion that they have done, BT’s figures are lower than I expected. On the other hand, ITV’s highlights deal came with little fan-fare and no promotion in comparison to BT. Yet, despite being on 24 hours after the original race, it brought nearly half a million viewers. BT Sport will claim to increase the sports popularity, except the viewing figures show completely the opposite. In many ways, the ITV4 viewership number has ‘saved face’. It is one of ITV4’s highest ratings of the year, only behind football and numerous repeats of Storage Wars.

I think you could run around this subject a lot, but the fact is that, thanks to Dorna taking the money and not the viewers, the viewership has halved. Julian Ryder said on Twitter last month that without BT Sport’s money, some teams would not have been on the MotoGP grid this year. I have no reason not to believe Ryder, and trust what he is saying. But instead of going to pay TV, surely MotoGP should have had a look at itself and say how do we make ourselves marketable to the wider public in the UK? If it wasn’t for the ITV4 deal (which Dorna themselves did not promote on the MotoGP website, with a press release, like they did twice for BT Sport), then MotoGP would have been turned into a niche sport.

So, will the declines continue? I think they will, be not to the extent we seen in Qatar. If ITV4’s highlights stays around half a million viewers, with BT Sport adding say 150k for the European races, then it won’t be a million miles away from BBC’s ratings. I think Dorna would have perhaps been hoping for a higher BT figure and a lower ITV4 figure. The gap, and how the viewing changes over the season will definitely be one to watch. If I’m a betting man, I’d say MotoGP will lose viewers this year, but thanks to the ITV4 deal, this has definitely been a better deal for Dorna than many people may have expected…

Scheduling: The 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix

Whether it is noise, fuel or just, you know, the racing that gets you talking, there is plenty on the agenda as Formula 1 heads to Sepang for the Malaysian Grand Prix. The Malaysian circuit is highly regarded by Formula 1 fans, this year is its 15th anniversary on the calendar having joined in 1999. The race will be the first of nine races to be screened live on both the BBC and Sky Sports F1 this season. Before getting into the main details, the most important point for all of those in the UK is that the clocks go forward one hour in the early hours of Sunday morning. So, just be wary of that if you plan to put your alarm on. If you want to jump to the schedule, click on the links below…

– Thursday 27th March
– Friday 28th March
– Saturday 29th March
– Sunday 30th March
– Wednesday 2nd April
– Classic F1

Based on comments in Australia, I don’t believe that Eddie Jordan will be with the BBC team in Malaysia, so expect to see Allan McNish alongside Suzi Perry and David Coulthard for the build-up and post-race reaction. Over on Sky Sports F1, ahead of ‘Senna Week’ at the end of April to mark the 20th anniversary of Ayrton’s death, Bruno Senna will be making his first appearance with the team in Malaysia. I did at the time say that Bruno would be a good addition to the Sky team, nothing more, nothing less. Whilst we don’t have concrete details, I think it is fair to assume that he will be playing a significant part in the Senna programming coming up, which was probably the main reason for Sky getting him on-board in the first place.

The F1 Show from Malaysia will be a Williams special, which should be good. I assume the entire show will be from location in Malaysia, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some of it was coming from the studio in London if they are going to showcase some of the old Williams cars. As I have done in the past, again in 2014 I will include non-F1 content of my choice, in other words, if I plan to watch said motor sport, I’ll add it below. This week, the IndyCar Series is back on BT Sport, albeit on ESPN, whilst the BTCC returns to ITV4, with Steve Rider fronting the coverage and David Addison and Tim Harvey in the commentary box.

Thursday 27th March
07:00 to 07:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
20:30 to 21:00 – F1: Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
20:45 to 21:00 – F1: Gear Up for Malaysia (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 28th March
01:45 to 03:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
01:55 to 03:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
05:45 to 08:00 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
05:55 to 07:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Two)
08:00 to 08:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
10:00 to 11:00 – The F1 Show: Williams Special (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 29th March
04:45 to 06:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
04:55 to 06:05 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
07:00 to 09:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
07:00 to 09:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
13:15 to 15:30 – F1: Qualifying Replay (BBC One)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

NOTE: Clocks go forward one hour, with the change from Greenwich Mean Time to British Summer Time. The times below are BST…

Sunday 30th March
07:30 to 12:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 07:30 – Track Parade
=> 08:00 – Race
=> 11:30 – Paddock Live
08:00 to 11:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
10:30 to 18:00 – BTCC: Brands Hatch (ITV4)
11:15 to 12:15 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
13:45 to 15:45 – F1: Race Replay (BBC One)
20:00 to 23:00 – IndyCars: St Petersburg (ESPN)

Wednesday 2nd April
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
An addition to the Sky Sports F1 line-up starting this week is some classic season reviews from the 1970s coming out of the Brunswick Films archive, which is really good as Sky have not shown much content from that era, their ‘GP Uncovered’ strand has tended to focus on the 1950s and 1960s, whereas of course material owned by FOM is 1980s onwards. 2001 Malaysia was included in the provisional schedule, but again failed to make the final cut, which suggests that the copy FOM has is incomplete, or without UK commentary.

27/03 – 21:00 to 23:45 – 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix
28/03 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2002 Malaysian Grand Prix
29/03 – 09:45 to 10:45 – 1970 Season Review
29/03 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2007 Malaysian Grand Prix
30/03 – 12:15 to 13:15 – 1971 Season Review
30/03 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix
31/03 – 21:00 to 21:35 – 1982 Austrian Grand Prix Highlights
01/04 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2012 Canadian Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
02/04 – 21:00 to 00:00 – 2012 Singapore Grand Prix (Sky commentary)

As always, if anything changes I shall update this blog if necessary.

Scheduling: The 2014 Qatar MotoGP

A new dawn begins this Thursday as BT Sport’s live coverage of MotoGP begins, having secured the rights from BBC and British Eurosport. Whilst it means that MotoGP is not live on terrestrial television, the news is not all negative: last week this blog broke the news that ITV4 would be screening highlights on Monday evenings. Even now I’m still miffed and confused as to why it happened in the way it did (why was ITV’s deal not announced earlier?), why BT Sport promoted their coverage as exclusive (without the ‘live’ addendum), but it is what it is.

So, who is on BT Sport’s team? The bad news is that it is not Toby Moody alongside Julian Ryder. The good news instead, harking back to their Sky Sports’ days in the mid-1990s, is that it will be Keith Huewen alongside Ryder. Neil Hodgson and James Toseland will analyse and give their opinion on the action, with Matt Birt and Gavin Emmett also taking part in proceedings. Presenting it, a surprising name: Melanie Sykes. In a poll conducted on this blog, the response was negative, however a lot of people were willing to give it a chance before forming an opinion on the line-up. It looks like BT will have formal presentation on each day, although on what scale is unclear, whether we will see the line-up before and after every session or just around the MotoGP sessions and at the start of each programme. The same applies to ITV4’s highlights programme, no idea at this stage if it is just MotoGP or whether Moto2 and Moto3 will be covered too.

In terms of viewing figures, time will tell just how much MotoGP stands to lose from the deal. I know those in the paddock will argue that this deal is good because of the increased revenue teams will get as a result. For me, personally, yes, of course, quality plays a part, but you need to have bums on seats. If that isn’t happening, you have to question the entire logic of the deal. Personally, I think ~200k on BT Sport and ~500k on ITV4 would be great numbers, and definitely something I will be basing my Qatar viewing figures post on. I do wonder why the opening race is on BT Sport 2 though. If you want to reach the biggest amount of viewers, you put it on the main channel, even if it does mean a channel switch beforehand. The jury is still out on whether this really is good news for motorcycle racing, as you risk making it a niche sport again instead of having that terrestrial television platform to reach out to the masses. Hopefully with the addition of ITV4’s highlights we have the right mix for the deal to succeed. We’ll see what happens.

What I think needs to be said is that BT have a fantastic line-up of shows heading into Qatar, with a lot of MotoGP films on offer. I don’t know however if they are BT created films or Dorna created films. The reason why I say that is obviously when comparing with Sky Sports F1, Formula One Management have not created any documentaries for them, so it would be interesting to compare. As for the here and now, below are all the scheduling details you need for Qatar. I don’t plan to do the MotoGP schedule for each race, but given that this is the start of a new broadcasting era, it is definitely worth detailing what BT have in store for viewers. For the classic MotoGP details, please click here.

Monday 17th March
22:00 to 23:00 – Films: MotoGP 2013 Review (BT Sport 2)
23:00 to 00:00 – Films: Moto2 & Moto3 2013 Review (BT Sport 2)

Tuesday 18th March
15:30 to 16:45 – Films: Head to Head (BT Sport 2)
16:45 to 18:00 – Films: The Route to Glory (BT Sport 2)
18:00 to 20:00 – Films: A Decade in MotoGP (BT Sport 2)
20:00 to 21:00 – 2014 Season Preview (BT Sport 2)
21:00 to 22:30 – Films: Great Moments (BT Sport 2)
22:30 to 00:00 – Films: Jorge (BT Sport 2)

Wednesday 19th March
16:15 to 17:30 – Films: The Age of 27 (BT Sport 2)
17:30 to 19:00 – Films: Rookie 93: Marc Marquez Beyond the Smile (BT Sport 2)

Thursday 20th March
15:00 to 19:45 – Practice (BT Sport 2)
– 15:00 – Moto3 – Practice 1
– 15:55 – Moto2 – Practice 1
– 16:55 – MotoGP – Practice 1
– 17:55 – Moto3 – Practice 2
– 18:50 – Moto2 – Practice 2

Friday 21st March
14:50 to 19:00 – Practice (BT Sport 2)
– 15:00 – MotoGP – Practice 2
– 16:00 – Moto3 – Practice 3
– 16:55 – Moto2 – Practice 3
– 17:55 – MotoGP – Practice 3

Saturday 22nd March
14:30 to 19:00 – Practice / Qualifying (BT Sport 2)
– 15:00 – Moto3 – Qualifying
– 15:55 – Moto2 – Qualifying
– 16:55 – MotoGP – Practice 4
– 17:35 – MotoGP – Qualifying

Sunday 23rd March
15:00 to 17:15 – Moto3: Race (BT Sport 2)
17:15 to 18:45 – Moto2: Race (BT Sport 2)
18:45 to 20:30 – MotoGP: Race (BT Sport 2)

Monday 24th March
20:00 to 21:00 – Highlights (ITV4)

As always, I will update the schedule if anything changes.

Analysis: Heading into the unknown

The BT Sport announcement focussing on their MotoGP presentation line-up brings with good news, bad news and also a few questions.

Starting with the positives, and BT have assembled a very strong punditry team with Neil Hodgson and James Toseland. It was important for BT Sport to get well known motorcycle names to be a part of the coverage and, from a British perspective, they’ve done just that. As with any pairing, without seeing them on screen, it is difficult to say how it will play out on screen, but they have got the first step right with who they have managed to get. Another positive is the commentary line-up. The positive being in that it is not Charlie Cox and Steve Parrish. Whilst I am going to critical on some aspects of their coverage later on, I am happy that we don’t have to hear Cox struggling to commentate on what felt like far too many occasions last season.

Keith Huewen and Julian Ryder is an interesting one. I’ll be honest in saying that I have never heard proper commentary from them from back in their heyday in the mid 1990s, you can do the sums if I say that I’m currently 21! What disappoints me is the decision to omit Toby Moody. I accept that BT want to go in a different direction in some aspects, because inevitably they want to evolve the coverage. But I’m unsure how reverting to a commentary team from twenty years ago does that. I also didn’t hear anyone wanting Moody out of the coverage. Again, I’m from am era who has only really watched races with Moody and Ryder commentating, saying that I would be interested to hear where people rank Huewen and Ryder in comparison to Moody and Ryder.

> Analysis: A bitter pill to swallow?
> BT Sport vs BSkyB for live Formula E rights?
> Doing the sums: the cost of viewing F1 and MotoGP in 2014

The scheduling of MotoGP Tonight feels like a genius move. Tuesdays at 20:00 on terrestrial television is a ‘dead’ slot and mainly skewed towards female, so this makes perfect sense. One of my criticisms I have with Sky Sports F1 is their insistence to air The F1 Show live on a Friday night when their core, young audience is out. I’m happy BT have learnt a lesson from Sky here and have done some sensible scheduling. I’m looking forward to seeing how MotoGP Tonight plays out, if done correctly it has the potential to be a gem – like The F1 Show was in 2012 before it fell off the rails. The expansive studio should allow them to do some interesting stuff so it will be interesting to see if anything happens there.

With positives, there are negatives. If I made a list of the twenty people most likely to be in the running as potential MotoGP host on BT Sport, I don’t think Melanie Sykes would ever feature in that list. Possibly even top 100. Which makes her announcement even more of a surprise. I assume that Sykes was not BT’s first choice, I would have had Suzi Perry, Jennie Gow, Matt Roberts amongst others above Sykes. In other words, quite a few people must have rejected BT Sport before Sykes became a firm contender. It might be telling that the Sykes rumour only emerged in the last week, even though the commentary line-up has been common knowledge amongst the motorcycling circles for a while. What worries me here is that Sykes has never presented a live sporting event, and I don’t think has done an outside broadcast for years, most of her work has been inside television studios.

Yes, Sykes has bags of experience, but not the right experience. Jake Humphrey and Simon Lazenby both started their respective Formula 1 presenting roles with live sporting experience, the former most notably climbed through BBC’s ranks, made a good impression at the 2008 Olympics and the rest is history. I’m willing to give her a chance, but the ‘Georgie Thompson vibe’ comes to mind here. Thompson left Sky Sports F1 after a year to head to America. Thankfully for Sky, Thompson was a relatively small part of the puzzle and was easily replaced. If Sykes decided after a year that she didn’t want to do the gig any more I don’t think it would be as simple for BT. I hope BT have Sykes locked in for the long term otherwise we could well see the Thompson situation play out again. On a similar subject, having Iwan Thomas regularly on MotoGP Tonight suggests that they are trying to cater for the casual viewer, although in both cases, I do not imagine someone thinking “Melanie Sykes is presenting MotoGP, I must watch it!”.

Aside from Sykes and the omission of Moody, another interesting point is the scheduling. British Eurosport last year were already doing a few hours per day, meaning it is difficult for BT Sport for step up too much from that. Maybe its just me, but ‘five hours of coverage a day’ sounds vague, although it must be noted that the MotoGP weekend schedule is structured differently compared with Formula 1, more for the fan at track rather than strictly conforming to TV viewers at home. I think we will have to wait and see until the schedules come out to see how exactly the coverage forms out, thinking about presentation too at this point given that the press release gives no clue as to whether BT plan to take the World Feed for Moto2 and Moto3.

Overall, I do think the team is good. There’s some aspects I’ve missed out here, and that is deliberate because I don’t know much about them, Matt Birt and Gavin Emmett being those two. One thing I don’t know is how ‘technical’ either of them are in comparison to Neil Spalding and previously Randy Mamola, which is why I have not touched that above. The only mainly negative aspect is Sykes, and I hope I’m proven wrong where she is concerned. I think it is a risk BT taking someone on without a proven track record, but it won’t be long before we find out whether it was a risk worth taking.