Sky announces Italian team; extends contract in Germany

It has been a busy week for Sky oversees, with their Italian arm, Sky Italia, announcing the team for their new Sky Sport F1 channel, whilst Sky Deutschland has extended their contract with FOM.

This past Monday, Sky Italia announced their team for the 2013 season. Carlo Vanzini will commentate on the action alongside Marc Gene, as the two previously did from 2007 to 2009. Jacques Villeneuve, Fabiano Vandone and Sarah Winkhaus will also form part of the presentation team. With Villeneuve a permanent pundit for Sky Italia, it would make sense for him to occasionally appear on Sky Sports F1 in the UK during race weekends from time-to-time in exchange for someone else, so viewers’ on both sides benefit by getting different opinions.

As noted previously, the announcement also makes reference to many things that UK readers will be familiar with, such as the interactive mosaic, which has nine different options: the live Sky Sport F1 feed, three on-board channels, pit-lane channel, race control, live timing, driver tracker and a highlights feed. At the moment, there has been announcement by RAI concerning their F1 coverage in 2013, so it appears movement on that issue is in the lurch.

Over in Germany, SPEEDWEEK are reporting that Sky Deutschland will retain the rights to screen Formula 1 until 2015, alongside the deal already in place with RTL.

Sky Italia to launch new F1 channel

Following on from the launch of Sky Sports F1 in the United Kingdom in March, it has been confirmed today that the Italian arm of Sky, Sky Italia will be launching Sky Sports F1 from March 1st.

From 2013, the structure of Formula 1 in Italy will be the same as it is here in the United Kingdom, with ten races live on Sky and the remaining live races on a free-to-air. The deal was announced back in June.

The press release issued is parallel to that United Kingdom readers will recognise – the channel will show every practice session, qualifying and race, with Sky Race Control also being a key feature in Italy. Sky Go is also noted in the press release, as is tablet PC’s and smartphones. For those interested, the initial BSkyB press release concerning the UK Sky Sports F1 channel can be found here. Unlike the UK press release though, the Italian press release issued today notes that the channel will be 24 hours, 7 days a week so it will be interesting to see if it sticks to that or whether that is just PR marketing talk.

How the title decider fared around Europe

Whilst the Brazilian Grand Prix decider fared better than expected in the United Kingdom, the title decider also delivered large ratings around Europe.

Starting in Sebastian Vettel’s and Fernando Alonso’s home countries, in Germany, the race aired on RTL and Sky Deutschland. RTL recorded a race average of 10.62 million viewers (40.9% share), whilst a further 610,000 viewers watched on Sky Deutschland. Interestingly, this is a split of 95% vs 5% for Sky, which is a larger gap than in the UK where it tends to be about 82% vs 18%. It may be that the title decider brought more casual viewers to RTL, meaning that the split was larger than usual. Over in Spain, the race on Antenna 3 averaged 7.15 million viewers, with a very similar share to that in Germany – a 41.7% share. Year-on-year, the increase is massive, the race last year having averaged 2.76 million viewers which shows how much it means to broadcasters for a title to be decided at the final race and in primetime.

Outside of the those two countries, the race also performed admirably in Italy. The F1 was comfortably the winner of the day there, the race peaking with 9.65 million viewers, a 45% share. In contrasting style, Netherlands’ viewership was 674,000 viewers on RTL7, a 15.1% share, although one has to take into account the lack of Formula 1 presence with no drivers or race held in Netherlands. So, from those four countries, and the UK, you are looking at a combined viewership already of 34 million viewers. I don’t know how that compares with last year or historically, but it shows how many viewers Formula 1 reaches from a small set of countries.

Across Europe, however, a few new deals come into effect from next year. In Italy, Sky Italia will screen eleven races exclusively live next season while in Netherlands the majority of races will be aired on pay-TV station Sport1. Whilst it will have a detrimental effect for some races, the nature of the deals means that the last race of the season will always be on terrestrial television meaning that the potential for big ratings is still there. Obviously, though, there is not always the guarantee that the title decider will go on to the final round…

NBC win Formula 1 rights in America

As anticipated, and reported last week, NBC have won the rights to screen Formula 1 in America from 2013.

The press release from Monday can be found here via NBC Sports Group’s website. NBC will screen the Canadian, Abu Dhabi, Austin and Brazilian races with the NBC Sports Network screening the remaining races.

Speed TV lose Formula 1 rights in America

Speed TV have today confirmed that they have lost the rights to screen Formula 1 in America, ending a 17 year association between them and Formula One Management.

In a statement to the Association Press, a Fox Sports Media Group spokesman (who own Speed TV), said “It’s disappointing to learn that F1 has elected to move forward with a different media partner. Speed has been the U.S. voice of F1 since the mid ’90s, and it is a passion for many people at the network. Fox Sports Media Group made what we believed to be a fiscally responsible bid based on the sport’s current viewership levels, but F1 has elected to go in another direction. We wish them well.”

The news comes at an unsurprising time, and supports earlier reports that Speed were set to drop their entire Formula 1 team for 2013, something noted by Will Buxton, who said on Twitter that he had no contract with anyone in place for 2013. Now, it turns out that Speed have gone the full stretch and dropped Formula 1 altogether. One has to question now, whether the Speed channel will even exist in 2013…

A new rights holder for 2013 and beyond will be announced in due course, although if the Association Press are to be believed, then the NBC Sports Group are a contender.

Update at 19:03 UK time – Peter Windsor on Twitter is saying that NBC Sports have won the rights. Will Buxton has also posted “Just read the news via twitter. Can’t help but feel a pit on my stomach had to learn this way. But that’s life. Onwards my friends. Love you all. I want to say that the last 3 years with Bob, Steve and David have been the most enjoyable of my career. More than colleagues. Friends.” I do hope Buxton stays in the Formula 1 paddock in some capacity. Having listened to his GP2 and GP3 commentary via Sky Sports F1, it would be a shame to lose his contributions.