MotoGP opener drops slightly year-on-year

The start of the 2016 MotoGP season in Qatar dropped slightly compared with the 2015 opener, unofficial overnight viewing figures show.

Live coverage of race day, broadcast live on BT Sport 2 from 14:45 to 19:00 on Sunday 20th March, averaged 132k (0.9%). In comparison, last year’s coverage of race day averaged 172k (1.1%). The drop is largely down to tougher competition, most notably the Manchester derby in the Premier League on Sky Sports, which averaged nearly two million viewers. Furthermore, the MotoGP season opener was held a week earlier this year compared to last, meaning that races aired an hour earlier due to British Summer Time having not yet kicked in.

For the MotoGP race itself, live coverage from 17:30 to 19:00 averaged 201k (1.2%), peaking with 270k (1.5%) at 18:40. Last year’s race from 18:30 to 19:00 averaged 212k (1.1%), peaking with 263k. It was only Moto2 and Moto3 that really suffered on BT Sport, as mentioned above due to the tougher competition. The MotoGP race itself held up very well compared with 2015, the peak measure marginally up year-on-year which can only be good news for BT.

ITV4’s highlights on Monday 21st March from 20:00 to 21:00, averaged 341k (1.6%), peaking with 408k (1.9%). Both measures are down slightly on 2015’s Qatar average of 372k (1.6%) and 2015’s peak of 455k (1.9%). As the shares attest to, the total viewing audience was down year-on-year, so this is not a case of MotoGP dropping adversely compared to the competition. There would be more concern if the audience and share had dropped, but that is not the case here.

The combined audience of 542k is down on 2015’s number of 588k, whilst the peak number of 677k is down on the 718k number recorded last season. I do not think this year’s numbers in context are too bad when you consider the competition and also that MotoGP and Formula 1 started on the same weekend for the first time since 1995.

In a week where pay TV has dominated the four wheeled agenda, it should be reminded that the total MotoGP viewership (BT Sport and ITV) is down significantly on 2013’s numbers when MotoGP was live on free-to-air television. The Qatar MotoGP in 2013 on BBC Two averaged 1.67m (6.9%) from 19:30 to 21:00.

The 2015 Qatar MotoGP ratings report can be found here.

Scheduling: The 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix

If you like your Formula 1, MotoGP, Formula E, IndyCar and British Touring Car Championship action, then you will be doing a fair bit of multitasking and channel hopping as April begins.

Formula 1 heads to Bahrain for the second round of the 2016 season. For the first time ever, live coverage will be shown on Channel 4 as part of their three year shared deal with Sky Sports. As we have learnt in the past week, that deal will not go beyond three years: Sky will be screening Formula 1 exclusively from 2019.

Susie Wolff will be part of Channel 4’s team in Bahrain, whilst a pre-recorded interview with Eddie Jordan and Bernie Ecclestone will be shown (note: this was filmed before the Sky announcement). Channel 4’s live broadcast will contain adverts, however the race itself will be live and uninterrupted. On the interactivity side, Channel 4 do not have access to the additional feeds and the popular F1 Forum will not be returning following each live race.

BBC’s radio schedule is a bit different than usual for Bahrain. Practice two will not air in full on 5 Live Sports Extra due to horse racing. The race itself will only air through updates on 5 Live due to Premier League football and Twenty20 coverage. The live full race commentary should be on BBC Sport’s website with the usual team. Speaking of the team, Jennie Gow will be in London as she is presenting ITV’s coverage of the Long Beach ePrix.

Jack Nicholls will be commentating on the Bahrain Grand Prix for 5 Live, meaning that he will not be part of Formula E’s broadcast team in Long Beach. It will be the first time that Nicholls has not commentated on a Formula E race. Nicholls and Gow have confirmed that Bob Varsha will be the lead commentator in Long Beach. Outside of the usual 5 Live programming, BBC Radio 2 are airing a special F1 programme on Easter Monday. Suzi Perry presents, with contributions from the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and David Coulthard.

Elsewhere, the British Touring Car Championship season gets going in Brands Hatch. ITV have assembled the usual team with Steve Rider, Louise Goodman and Tim Harvey leading the line-up. David Addison is their lead commentator for the fourth season running.

Channel 4 F1
Sessions
01/04 – 11:55 to 13:35 – Practice 1
01/04 – 15:55 to 17:35 – Practice 2
02/04 – 12:55 to 14:05 – Practice 3
02/04 – 15:00 to 17:30 – Qualifying
03/04 – 15:00 to 18:30 – Race
03/04 – 23:00 to 00:00 – Highlights

Sky Sports F1
Sessions
01/04 – 11:45 to 13:50 – Practice 1
01/04 – 15:45 to 18:00 – Practice 2
02/04 – 12:45 to 14:15 – Practice 3
02/04 – 15:00 to 17:45 – Qualifying
03/04 – 14:30 to 19:15 – Race
=> 14:30 – Track Parade
=> 15:00 – Pit Lane Live
=> 15:30 – Race
=> 18:30 – Paddock Live

Supplementary Programming
30/03 – 20:30 to 21:00 – F1 Report: Preview
31/03 – 13:00 to 13:30 – Driver Press Conference
31/03 – 20:45 to 21:00 – Paddock Uncut
01/04 – 18:00 to 18:30 – Team Press Conference
01/04 – 18:30 to 19:00 – The F1 Show
06/04 – 20:30 to 21:00 – F1 Report: Review

BBC Radio F1
28/03 – 17:00 to 19:00 – Suzi Perry’s F1 Anthems (BBC Radio 2)
31/03 – 21:00 to 22:00 – Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
01/04 – 11:55 to 13:35 – Practice 1 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
01/04 – 16:20 to 17:35 – Practice 2 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
02/04 – 12:55 to 14:05 – Practice 3 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
02/04 – 15:55 to 17:05 – Qualifying (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
03/04 – TBC – Race (BBC online)
=> updates on BBC Radio 5 Live

MotoGP – Argentina (BT Sport 2)
01/04 – 13:00 to 20:00
=> 13:00 – Practice 1
=> 15:45 – Reaction and Build-Up
=> 17:00 – Practice 2
02/04 – 13:00 to 20:15
=> 13:00 – Practice 3
=> 16:00 – Qualifying
03/04 – 13:30 to 15:15 – Warm Up
03/04 – 16:30 to 22:00
=> 16:30 – Moto3 race
=> 18:15 – Moto2 race
=> 19:45 – MotoGP race
=> 21:00 – Chequered Flag

MotoGP – Argentina (ITV4)
04/04 – 22:00 to 23:00 – Highlights

Formula E – Long Beach (online via FIAFormulaE.com and YouTube)
02/04 – 16:10 to 17:10 – Practice 1
02/04 – 18:25 to 19:10 – Practice 2
02/04 – 19:45 to 21:10 – Qualifying

Formula E – Long Beach
02/04 – 23:00 to 01:30 – Race (ITV4)
03/04 – 09:30 to 10:25 – Highlights (ITV)

British Touring Car Championship – Brands Hatch (ITV4)
03/04 – 10:15 to 18:15 – Races

IndyCar Series – Phoenix (BT Sport 2)
02/04 – 02:00 to 05:00 – Race

As always, if anything changes, I’ll update the schedule.

Updated on March 30th to reflect the Formula E lead commentator announcement.

Live streaming fails to impress for inaugural Mexico City ePrix

The inaugural Mexico City ePrix peaked with 331k across live and highlights this past weekend, overnight viewing figures show. However, numbers were dented by the lack of live coverage on ITV’s portfolio of channels and failed to pick up through live streaming.

Live coverage of the Formula E race, broadcast live on BT Sport Europe on Saturday (12th March), averaged 20k (0.12%) from 21:45 to 23:30, peaking with 38k (0.21%) at 22:00. It was the first time that BT Sport had covered the series live, as ITV4 were covering the snooker World Grand Prix tournament on Saturday evening. ITV4 aired delayed coverage from 23:15, which was watched by a further 38k (0.6%), peaking with 75k (0.8%) at 23:30.

The combined ‘live’ audience of 58k and combined peak audience of 113k is significantly down on the live ITV numbers for Punta del Este and Buenos Aires. Highlights of the race, broadcast on ITV’s main channel from 09:30 to 10:25 on Sunday morning, averaged 163k (2.5%), peaking with 218k (3.3%). It is clear now that the highlights programme has settled into this region, although the Mexico programme did not see any uplift with viewers tuning in who would normally watch the live broadcast. The total combined audience is therefore 220k with a combined peak audience of 331k across the three programmes.

Elsewhere, the 2016 IndyCar Series began on BT Sport//ESPN on Sunday evening. The race, airing live from 16:30 to 19:10, averaged 15k (0.09%), peaking with 29k. If anything, that is where IndyCar tends to be in the viewing figures, so no change on that front.

Live streaming
Despite Formula E not airing live on ITV4, a jump in numbers for their live streaming did not materialise. Around 2,000 devices were watching Formula E’s live stream of the Mexico City ePrix on YouTube, with around 260 devices active on the Daily Motion stream (note: I made reference to ‘people’ as opposed to ‘devices’ on Twitter, the latter is the more correct terminology – four people could be watching one device).

Earlier on Saturday, around 3,200 devices were watching the Indy Lights race on YouTube, with 2,200 devices watching Formula E’s qualifying session. The reason Formula E’s number is higher for qualifying than the race is because the race stream would have been geo-blocked in a lot more countries than a few hours earlier. Either way, these numbers are very low and show why, for the likes of Formula E, television is still king and should not be forgotten.

It is worth emphasising that, whilst YouTube is huge, live streaming on YouTube is not, the most popular stream as I write this has 4,700 devices watching it. In comparison, over on Twitch, the top 20 streams all have over 4,700 devices watching. The most popular stream has 32,800 viewers/devices watching it as of writing. This explains, to some degree, why Formula E is trying to tap into the Twitch market as that is where the viewers are, at the moment Twitch is one of Formula E’s competitors despite the two not being in direct competition.

Scheduling: The 2016 Qatar MotoGP

After a titanic battle between Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo last year, with Marc Marquez getting involved at the end, the 2016 MotoGP championship has a lot to live up to. Unusually, the action gets underway on the same day as the start of the Formula One season in Australia, the first time that has happened since 1995 – back then it was Formula One in Brazil and MotoGP in Eastern Creek, Australia.

The main news over the Winter is that Suzi Perry will be part of BT Sport’s MotoGP team for the 2016 season, presenting alongside Craig Doyle. Perry last presented MotoGP in 2009 with the BBC. Presenting duties have since travelled past Jennie Gow, Matt Roberts, Melanie Sykes and more recently the aforementioned Doyle. Perry and Doyle will be joined by Keith Huewen and Julian Ryder, now in their third season as commentators on BT Sport.

BT Sport’s 2016 coverage kicks off with a preview show live on Thursday afternoon from Qatar. Doyle presents the programme, with regular MotoGP faces Gavin Emmett and Neil Hodgson alongside him. BT’s post-race show, The Chequered Flag returns for a second year. Notably, in the past few days, Iwan Thomas has been removed from the description for that show. I don’t know his or Abi Griffiths’ status with regards to BT’s MotoGP coverage this year, but I will update this site if we get any updates on that front.

As has been the case since this deal came into effect, ITV4 will again be screening highlights every Monday after a race weekend which is good news for those of you that do not have access to BT Sport. BT Sport reaped the rewards of a fantastic MotoGP season last year, and they will be hoping that viewing figures continue to increase as year three of their coverage gets underway. In the next few days,

MotoGP – Qatar (BT Sport 2)
17/03 – 14:00 to 15:00 – Preview
17/03 – 15:00 to 19:45 – Practice
18/03 – 14:45 to 19:00 – Practice
19/03 – 14:30 to 18:30 – Qualifying
20/03 – 14:45 to 19:00 – Races
=> 14:45 – Moto3
=> 16:15 – Moto2
=> 17:45 – MotoGP
20/03 – 19:00 to 20:00 – Chequered Flag

MotoGP – Qatar (BT Sport Xtra)
20/03 – 12:45 to 14:45 – Warm Up

MotoGP – Qatar (ITV4)
21/03 – 20:00 to 21:00 – Highlights

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

Update on March 16th – Perry has confirmed that she will not be in Qatar. Her first appearance with the BT team will be in Jerez. Furthermore, both Thomas and Griffiths are no longer part of BT’s team.

Scheduling: The 2016 Mexico City ePrix / IndyCar opener

Formula E heads into new territory in more ways than one for round five of the 2015-16 season. Next weekend is the first race for the series in Mexico, but also is the first race not to be shown live on ITV in the UK. Due to a snooker event, ITV4 will be airing delayed coverage later in the evening.

ITV’s delayed coverage will have the usual studio build-up and race reaction with Jennie Gow presenting alongside Jaime Alguersuari and Marc Priestley. On the Formula E World Feed, Scott Speed is deputising for Dario Franchitti, the latter is in St. Petersburg for IndyCar next weekend. It means that Jack Nicholls and Franchitti will now not be together until the Paris ePrix on April 23rd, as Nicholls will be missing the Long Beach round due to his Formula 1 commitments with BBC Radio 5 Live.

> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Beijing ePrix
> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Putrajaya ePrix
> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Punta del Este ePrix
> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Buenos Aires ePrix

As a result of ITV4 not showing the race live, it means that the race will be available for UK viewers to watch online as well as BT Sport Europe. It is the first time that BT have shown a Formula E race live. Obviously the viewing figures for both that and the YouTube stream will be interesting to monitor as a comparison to ITV4’s usual numbers.

Next weekend marks the beginning of the aforementioned IndyCar Series from St. Petersburg. The series will again be broadcast on BT Sport in 2016 as part of a deal that runs through to the end of 2022.

The schedule as usual can be found below:

Formula E – Mexico City (online via FIAFormulaE.com and YouTube)
12/03 – 14:10 to 15:10 – Practice 1
12/03 – 16:25 to 17:10 – Practice 2
12/03 – 17:45 to 19:10 – Qualifying
12/03 – 21:30 to 23:30 – Race

Formula E – Mexico City
12/03 – 21:30 to 23:30 – Race Live (Virgin Media – channel 997)
12/03 – 21:45 to 23:30 – Race Live (BT Sport Europe)
12/03 – 23:15 to 01:15 – Race (ITV4)
13/03 – 09:30 to 10:25 – Highlights (ITV)

IndyCar Series – St. Petersburg (BT Sport//ESPN)
13/03 – 16:30 to 19:30 – Race

As always I will update the schedule if anything changes.

Update on March 11th at 19:40 – Virgin Media will be showing the race live in the channel slot 997 tomorrow evening. The reason for the strange channel number is for Virgin Media customers that do not have access to BT Sport Europe. It will be interesting to see if the programme has the BT Sport Europe DOG. If it does not have BT Sport graphics, then this is a clean feed straight from Formula E, which will be the first time we’ve had that happen for Formula E in the UK. There’s clearly some flexibility in the contract that allows this to happen.