Motor sport ratings (week ending 1st September, 2013)

Another seven days has passed which means it is times for the weekly BARB update, with MotoGP and IndyCar being the main highlights.

Live coverage of the MotoGP race from Silverstone officially averaged under 1.00 million viewers on BBC Two. This is not as surprising as it first seems given that it was longer than your typical MotoGP broadcast, with BBC live on air from 12:00 to 14:30 compared to usually 12:30 to 14:00. The overnight average from 12:00 to 14:30 was 856,000 viewers, with a 15-minute peak of 1.26 million at 13:30. The 12:30 to 14:00 overnight average was 1.04 million viewers, which is really not higher than your typical MotoGP race. As always, BARB have not reported ratings for Eurosport which is why I am unable to report their official ratings on here.

There was a motor sport double for ITV4 this week, with the Ulster Grand Prix highlights on Tuesday (27th August) averaging 250,000 viewers, whilst the Classic TT a day later averaged 243,000 viewers, both comfortably inside its top ten. On Sky Sports F1, there was a very unusual occurrence as The F1 Show was not the highest rated show of the week. That honour went to a repeat of the Midweek Report which averaged 28,000 viewers on Saturday evening (although I’m not entirely why). The F1 Show itself had 25,000 viewers, with the first airing of the Midweek Report recording 25,000 viewers. I think this is a combination of The F1 Show doing poorly by its standards this season, and the Midweek Report doing very well – which is an interesting anecdote considering the latter is filmed against a green screen and a shoe string budget.

Over on ESPN, live coverage of the IndyCar Series from Baltimore brought 12,000 viewers to the channel.

Motor sport ratings (week ending 25th August, 2013)

Again a late ratings piece because there really is not a lot of ratings up on BARB. At first I did not see much point in publishing this post, but thought I should for completeness purposes.

Starting with ESPN, live coverage of the IndyCar Series from Sonoma averaged 8,000 viewers. Other than that, the only thing worth noting is highlights of the Silverstone Classic which brought 26,000 viewers to ITV4 +1.

Motors TV’s highest rated was 27,000 viewers for Hotrax Motorsport. Whatever that might be.

Motor sport ratings (week ending 18th August, 2013)

The Summer break may have continued for Formula 1, but MotoGP was back in action and is therefore the pick in this week’s BARB weekly official ratings.

The championship remained in America, heading to the Indianapolis circuit. An average of 1.26 million viewers watched the coverage on BBC Two from 18:30 to 20:00 on Sunday (18th August). It is the first time the race has made BBC Two’s top thirty in the past five years, so a positive sign there. Over on ITV4, highlights of the Silverstone Classic were shown on Thursday (15th August), with an audience of 264,000 viewers tuning in.

Sky Sports F1 was in ‘Summer shut down’ mode with the channel’s main offering being The F1 Show’s Season so Far programme, in which 33,000 viewers watched. Unsurprisingly it was one of the lower rated of the season, but that should not be seen as particularly season. What is disappointing is that highlights of the 1985 Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday (17th August) only averaged 6,000 viewers. Thankfully, the 1998 Grand Prix averaged 19,000 viewers a day later. Bear in mind that all the figures account for any one who watched within seven days. It seems that the classic races either do not appeal to many people, or many people just are not watching their recording within that time period.

Finishing off with Motors TV, six programmes averaged over 10,000 viewers. Bike World 2013 on Thursday was their highlight, bringing 22,000 viewers to the channel.

Motor sport ratings (week ending 11th August, 2013)

The reason this piece is up later than usual is because, there are not many motor sport ratings on BARB to actually report. Sky Sports F1’s top ten is a delayed, so unfortunately there is no rating to report for the fantastic Journalists special of The F1 Show.

An impressive rating that has been reported however are highlights of the World Rally Championship (WRC) round from Finland. Although the ITV4 airing did not make the top ten on Wednesday (9th August) at 20:00, the timeshifted airing made ITV4 +1’s top ten at 21:00, averaging 37,000 viewers. I suspect the ITV4 airing averaged over 100,000 viewers, which obviously would be the highest WRC has been in several years, thanks to ITV4 reaching many more people than ESPN previously did. I haven’t seen any detailed WRC figures, but if I do, I will post them.

I revealed back in March that the rights are for this season only. I really, really hope that ITV4 continue screening it in 2014, it would be disastrous if the series was thrown back into the abyss where viewing figures are concerned. Thankfully, if the figures above suggest, the World Rally Championship is again showing signs of life in the UK after a torrid few years.

Elsewhere, the viewing figures for Motors TV’s top ten ranged from 4,000 to 13,000 viewers, NASCAR and V8 Supercars their highlights.

Motor sport ratings (week ending 4th August, 2013)

Motor sport is now officially in Summer recess, but thankfully there were some series back in action to keep things ticking over. Unfortunately, ratings for BT Sport 2, Motors TV and Sky Sports F1 have not been reported by BARB and are therefore delayed.

ITV4’s contribution comes via the British Touring Car Championship which averaged 285,000 viewers across seven hours on Sunday (4th August). You can see why it was a no brainer for both parties to extend their contract earlier this year considering the healthy ratings it delivers. Highlights of the Goodwood Festival of Speed followed, averaging 301,000 viewers.

Over on BBC Two, the last in the series of Top Gear, with Mark Webber as guest, averaged 5.49 million viewers. Figures are slightly down on what it used to achieve on the channel, but iPlayer plays a huge part with Top Gear, as it regularly gets over 1 million viewers on there which paints a better picture of the shows performance.