BTCC is best of the rest on Sunday

Away from the Formula 1 last Sunday, which peaked with 5.55m (46.3%), there was a lot of motor sport action on Sunday, albeit most of it occurred in the early hours. Nevertheless, as expected, the figures are once again a reminder that, in the UK at least, the F1 stands head and shoulders above anything else. And sadly, where BTCC and MotoGP are concerned, viewers appear to be tuning out…

The factors associated with both though are different. The British Touring Car Championship finale aired on ITV4 across a whopping eight hours, from 10:15 to 18:30. The entire programme averaged 186k (1.6%) according to overnight viewing figures, peaking with 360k (3.6%) at 15:00 at the conclusion of race two. The first of three races peaked with 99k (1.1%) at 11:40, whilst the final race peaked with 357k (2.0%) at 17:45, the huge difference in number can be put down to the fact that race one clashed with the build-up and early laps of the Russian Grand Prix, clearly taking a bite out of the audience.

I haven’t looked at all the numbers in detail, but there does appear to have been a fairly big fall in comparison to 2012 and 2013. Last year’s season finale averaged 328k (2.6%), peaking with 697k (3.8%) for the final race of the day, although that was with no F1 clash. Even so, that doesn’t account for the peak figure, outside of the F1 timeslot, dropping by almost half. I’m not sure why the figures have dropped year-on-year, but something has changed to make people turn off.

Meanwhile, over in Motegi, BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage peaked with 108k (10.1%) at 06:05. Their live programme from 02:45 to 07:15 averaged 42k (3.8%), with the MotoGP portion from 05:30 averaging 74k (6.4%). As always at this point, it is worth me pointing out that the figures include anyone who timeshifted that programme before 02:00 on Monday morning, it does not mean that 108k were up watching MotoGP at 06:05 in the morning, it just means that an average of 108k watched that five-minute ‘segment’ before 02:00 on Monday, which is the cut off for overnight ratings. BT’s repeat averaged 34k (0.3%) from 12:00 to 13:30, peaking with 79k (0.7%). ITV4’s highlights programme on Monday evening brought 283k (1.3%), which I believe is their lowest MotoGP rating of the year so far.

What that means is that the MotoGP year-on-year comparisons with the BBC are worse than usual. 204k (18.4%) watched BBC Two’s live airing last year, with 900k (8.1%) catching the repeat. A combined audience of 1.10m last year compares with about 391k for this year, which is a 64 percent drop. BBC’s peak was 1.33m, with 281k (24.1%) for the live airing and 1.05m (9.2%) for the re-run. The ITV4 rating surprises me the most, given that Motegi was the title winning race for Marc Marquez, I would have expected that to pick up one or two casual viewers, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

The weekend also seen both the Bathurst 1000 and the latest round of the World Touring Car Championship take place, again in the early morning. The latter peaked with 29k (0.4%), whilst the Bathurst 1000 peaked with under 20,000 viewers.

Scheduling: The 2014 Russian Grand Prix

The next round of the Formula One season is just a few days away, however there is a lot of other motor sport action next weekend. For those wishing to jump to the schedule, click the links below.

– Thursday 9th October
– Friday 10th October
– Saturday 11th October
– Sunday 12th October
– Wednesday 15th October
– Classic F1

Beginning with the F1, and Jack Nicholls and Bruno Senna are in for BBC Radio and Sky Sports respectively. The race will be the last for Nicholls this season, whilst Senna will also be with Sky for USA and Brazil. On the schedule front, it is a weird one with timings on Friday two hours earlier, and an hour earlier than a typical European race during the latter end of the weekend. Due to a clash with the Daily Politics, practice two on BBC Two is on a tape delay, however it will air live behind the Red Button. Another oddity concerns GP3, for some reason, the organisers have stuck GP3’s first race of the weekend in between F1’s final practice session and qualifying. What that means is that Sky’s qualifying programme is split into two.

Aside from the F1, there are a plethora of other events throughout the weekend: the BTCC season finale, Bathurst 1000, the 6 Hours of Fuji and MotoGP! The WEC will be tape-delayed on Motors TV and screened live only from Eurosport’s bonus online channel. Considering how other events try and avoid the F1, I’m unsure how we’ve ended up with several top flight series on the same weekend as the F1. In any case, the schedule as always can be found below…

Thursday 9th October
12:00 to 12:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:15 to 23:30 – Gear Up for Russia (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 10th October
06:45 to 09:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
06:55 to 08:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
09:00 to 09:50 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
10:45 to 12:55 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
10:55 to 12:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
12:55 to 13:35 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
13:20 to 15:00 – F1: Practice 2 Repeat (BBC Two)
14:00 to 14:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
15:00 to 16:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 11th October
06:30 to 07:05 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
08:45 to 10:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:15 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
10:15 to 10:35 – F1: Qualifying Build-Up (Sky Sports F1)
10:35 to 11:20 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
11:15 to 13:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
11:20 to 13:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
13:35 to 15:05 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)
23:30 to 07:30 – V8S: Bathurst 1000 (Motors TV)
00:30 to 07:30 – V8S: Bathurst 1000 (BT Sport 1)

Sunday 12th October
02:45 to 07:15 – MotoGP: Motegi (BT Sport 2)
07:30 to 13:40 – WEC: Fuji (Motors TV)
– tape delay
07:55 to 08:55 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:00 to 10:15 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
10:15 to 18:30 – BTCC: Brands Hatch (ITV4)
10:30 to 15:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 10:30 – Track Parade
=> 11:00 – Race
=> 14:30 – Paddock Live
11:00 to 14:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
14:15 to 15:15 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
15:15 to 16:15 – GP Heroes: Mario Andretti (Sky Sports F1)

Wednesday 15th October
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
06/10 – 21:15 to 22:30 – 1993 German Grand Prix Highlights
07/10 – 21:00 to 00:00 – 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix
08/10 – 21:00 to 23:45 – 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix
09/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2000 Belgian Grand Prix
10/10 – 16:00 to 16:45 – 1994 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
11/10 – 15:05 to 17:35 – 2008 British Grand Prix
11/10 – 20:20 to 21:20 – 1976 Season Review
12/10 – 19:45 to 20:45 – 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights
13/10 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2012 European Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
14/10 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1982 Monaco Grand Prix Highlights
15/10 – 21:00 to 22:00 – 1985 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
16/10 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2012 British Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
17/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2010 Belgian Grand Prix
18/10 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1991 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights
19/10 – 21:00 to 21:30 – 1987 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
20/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix
21/10 – 21:00 to 23:00 – TBA
22/10 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2005 Belgian Grand Prix
23/10 – 21:00 to 22:45 – 2003 British Grand Prix
24/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2010 German Grand Prix

If anything changes, I will update the schedule.

Looking back at the Marquez edition of MotoGP Tonight

If I’m going to be honest, I am not a MotoGP ‘super fan’. Whilst I do watch the MotoGP race each race weekend, I do not commit myself to watching of the other action. Sometimes I do watch MotoGP qualifying along with the accompanying BT Sport coverage, depending on what else is happening that particular weekend and dip in and out of Moto2 and Moto3 throughout the year.

The announcement that Marc Marquez was going to be on MotoGP Tonight was one that surprised me, in a pleasing way. Considering The F1 Show over on Sky Sports has never managed to get a current, or recent past, World Champion on their show (for example a Vettel or Button) in the past two and a half years, the fact that BT Sport managed to get the 2013 MotoGP champion on within their first year on air covering MotoGP I thought was quite a coup and reflects well on them. It left some wondering how Lewis Hamilton would fare as a guest on a live edition of The F1 Show. I personally would like to see this, the fact that Sky have not done this yet is surprising. If he wins the championship, then Sky should try and pull out all the stops to get him on the first F1 Show after Abu Dhabi.

Admittedly watching MotoGP Tonight with a high profile star compared to your run-of-the-mill studio episode of The F1 Show may leave me with a slightly biased opinion here, however from a presentation point of view, I did find several differences between the two shows. Starting with the similarities, and clearly both exist to do similar things. Previewing or reviewing a particular race, albeit to varying degrees, and getting the fans closer to the action. Both shows have a studio audience. Sometimes, this works well, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not going to regurgitate a piece from Daniel Puddicombe earlier this year, but he painted a clear picture of the positives that a studio audience brings back in April.

The first difference between the two shows, obviously is the studio. Which sounds stupid to say, but it is interesting to see how both are used. BT Sport have their expansive studio, yet cleverly make the crowd ‘huddle’ around almost, creating an intimate atmosphere, which worked well. Compare that (which you can see in the above video) to The F1 Show where the audience is spread around with the entire floor left to the presenters. It is amazing how much of a difference it makes. MotoGP Tonight looks colourful and inviting whereas The F1 Show could be in a spare studio in Sky’s headquarters for all we know (answer: it isn’t).

Without wanting to do a blow-by-blow account of the show, I’ll do a brief summary for those who did not watch. Craig Doyle and Iwan Thomas presented the show, with Marquez and Ross Noble as guests. Gavin Emmett and Abi Griffiths were also on hand. The great thing here was seeing Marquez in his own clothes, which might sound weird, but for me outlined that it was not Marc Marquez the rider coming to say things to please sponsors. It was Marc Marquez the person. It felt more personal as a result, as a viewer that is important to me and draws me in to a particular show or segment. It is more spontaneous this way, and it feels different too. Later in the first part of the show, Marquez leaped into Thomas’ arms which was mildly amusing to see!

The audience was clearly having fun and getting involved in the show, cheering, clapping, laughing whenever they see fit, which was in my view a complete 180 from The F1 Show where you rarely hear the audience when someone is talking, even if they try and make a joke. Whether the Sky audience are told beforehand to “be quiet”, or the MotoGP audience was more rowdier because of the guest I do not know, but it does not come across well to the viewers. We did get a bizarre moment later on as Thomas and Noble tried to demonstrate ‘bike leaning’ with limited success, it was interesting to say the least! The only slightly cheesy bit was James Toseland promoting his new single, although in the context of the show being genuinely light-hearted, I was fine with this. The tone of the show meant that it fitted in well. There was also the lean machine, which it was great to see Marquez on. Abi Griffiths worked the social media aspect, asking Marquez questions from fans.

Overall, I really enjoyed the hour. It was not designed to be a analytical look at the next race or previous race, it instead was designed to bring the viewers closer to the rider, and in my opinion BT Sport did that perfectly. I had someone say to me that the show was “everything [that] The F1 Show could, and should, be”. I wholeheartedly agree. Whilst I haven’t sampled any of the other MotoGP Tonight episodes on BT (surprisingly this wasn’t capitalised on the following week instead they had a hybrid Highlights show), I felt that they got this episode bang on the money.

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.

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.