MotoGP and Le Mans close in UK ratings battle

Live coverage of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on British Eurosport drew similar numbers to that who watched BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage, unofficial overnight UK viewing figures show.

24 Hours of Le Mans
The famous endurance race was screened live across British Eurosport and its sister channel British Eurosport 2 from 13:45 on Saturday to 14:15 on Sunday, the numbers below take into account the various channel switches. The race, in the UK, averaged 56k (0.7%), down on the 70k (1.0%) for last year’s race. The 5-minute peak of 148k (2.0%) recorded at 14:00 on Saturday is down on last year’s peak of 248k, which occurred at the end of the race. The average number is up on 2011 and 2012, however.

The numbers are as you would expect for an endurance race. Hovering around 100k for the first few hours, figures spiked at 15:50 with 141k (1.7%) as heavy rain hit the Circuit de la Sarthe. Numbers stayed around 70k to 90k into the evening, before dropping into the early hours – at some points recording a figure of ‘zero’ (which in ratings terms means less than 5k!). Numbers picked back up on Sunday morning, 75k (1.1%) were watching at 09:25, hitting 100k (1.4%) just over an hour later, climbing to 140k (1.9%) at 12:05 as Porsche’s charge came to a halt. Figures dipped to under 100k, re-peaking with 119k (1.4%) at the end of the race.

Considering the World Cup competition, the figures are perfectly fine, although as always I would have liked to see figures a bit higher. The same analysis applies here as it does for the IndyCar Series, if none of the mainstream media are going to cover it, then ratings will remain relatively low. Personally, I’d love to see a bit of coverage on ITV4 again to get endurance racing back on the agenda, time will tell. One series that was getting attention, but decided to reject live free-to-air coverage was MotoGP. And depending on which time frame you choose to use from Sunday, you’ll get interesting results.

MotoGP
BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage on Sunday from 09:30 to 14:15 averaged 95k (1.2%). The Moto3 race peaked with 79k (1.1%) at 10:00, whilst the Moto2 race peaked with 78k (1.1%) at 11:25. The brilliant MotoGP race, won by Marc Marquez, peaked with 196k (2.4%) at 13:35. It goes without saying that the BT Sport 2 figures pale into comparison to what BBC Two averaged last year. BBC Two’s programme last year, from 12:30 to 14:05 averaged 914k (10.1%). BT Sport 2, for the same timeslot yesterday averaged 142k (1.8%). The Barcelona race last year peaked with 1.22m (13.3%), meaning that BBC Two, on average and peak was six times higher than BT Sport’s figures.

From race to race the ratio fluctuates from between four and nine times higher for BT Sport compared with BBC in 2013, but the difference is still alarming. I haven’t mentioned British Eurosport where MotoGP is concerned as their figures are not readily available, however it would result in approximately an extra 100k being added to 2013’s figures, making the ratio wider. I still maintain that Dorna’s choice to have ITV4 on-board was an eleventh hour deal, after all, why would BT Sport and MotoGP have the word ‘exclusive’ in a press release just a few weeks earlier? In my view, the ITV deal was the saving grace, something that the masses would still be able to access, and are doing with up to half a million viewers watching the Monday night highlight shows. It doesn’t fully bridge the gap left by BBC’s absence, but it closes the gap.

Comparison
It is worth noting that all the numbers exclude those who watched via BT Sport’s and Eurosport’s respective apps and, for the 2013 MotoGP comparison above, exclude those who watched on BBC iPlayer. There are several comparisons that can be made, for complete clarity, all the potential comparisons are below so blog readers can make up their own minds.

From 09:30 to 14:15, the 24 Hours of Le Mans averaged higher than BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage. In that time period, 93k (1.2%) were watching British Eurosport and 89k (1.2%) were watching BT Sport 2. Of course, that figure includes Moto2 and Moto3. If you take the MotoGP portion, as defined by BT from 12:45 to 14:15, then the averages for Eurosport and BT are 95k (1.2%) and 143k (1.8%) respectively. The peak figures, as noted above, for Le Mans was 148k (2.0%) and 196k (2.4%) for the MotoGP on BT.

Either way, the gap between the two races was close, perhaps closer than what BT Sport would have liked.

BT Sport announces Melanie Sykes’s MotoGP departure

Melanie Sykes has parted company with BT Sport, it has been confirmed this evening, with Craig Doyle taking on more responsibilities with the team.

In a statement issued to The F1 Broadcasting Blog, BT Sport said: “We regret to say that Mel Sykes will no longer be a part of the presenting team on MotoGP for BT Sport. BT Sport’s approach is to operate a team of presenters and experts who work across both live and magazine programmes. Mel has other broadcasting commitments which prevent her from being able to do this and as a result working across BT Sport MotoGP programming is no longer viable. We wish Mel all the best in the future. Our team remain the same, we have a fantastic team of presenters and experts working across MotoGP, as the rugby season comes to an end, Craig Doyle will present more live MotoGP.”

Sykes was announced as BT Sport’s MotoGP presenter on February 14th after emerging as a late front runner for the role. Three and a half months later, and the partnership has ended. I made comments about the announcement at the same time, however, her parting company with BT Sport after four races was something that no one predicted. She was absent from BT’s Le Mans coverage, which their press office said was due to “personal circumstances”. Like I said at the time, I don’t want to be drawn into that on this blog because it has nothing to do with her presenting. The phrase that I do not understand at all from BT’s press release is ‘other broadcasting commitments’. Surely this is something that is agreed before the final contract is signed? If personal circumstances is the reason for her departure, then fair enough, but that phrase really confuses me, because it suggests that either BT did not negotiate the contract properly or Sykes was unaware of what was involved. At this point, I wonder who else was in the frame, not that they can go and approach them because I imagine none of those candidates are free.

On the presenting side of things, I don’t think the studio helped her one bit. Whilst she looked out of her depth in Qatar, you know what, part of me would have liked to see her out in Argentina and Texas. I’m not saying she would have been amazing, however, having her present from the studio in Argentina and Texas was completely the wrong decision and meant that she could not get used to the live and vibrant MotoGP paddock. The opening weekend in Qatar was not great to put it lightly, but what is done is done. BT have to take some blame here, and clearly their calculated risk to take Sykes on has not paid off. In some ways, I think BT have thrown Sykes under a bus through no fault of her own.

It looks like we will be getting Craig Doyle on Sunday’s and Chris Hollins possibly on Saturday’s. Whilst the rugby season has finished, so has the football season. With that in mind, surely Jake Humphrey has to be a contender to front some of BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage through the Summer? Personally, I’d say that is a no-brainer, however I’m not convinced that it will happen. It’s fair to say that BT’s coverage from a personnel stand-point has got off to the worst possible start. I think some will call that an exaggeration, but can you imagine if Suzi Perry or Simon Lazenby decided to leave their respective teams a quarter of the way through a season? No, me neither.

Melanie Sykes’s BT Sport MotoGP status

To clear up the Melanie Sykes situation regarding her presenting BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage.

I e-mailed BT Sport’s press office yesterday asking about her status, and I quote: “Can you confirm whether Melanie Sykes has been dropped as BT Sport’s MotoGP presenter?” Their response to this blog was: “Mel isn’t presenting this weekend due to personal circumstances. Chris [Hollins] is presenting [yesterday] and Craig Doyle [today].”

After a few tweets, I read nothing into it, ‘personal circumstances’ being the key phrase. Which is why I didn’t blog about it, it has no place for discussion in the public domain. I don’t do tabloid reporting, it is not for me to start discussing what ‘personal circumstances’ may or may not mean. It has no place on this blog. The other key phrase was ‘this weekend’, in other words she will be back presenting for them.

This morning, Mat Oxley has tweeted saying “Anyone noticed that Melanie Sykes ain’t there in the BT Sport studio? Parting of the ways, apparently.” That changes things substantially. I also cannot remember a previous occasion where a presenter has decided to leave a quarter of the way through the season. BT did not elaborate on their comment yesterday when I put Oxley’s tweet to them.

I’ll update this post if I hear anything more.

Update on May 28th – Craig Doyle tweeted yesterday with an image to the Isle of Man TT schedule for the week. The image had some hand writing next to the side of Sunday stating ‘Mugello GP’, which clearly indicates that he is (at least as of that tweet) presenting BT’s coverage this Sunday. Whilst Jon in the comments picked it up, the tweet has since been deleted.

Update on May 30th – It’s official. Sykes and BT have parted company.

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 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.