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.

Italian Grand Prix hits six year ratings low

The Italian Grand Prix hit a six year ratings low yesterday, overnight ratings figure suggest. Whilst Sky Sports F1 figures are unavailable, the BBC’s figures give a clear indication of the overall figures. Live coverage on BBC One, from 12:10 to 15:15 averaged 2.85 million viewers, a 26 percent share according to ITV Media. The figure is nearly identical to their Belgian Grand Prix viewership figure. The BBC’s race programme recorded a 15-minute peak figure of 3.90 million viewers at 14:00.

Despite BBC’s figures being identical to Belgium, Sky Sports F1’s figures increased by 36 percent. Whilst the channel averaged 336,000 for their Belgium programme, their Italian programme from 11:30 to 16:15 averaged 457,400 viewers. The lack of rise makes me wonder if Sky F1 was dented significantly more for BBC during the Belgian race day when the race went against two big Premier League games. After all, it is unusual to see Sky increase, but BBC stable. This is how things turn out…

Italian Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 2.85 million
2003 – 2.96 million
2004 – 2.63 million
2005 – 2.21 million
2006 – 1.89 million
2007 – 2.61 million
2008 – 3.55 million
2009 – 3.69 million
2010 – 3.51 million
2011 – 4.23 million
2012 – 4.39 million / 4.64 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
– overnight figures were 4.22 million / 4.46 million
2013 – 3.31 million / 3.47 million (overnight rating)

The official figures may push 2013’s rating above 2010, but it will be very tight. Apart from 2011 and 2012, it has to be said that the Italian race has historically rated low, the shorter race duration does not play in its favour. To quote something someone said last year, I have to say that yesterday’s race was probably one that was also “made for highlights“. Nevertheless, I do think yesterday’s figure is quite disappointing, there was no Premier League football on Sky to dent the F1, so I would have hoped for it to have been considerably above the Belgian figures from two weeks ago.

From here we move to Singapore, which has traditionally done very well, last year’s low was still 700,000 above yesterday’s rating. The fly-aways can vary, and this year it will depend too on which way the championship swings as to whether more lows are recorded, or whether Formula 1 does bounce back as the season marches towards the finale.

The 2012 Italian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Update on September 13th – Broadcast magazine have reported the Italian Grand Prix ratings for Sky Sports F1, as thus I have amended the report above.

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.

Belgian Grand Prix ratings around Europe

Whilst The F1 Broadcasting Blog traditionally focusses on the ratings picture in the UK, occasionally, he does like to cast his eye further a field to see what is happening in other places around Europe. Unfortunately, I am unable to find many historical comparisons below, but thought that the figures would still be worth posting. I should note that the figures below are race average figures and not programme averages that I traditionally report for the UK ratings.

Starting off in Germany, Sebastian Vettel’s victory attracted 5.75 million viewers to RTL, with a 34.9 percent share according to Quotenmeter. More impressively perhaps though is that the race attracted a 29.3 percent share in the younger demographics. In Spain, the race itself had 3.69 million viewers, up 601,000 viewers year-on-year perhaps unsurprisingly given that Fernando Alonso was not eliminated on the first bend this year!

GP2 and GP3 averaged 297,000 and 203,000 viewers despite competition from the MotoGP races. Moto2 averaged 819,000, MotoGP averaged 1.76 million and 530,000 by Moto3. In France, the Formula 1 averaged 850,000 (28.0%) on Canal+, a strong figure when you consider that there are no French title contenders just yet. Lastly, over in Belgian, 379,000 viewers and an impressive 42 percent share watched the race.

In order, again race averages:

1) 5.75 million (34.9%) – Germany
2) 4.40 million (41.6%) – United Kingdom
3) 3.69 million (35.5%) – Spain
4) 850,000 (28.0%) – France
5) 379,000 (42.0%) – Belgium

Already those five countries combined average 15 million viewers in total. When factoring in every country, this figure is probably doubled – to about 30 million viewers, pushing up to 40 million viewers per race.

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.