24 Hours of Le Mans records highest rating in five years

The 24 Hours of Le Mans recorded its highest rating in five years this past weekend, overnight viewing figures across Europe and in the United Kingdom show.

British Eurosport, which broadcast the entire race live, averaged 77,000 viewers (1.0 percent) from 13:45 on Saturday to 14:15 on Sunday. The race peaked with 248,000 viewers on Sunday afternoon as the race came to a conclusion.

24 Hours of Le Mans – 2011 vs 2012 vs 2013
13:45 to 19:30 – 46,000 vs 77,000 vs 103,000
19:30 to 02:00 – 45,000 vs 39,000 vs 65,000
02:00 to 09:00 – 16,000 vs 16,000 vs 26,000
09:00 to 14:15 – 97,000 vs 76,000 vs 130,000

The good ratings pattern was repeated across Europe, with the Eurosport Twitter account tweeting the following earlier today: “Eurosport has just had its best average LM24 audience for 5 years! 18 million different European viewers watched the coverage in total, up 12% on 2012”

For those wondering, I suspect 18 million is a reach figure, which would be the amount of people that watched at least three minutes of their coverage across Europe.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 9th June, 2013) – ratings delayed

This appears to be turning into a recurring theme, unfortunately. Another week, another BARB ratings delay, so for the moment this post is a bit of a placeholder for the next six weeks.

Over on BBC, their Canadian Grand Prix broadcast averaged 4.68 million viewers, and was ninth in their top 30 for the week. In a very good example of how little live sport timeshifts, this is only 70,000 viewers higher than the overnight rating. The BTCC broadcast on Sunday afternoon (9th June) did not make ITV4’s top 10, meaning it averaged less than 287,000 viewers.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 2nd June, 2013)

Very glad to say that we actually have some official ratings this week. So, without further ado, here are the ratings from BARB:

1 – 43k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 23k – The F1 Show (Saturday, 08:00)
3 – 20k – 1991 Canadian Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 20:00)
4 – 16k – Monaco Grand Prix Highlights (Wednesday, 21:44)
5 – 15k – The F1 Show (Sunday, 11:00)
6 – 14k – Monaco Grand Prix Replay (Monday, 19:00)
7 – 13k – The F1 Show (Saturday, 17:00)
8 – 12k – Monaco Grand Prix Highlights (Tuesday, 20:00)
9 – 9k – Legends (Friday, 19:00)
10 – 8k – Porsche Supercup: Monaco (Sunday, 20:47)

One of the best set of ratings we’ve seen for a non race week in a while. The channel reached 553,000 viewers, which is the best for a non race week since the post Malaysia week back in March.

One point of note though is how the F1 Midweek Report does not make the top ten, meaning that its figures remain under 10,000 viewers.

Elsewhere, the Isle of Man TT filled most of ITV4’s top 10 with figures of 349,000, 329,000, 368,000, 482,000 and 710,000 respectively – figures are up on the same week last year.

Canadian Grand Prix ratings improve around Europe

After being overshadowed by Euro 2012 last year, ratings for the Canadian Grand Prix rose around Europe this past weekend, overnight ratings show. The first important thing I believe is worth noting is that this year the Canadian Grand Prix was more in prime time than previous years, with the race beginning at 19:00 UK time and 20:00 European time, right in the heart of prime time, meaning that audiences could be maximised.

This was most evident in Spain, where the Canadian Grand Prix soared to its highest rating since at least 2007. The race this past Sunday had a race average of 5.69 million viewers (33.5 percent share). This was up half a million on 2012 and over a million viewers higher than 2008, 2010 and 2011.

Canadian Grand Prix ratings in Spain
2008 – 2.72m (22.4%) pre-race; 4.52m (35.3%); 3.42m (25.1%) post-race
2010 – 1.75m (13.5%) pre-race; 4.57m (34.5%); 2.99m (23.5%) post-race
2011 – 1.54m (13.1%) pre-race; 3.59m (24.5%); 2.01m (10.8%) post-race
2012 – ?.??m (??.?%) pre-race; 5.10m (33.5%) race; 2.09m (12.5%) pre-race
2013 – 2.47m (19.1%) pre-race; 5.69m (35.3%) race; 4.70m (24.5%) post-race

Italy was another country to see high ratings. The race in Italy had 7.72 million viewers (31.9 percent share) on Rai 1 with a further 1.04 million viewers on Sky Sport F1, Italy adopting the same model as seen in the United Kingdom from this season onwards. In comparison, the World Superbikes in the daytime from Portugal averaged 1.08 million viewers, a 6 percent share. F1’s figures were up on 2011 and 2012, albeit only marginally an increase on 2012.

Canadian Grand Prix ratings in Italy
2011 – 6.70m (32.8%)
2012 – 5.67m (25.7%) and 7.93m (32.4%)*
2013 – 7.72m (31.8%) and 1.04m

* race switched channels halfway through due to Euro 2012

Whilst the picture was good in Spain and Italy, the picture was not as rosy in Germany. Despite Sebastian Vettel winning comfortably, viewing figures were down on 2010 and 2011. Yes, they were up on 2012, but this was to be expected as the 2012 race went up against Euro 2012 competition. Quotenmeter notes how the race on Sunday, which averaged 5.79 million across RTL and Sky Sport F1, was down in the target demographics, noting how “RTL will rejoice when the F1 moves to the afternoons again”. Ouch…

Canadian Grand Prix ratings in Germany
2010 – 6.67m (29.2%)
2011 – 6.76m (34.4%)
2012 – 4.93m and 0.34m (1.0%)
2013 – 5.38m and 0.41m (1.3%)

All of the German ratings are from the same website so I assume that the comparison is like-to-like. Either way, it is interesting to see the ratings around Europe, and Canada is normally a good indicator as to how things are fairing due to its timeslot.

5.2 million watch Canadian Grand Prix

An average of 5.2 million viewers watched the Canadian Grand Prix across BBC One and Sky Sports F1 yesterday, overnight viewing figures show. The figures are up on last year’s ratings, which hit a six year low thanks to coverage being exclusively live on Sky Sports.

Yesterday’s coverage on BBC One from 18:15 to 21:10 averaged 4.61 million viewers, a 23.6 percent viewing share. A further 624,000 viewers watched on Sky Sports F1 from 17:30 to 22:00, bringing a combined average of approximately 5.2 million viewers. Amusingly, the combined average is higher than last year’s combined peak figure – which shows the significant effect that live free to air prime time viewing can have on the overall figures. As of writing, I have not seen a peak figure yet, but looking at the numbers above, I imagine it is between 6.5 million and 7 million viewers.

It is worth noting that the average is down on the 6.1 million number and the 8.5 million peak seen in 2011. This should not be considered a surprise really when you compare yesterday’s race to 2011’s race – the latter is much more likely to bring in casual viewers thanks to how that race developed.

Canadian Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 5.74 million
2003 – 4.00 million
2004 – 3.58 million
2005 – 4.97 million
2006 – 2.74 million
2007 – 4.69 million
2008 – 3.99 million
2009 – no race
2010 – 5.31 million
2011 – 6.21 million
2012 – 3.46 million / 3.79 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
2013 – 5.23 million / 5.45 million

One thing that you will spot is how the ratings fluctuate for Canada massively year-on-year. The odd years tend to do better than the even years, the reason being that the even years tend to find themselves either against the European Championship or the World Cup football, which inevitably dents the F1. I think overall yesterday’s rating is good, not fantastic, but a solid performance nevertheless.

Qualifying on BBC One averaged 2.41 million viewers from 17:00 to 19:10. Once Sky’s rating is factored in, it will be down on 2011 but up on 2010’s number of 2.35 million (albeit that was on BBC Two) and level with 2012’s number of 2.68 million. The more impressive number of the weekend for me was for practice three, which averaged a very respectable 700,000 viewers on BBC Two.

As of writing, I have not yet done the year-on-year comparisons ready for the mid-season blog posts in August, but I think (barring any significant decreases or increases) that the numbers will be in-line with 2012, but again down on the ratings highs we were used to seeing in 2011.

The 2012 Canadian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here. Note: The ratings information comes from Digital Spy, Media Guardian and BARB.