From BARB:

1 – 58k – Live Barcelona Testing: Day 3 (Saturday, 14:00)
2 – 47k – Live Barcelona Testing: Day 4 (Sunday, 14:00)
3 – 47k – Day 1: Barcelona Test 2 (Thursday, 21:00)
4 – 43k – The F1 Show (Friday, 16:30)
5 – 42k – Car Unveiling: McLaren (Saturday, 16:30)
6 – 41k – Ted’s Notebook: Barcelona Test 2, Day 1 (Thursday, 21:18)
7 – 38k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
8 – 34k – Barcelona Testing: Day 1 Replay (Thursday, 18:30)
9 – 32k – Live Barcelona Testing: Day 1 (Thursday, 14:00)
10 – 29k – Ted’s Notebook: Barcelona Test 2, Day 4 (Sunday, 21:23)

Most of the above I have summarised here from the overnight ratings, the only note being is that a lot of people do not seem to watch The F1 Show live or on the day and instead choose to watch it on Saturday or Sunday, the show timeshifting a fair bit in the official BARB ratings.

The channel during the testing week reached 1.12 million people across the week, by far the highest reach of the year. In comparison, the channel’s first weekend on air last year reached 1.76 million viewers. Although the reach there is lower, I think Sky will be pleased overall with the ratings for testing, and I can see it returning in 2014.

Unfortunately there is no update this week as BARB have not updated with the Sky Sports F1 data. Hopefully the ratings will appear in six weeks when they update again with their usual amendments.

Sky Sports F1’s coverage of testing maintained its viewership from Thursday, but failed to bring in many more viewers, suggesting that it had already reached ‘the peak’.

After an unusual dip on Friday, where only a combined average of 20,000 viewers tuned in to see the coverage, Saturday and Sunday fared better. Saturday’s coverage brought a combined average of 67,000 viewers to Sky Sports F1, peaking with 122,000 viewers. Despite the lack of competition, Sunday failed to improve and dropped slightly, with an average of 57,000 viewers, peaking with a combined 120,000 viewers. Despite no extraordinary peaks, Sky will no doubt be very pleased to see that the viewing figures were largely consistent over the course of the weekend. As explained on Thursday, I have combined the figures for the live showing and first repeat as I believe it better reflects the viewing figures to cater for those that may not be able to watch the first live airing. Also, all ratings exclude Sky 3D and Sky Go online as BARB do not report those ratings.

The highest individual rating was for Saturday’s live coverage, which averaged 56,000 viewers (0.6%), peaking with 99,000 viewers (1.1%). Below is a summary of the four days:

Thursday 28th February
14:00 – Live Testing: 32k (0.50%)
– peak: 44k (0.52%) at 16:00
18:30 – Testing Repeat: 33k (0.20%)
– peak: 75k (0.34%) at 20:30

Friday 1st March
14:00 – Live Testing: 9k (0.12%)
16:30 – The F1 Show: 8k (0.06%)
17:30 – Testing Repeat: 11k (0.06%)
20:00 – The F1 Show: 15k (0.06%)

Saturday 2nd March
14:00 – Live Testing: 56k (0.59%)
– peak: 99k (1.17%) at 14:15
18:30 – Testing Repeat: 11k (0.05%)
– peak: 23k (0.12%) at 18:30

Sunday 3rd March
14:00 – Live Testing: 46k (0.37%)
– peak: 77k (0.67%) at 14:50
18:30 – Testing Repeat: 11k (0.04%)
– peak: 43k (0.19%) at 18:40

Combined
28/02 – 65k (0.70%), peak: 119k (0.86%)
01/03 – 20k (0.18%)
02/03 – 67k (0.64%), peak: 122k (1.29%)
03/03 – 57k (0.41%), peak: 120k (0.86%)

I would be surprised if they increase the coverage for next year, as I think we had the right amount for the four days in Barcelona. Whether they choose to do that for all three tests in 2014, we shall see.

Sky Sports F1’s extensive coverage of testing peaked with 119,000 viewers across two airings, overnight figures show. The two and a half hour show, also across two airings, averaged 65,000 viewers.

The live show, from 14:00 to 16:30, averaged 32,000 viewers (0.5%), peaking with 44,000 at the conclusion of the session. The repeat, from 18:30 to 21:00, averaged 33,000 viewers (0.2%), peaking with 75,000 at 20:30. At this point you are probably thinking “but isn’t adding up two separate airings at different times making the figures look better than what they really are?”. On the one hand, yes. But on the other hand, the amount of people that would have watched both airings is incredibly small meaning that at least 95 percent of the viewers will be unique. Another factor here is that not all of the 32,000 viewers that watched the live show will have watched it ‘live’ anyway, and instead will have watched it at some point before the 02:00 cut-off to be included in the BARB overnight ratings.

So to have a peak audience of 119,000 viewers in my opinion is extremely impressive, especially as that does not include Sky 3D which will probably add a few extra thousand onto that figure. Also, the BARB ratings do not include those that watched on Sky Go, meaning that you are looking at about a 140,000 peak across the two airings when you factor those two things in.

Below is a full round-up of yesterday’s ratings, excluding Sky 3D who’s figures are not publicly released:

14:00 – Live Testing: 32k (0.5%)
– peak: 44k (0.52%) at 16:00
18:30 – Testing Repeat: 33k (0.2%)
– peak: 75k (0.34%) at 20:30
21:00 – Testing Round-Up: 41k (0.2%)
– peak: 43k (0.19%) at 21:00
21:15 – Ted’s Notebook: 34k (0.2%)
– peak: 44k (0.2%) at 21:25

Heading into the weekend, there is not a significant amount of opposition for the testing, with no Six Nations and unusually only one Premier League game live on Sky, so testing might just pick up more viewers than many might expect into Saturday and Sunday with dry weather and a lot of running anticipated. If early figures are to go by, then Sky have made the right decision to broadcast testing live, and may well be pushing Formula One Management (FOM) to let them do it again in the future.

From BARB:

1 – 34k – The F1 Show (Friday, 21:30)
2 – 31k – The F1 Show (Sunday, 19:00)
3 – 25k – The F1 Show (Friday, 18:30)
4 – 21k – Inside Track: Lewis at Mercedes (Tuesday, 19:46)
5 – 16k – Legends (Saturday, 14:00)
6 – 13k – Day 3: Jerez Test (Monday, 23:00)
7 – 13k – Car Unveiling: Red Bull (Friday, 19:30)
8 – 10k – Paul di Resta: 2013 Preparations (Tuesday, 19:30)
9 – 8k – Ted’s Notebook: Jerez Day 3 (Monday, 23:16)
10 – 8k – Day 4: Jerez Test (Monday, 23:37)

Solid start to The F1 Show, when you consider that it was simulcast on Sky Sports 1 for the Friday, 18:30 airing. I still think Sky expect higher figures for The F1 Show, so it will be interesting to see how the figures progress as the season begins.