The Indian Grand Prix coverage on BBC One and Sky Sports F1 peaked with 4.45 million viewers, overnight viewing figures show. The race, screened live on Sky Sports F1 peaked with 1.16 million at 11:00, whilst the BBC One repeat peaked with 3.29 million viewers at 15:10. Whilst that looks okay, year-on-year it is a steep drop, as last years inaugural peaked with a mammoth 7.34 million viewers – 5.55 million at 09:35 and 1.79 million at 15:55 on BBC One.

Last year, BBC One averaged 4.14 million for its live broadcast from 08:30 to 12:00, with a further 1.41 million for the re-run to bring an average of 5.55 million viewers. BBC One’s highlights programme this year brought to 2.78 million the sofa from 14:05 to 15:45. Sky Sports F1’s live broadcast averaged 561,000 viewers from 08:00 to 12:45. If we were to use the average from 08:30 to 12:00 (ie – the same slot as BBC One last year), the average would increase to a healthier 705,000 viewers. Nevertheless, combining that figure and the BBC One highlights figure brings you out with 3.48 million viewers, another low figure in a season that will probably record the lowest average since 2008.

Can we blame Vettel then? Well, not really. After all, last year’s figure was so high, yet the title was already decided! In fact, last year’s Indian Grand Prix figure was unusually high as it is very rare to see an Asian based race over 5 million viewers. So I’m not sure Vettel’s dominance is the cause when last year’s figures were quite frankly, astonishing for Formula 1. One thing that interests me from the breakdowns is that Sky Sports F1’s coverage at 08:00 began with 140,000 viewers. After the race between 11:30 and 12:00 it hovered in the mid-200,000 mark, but then at 12:00 the figures nearly by half to under 140,000 viewers. I can imagine why fans would tune out, after all it was not the most exciting of races, but the BBC F1 Forum still does well for BBC after live races, and it has been running for now four years so it must be somewhat successful. The sudden drop at 12:00 just seemed to confuse me. Maybe four hours constantly is the saturation point for people watching Formula 1?

In any case, the figures are a drop year-on-year and continues a run of mediocre viewing figures.

Thanks to gslam2 for kindly sending me the 2012 breakdown on Digital Spy Forums.

The Korean Grand Prix yesterday on BBC One and Sky Sports F1 had a 15-minute peak of 2.52 million viewers, overnight viewing figures show. Between 08:30 and 08:45, an average of 2.11 million viewers were watching on BBC One, with a further 407,000 viewers watching on Sky Sports F1. Whilst the peak, on paper looks good it is marginally down on 2010’s rain-affected race and nearly a million viewers down on the 3.39 million peak recorded at 08:30 last year.

Between 06:00 and 09:15, 1.35 million watched Formula 1 on BBC One and 274,000 watched on Sky Sports F1. I should note Sky’s programme average will be lower as the 274,000 excludes the first half an hour and the last 75 minutes. Here is a comparison between the three years:

2010 – 3.39 million (1.39 million live and 2.00 million repeat – live peak of 2.6 million at 09:00)
2011 – 4.09 million (2.17 million live and 1.92 million repeat – live peak of 3.4 million at 08:30)
2012 – 3.18 million (1.62 million live [see above] and 1.56 million repeat on BBC One – live combined peak of 2.5 million at 08:30)

Although it is a record low, using it in the title as a headline is a useless statistic in my opinion given that the event has only been running for three years, so for me even though the statement is true, it is not a headline figure. With only three sets of data available, there is little point of comparing with 2010 and 2011, in my opinion.

One thing I do want to look at though is the respective BBC and Sky breakdowns from yesterday, because it makes for interesting reading.

The first thing that caught my eye was the different trajectory for BBC One and Sky Sports F1 after 07:00. BBC’s viewership increases constantly until the peak at 08:30, partly thanks to people waking up while the race is progressing and turning straight to BBC One, whilst Sky Sports F1’s viewership actually goes slightly down. Which I do find odd. It’s not the first time I’ve seen that happen. Considering Sky Sports F1 is a dedicated channel, the fact that the audience declined slightly after the race started is worrying.

It also, for me, shows why Formula 1 has to stay on terrestrial television in some form, because sporting events catch the interest and can rise to a big peak on terrestrial, which very rarely happens on multichannel television. It looks like no one tuning in bothers to tune to Sky Sports F1 during the race. Between 07:00 and 07:15, 416,000 viewers were watching Sky Sports F1. Between 08:30 and 08:45, 406,000 viewers were watching the channel, a 10,000 viewer drop. BBC One in the same period increased 700,000 viewers.

Another thing is that under 100,000 viewers were watching Sky Sports F1 between 06:00 and 06:30. That, and all the figures above, include viewers that timeshifted that exact block of programming up until 02:00 on Monday morning (which may also explain why BBC One suddenly jumped 700,000 at 07:00, which may be a few hundred thousand watching it later but not bothering with the build-up). A final graph, this time, the percentage difference:

The smallest percentage gap between the two was in the 15-minutes from 07:00 when 77.2 percent were watching BBC One and the other 22.8 percent were watching Sky Sports F1. The gap grew again, however, by 08:00 it was 82.7 percent vs 17.3 percent and by 08:45 it was 88.3 percent versus 11.7 percent. For a early morning race, I would have expected the gap to be closer between the two, I would have expected the gap to be closer, but it turns out that has not been the case.

Thanks to gslam2 for kindly posting the 2012 breakdown on Digital Spy Forums.

The Japanese Grand Prix brought poor viewership numbers this past Sunday to BBC One, with the combined average expected to be the lowest since 2008, or potentially as far back as 2004.

BBC One’s re-run airing of the race from 14:05 to 16:05 had an average of 2.36 million viewers, a 20.9% share, peaking with 2.79 million viewers at 15:30. Without even considering the positive effect that the BBC and Sky deal should have on the BBC One highlights shows for Asian races, the fact that it is only slightly up on last year’s 2.3 million viewers, and 600k up on the 1.8 million viewers for 2010 can only be described as poor. Going further back, the 2008 daytime re-run on ITV1 had 2.36 million viewers, identical to this past Sunday, whilst the 2009 highlights show brought 2.25 million viewers on BBC One.

So yesterday’s highlights show did not fair significantly better than in previous years despite a lot less people no doubt watching the live airing. Last year’s live broadcast airing from 06:00 had 2.1 million viewers, and Sky Sports F1 had less than a quarter of that. Here is a breakdown on previous years for the Japanese Grand Prix:

2004 – 2.86 million (1.32 million + 1.54 million)
2005 – 3.32 million (1.32 million + 2.00 million)
2006 – 3.49 million (1.19 million + 2.30 million)
2007 – 3.04 million (729k + 2.31 million)*
2008 – 3.14 million (785k + 2.36 million)*
2009 – 3.61 million (1.36 million + 2.24 million)
2010 – 3.70 million (1.90 million + 1.80 million)
2011 – 4.40 million (2.10 million + 2.13 million)

* note – the drop for 2007 and 2008 can be attributed to the change of track from Suzuka to Fuji meaning that the race started 90 minutes earlier in the UK

The reason why the live airings have skyrocketed in the last two years is because of more people recording the live airing and watching it later in the day, anyone that watches a programme before 02:00 will be counted in that days overnights, so do not assume that 500,000 more people got up early in 2010 compared with 2009, it just means that more people watched the “live” airing of the Japanese Grand Prix (a little bit more on the data that I use here).

In any case, the 2.36 million for BBC for this past Sunday is not a “out of the ordinary” number. Yes it is joint top alongside 2008, but arguably it should be higher when you consider that Sky Sports F1 will have lower numbers. None of Sky Sports F1’s race airings made ITV Media’s top 10, meaning each individual airing had under 559,000 viewers.

I don’t like to include Sky’s first repeat number, in Sunday’s case the 11:30 because given the money people have forked out to pay for the channel I would like to think that they would make the effort to watch it live! In any case, even if the live airing (+ re-run airing if you wish to) had 670,000 viewers, it would be the lowest figure since 2004. Which would be quite frankly a horrific statistic. If I do see any Sky Sports F1 numbers, I shall add them, but expect “low” rather than “high”.

Onto Qualifying, the BBC highlights show had 1.64 million viewers, down on the 1.97 million viewers for last year’s re-run. So not pretty figures all around, really.