Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 22nd July, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 989k – Live German Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 608k – Live German Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 148k – Live German Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 09:45)
4 – 100k – Live German Grand Prix: GP2 Feature Race (Saturday, 14:35)
5 – 83k – Porsche Supercup: Britain (Saturday, 11:46)
6 – 82k – Live German Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Friday, 08:45)
7 – 82k – Jenson Button Interview (Saturday, 11:16)
8 – 77k – Jenson Button Interview (Sunday, 10:59)
9 – 75k – German Grand Prix: Qualifying Replay (Saturday, 21:02)
10 – 72k – Live German Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Friday, 12:45)

The first thing I need to note is that the channel reach was the highest ever, with a total reach of 3.515 million viewers, this partly thanks to its free weekend. If you compare it to Sky’s other exclusive races so far however:

– 3.515 million – Germany
– 3.473 million – Malaysia
– 3.419 million – Bahrain
– 3.405 million – Australia
– 3.270 million – Canada

And there is not a huge difference it has to be said between the reach for Germany and the previous highest channel reach for Malaysia.

Nevertheless, there is a marked improvement in the figures above. While Friday’s figures are nothing to write home about, Saturday’s and Sunday’s figures are up notably on normal. The Qualifying figure, GP2 Feature Race figure and the Race day figures were the highest ever respectively for the channel. Despite this, when looking at the full picture:

Qualifying: 0.608m [SSF1 live] + 1.14m [BBC2] + 0.12m [BBC HD] = 1.87 million
<bRace: 0.989m [SSF1 live] + 1.90m [BBC2] + 0.292m [BBC HD] = 3.18 million

Both figures are the lowest since 2008, the race turns out to be the lowest since 2006. You could argue “you’re using full programme averages, that’s unfair!”. But so are all of the other figures I am using, so it is a level playing field. Even if I did use Sky’s race average, which was about 1.5 million, that would be a total of 3.69 million, which would be the lowest figure since 2008. Figures are down year-on-year, whichever way you attempt to spin the figures.

Although the figures are down, I do think it is worth praising the GP2 Series figure. In my opinion, it is extremely important that the figures improve, and that Sky promote GP2 more, as these people are the future of Formula 1. The field features British talent such as James Calado and Max Chilton, yet the series does not get any airtime on Sky Sports News or outside of the main programme. Even ITV4 had a programme in 2008, it is about time Sky gives it a proper intro and outro!

As always, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Sky tout Sky Sports F1’s success, with a 7.3 million reach

Sky have today revealed their financial results for the past twelve months from June 30th, 2011 to June 30th, 2012. Below is the parts of the press release where they tout the success of Sky Sports F1:

“Our ‘Summer of Sport in HD’ campaign combined with the continued success of our Sky Sports F1 HD channel contributed to 121,000 HD additions in the quarter. With over half a million additions across the year, HD penetration of our base has now reached 41%.”

“Our innovative new coverage of Formula 1 on Sky Sports F1 HD continues with an unprecedented and exciting start to the season with seven different winners in the first ten races and over 7.3 million viewers watching the new channel.”

“Sports costs were £12 million higher year on year with the first time inclusion of the Formula 1 channel being partly offset by lower costs for cricket, golf and boxing due to the absence of biennial and other events such as the Ryder Cup and the Haye Klitschko fight that were included in the comparative year.”

Of course the 7.3 million viewership figure above is a three minute reach for the channel, so to say “7.3 million viewers have watched at least three minutes of the Sky Sports F1 channel” since it launched in March. Of course, those that read my blog will know that the programme averages from 11:30 to 16:15 or 12:00 to 14:35, or whatever it may be, is substantially lower than the 7.3 million touted above.

I don’t know what the respective cricket, golf and boxing budgets are, so it would be inaccurate of me to attempt to work out how much Formula 1 costs for Sky, apart from using the £40 million figure that has already been quoted in the press when the deal was announced last year.

Warm weather and sporting competition hits German Grand Prix ratings

As you may have seen on my Twitter, I am on holiday from now until Saturday 4th August, so I’m keeping this post short.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of data available, but what is available shows that the F1 was hit by the warm weather and the other sporting competition. ITV Media reported earlier that BBC Two’s highlights programme had 1.9 million (12%), although that has been since pulled along with a whole host of other ratings information. That is almost certainly true, as the programme is not in the top 10, and therefore below 1.853 million to 3.d.p. I am also unsure if that rating includes BBC HD. If it doesn’t, then we can add another 400,000 viewers to the 1.9 million.

Sky Sports F1 had 901,000 viewers (9.3%). If we are to compare that to Bahrain, the last European race which was Sky exclusive, they had 738,000 viewers (6.2%) in the overnight ratings. Malaysia had slightly higher viewing figures, but I do not believe that is a vaild comparison due to the red flag period inflating the average.

So overall, how much of an effect did the ‘free weekend’ have on the race viewership? Difficult to tell, but I think we are looking at a 20 percent figure for those that do not subscribe to Sky Sports F1, but watched last Sunday. What I shall do in the officials is do a full comparison between Germany and Bahrain – in theory, despite the warmer weather every session should see an increase due to the increased reach potential.

Onto the negatives, however. 1.9 million for the BBC highlights (with or without HD) is the lowest race highlights figure yet. Combined, the BBC and Sky figure will be the lowest since 2006, although it will be very nip-and-tuck with the 3.28 million average that ITV had in 2008.

With regards sporting competition, the Tour de France peaked with 3.55m (28.2%) on ITV1 and ITV4 while the Open Golf averaged 2.36m (20%) across six and a half hours on BBC One.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 15th July, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 45k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 15k – F1 Legends (Wednesday, 23:15)
3 – 15k – Canadian Grand Prix Highlights (Wednesday, 20:00)
4 – 15k – F1 Legends (Thursday, 23:24)
5 – 13k – Fast Track (Wednesday, 22:30)
6 – 13k – GP2 Marathon: Monaco Grand Prix Feature Race (Saturday, 17:01)
7 – 12k – 1989 Season Review (Thursday, 22:14)
8 – 11k – 1988 Season Review (Friday, 21:00)
9 – 11k – GP2 Marathon: British Grand Prix Feature Race (Saturday, 22:08)
10 – 11k – Fast Track (Thursday, 23:30)

A solid set of figures, although the channel reach was the lowest yet.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 8th July, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 455k – Live British Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:00)
2 – 336k – Live British Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 160k – Live British Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 09:45)
4 – 122k – GP Classics: 1964 European Grand Prix (Saturday, 11:19)
5 – 97k – Live British Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Friday, 09:45)
6 – 78k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
7 – 72k – British Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 19:00)
8 – 72k – Live British Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Friday, 13:45)
9 – 62k – GP Classics: 11th GP D’Europe (Sunday, 10:42)
10 – 54k – Live British Grand Prix: GP2 Sprint Race (Sunday, 09:35)

The main race programme for Sky was notably low, due to their extended build-up, hence the extra half hour dragging down the overall rating. Outside of their live F1 programming, The F1 Show did very well, I think that is their highest rating for The F1 Show during a race weekend. Also noticeable is how well the classic F1 did in between practice three and Qualifying, so definitely some good scheduling there.

Finally, it is pleasing to see the live GP2 Sprint Race making Sky Sports F1’s top 10 for the first time, and only 18,000 viewers behind practice two. The channel reach was 2.506 million this week, which is more significant than usual because it is their highest so far this year when that particular race has been live also on BBC.

On BBC, in the official ratings, 2.03 million watched Qualifying on BBC Two and BBC HD, while 3.29 million watched the race from 12:55 on BBC Two and HD.