Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 3rd June, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 86k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 23k – Fast Track (Wednesday, 19:00)
3 – 13k – Monaco Grand Prix: GP2 Sprint Race Replay (Tuesday, 24:00)
4 – 13k – Fast Track (Friday, 19:30)
5 – 12k – Legends (Saturday, 18:02)
6 – 11k – The F1 Show (Friday, 22:30)
7 – 11k – 2007 Season Review: Part 3 (Sunday, 21:04)
8 – 11k – The F1 Show (Sunday, 22:22)
9 – 11k – Monaco Grand Prix Highlights (Monday, 16:30)
10 – 8k – Legends (Saturday, 18:32)

The above programmes are in random order you could say, with only the two ‘original’ programmes The F1 Show and Fast Track getting over twenty thousand viewers. The F1 Show fared well, with its highest number for a studio based programme since the debut F1 Show programme on March 9th.

For the week, the channel reached its lowest audience yet however, reaching 560 thousand people. It’s worth noting that only two programmes from Sunday make the top 10. Nothing from Sunday daytime made the top 10, in stark contrast with two weeks ago when they screened Classic F1 races to double the audience.

Canadian Grand Prix ratings hit six year low

The Canadian Grand Prix disappointed with it’s live viewership yesterday, overnight ratings show, with figures hitting a six year low. The race average on Sky Sports F1 was 1.63 million, with a peak of 1.77 million. One thing I have noticed a lot with the race average versus peak is that the gap between the two is small. Unlike with BBC, where the audience can increase a lot throughout due to casuals joining in the middle of a exciting race, that appears to be not happening on Sky Sports F1. Despite an exciting race yesterday, the peak is only 140 thousand above the race average.

With regards, to the peak, there is an argument that it did okay given the Euro 2012 opposition. I’m not sure I agree. Even with the Euro 2012 opposition, in my opinion the peak should have been at least above 2 million. In comparison, the Bahrain Grand Prix had a peak of 1.6 million in daytime, so Canada only bettered that by 170 thousand. I would have thought the primetime slot, plus the BBC highlights being in a late-night timeslot would have helped the Sky Sports F1 figures more. Unlike Qualifying, the race had a free run for the first 45 minutes in the ‘gap’ between the two games, so I would have thought it may have caught a few floating viewers between the games.

The BBC F1 highlights programme peaked with 3.1 million according to James Allen, resulting in a combined peak of 4.87 million.

The averages don’t make for a pretty picture. The BBC programme had a 2.39 million average (21.2% share), and when factoring in Sky, that will be an average of 3.39 million, which will be the lowest average since 2006, which had an average of 2.72 million. The 2006 race was up against the conclusion of England vs Ecuador.

Canadian Grand Prix – UK TV Ratings
2005 – 4.97 million
2006 – 2.72 million
2007 – 4.58 million
2008 – 3.99 million
2009 – no race
2010 – 5.20 million
2011 – 6.12 million
2012 – ~3.39 million

As for Qualifying, the BBC One highlights show fared solidly with 2.05 million, albeit with only a 13.9% viewing share. Once factoring in Sky Sports F1, the number will be significantly down on the 3.69 million that watched Qualifying in 2011, but in-line with the 2010 average of 2.40 million. I would have expected a significant drop this year, even if Qualifying was on BBC One live, as it would have faced very tough opposition in Euro 2012. The Netherlands versus Denmark match, which went against the live showing of Qualifying had a mammoth 7.59 million peak figure, which I think shows that had F1 been live on BBC this weekend, then Qualifying would not have fared at all well.

Note: The ratings information comes from Sky Media Updates, Digital Spy and Attentional.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 27th May, 2012)

From BARB, two days late due to a few celebrations of national importance:

1 – 565k – Live Monaco Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 388k – Live Monaco Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 148k – Live Monaco Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 08:45)
4 – 89k – Live Monaco Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Thursday, 12:45)
5 – 80k – Live Monaco Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Thursday, 08:45)
6 – 77k – The F1 Show (Friday, 17:02)
7 – 64k – Brundle Drives a Ferrari (Saturday, 14:45)
8 – 57k – F1 Legends (Saturday, 11:30)
9 – 55k – Bahrain Grand Prix: Porsche Supercup (Saturday, 11:10)
10 – 55k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:06)

The Indianapolis 500 only just made Sky Sports 4’s Top 10 with 29 thousand viewers. The channel reached 2.469 million viewers for the week, the highest for a non-Sky exclusive race yet.

Neither of BBC F1’s programmes entered BBC One’s Top 30.

BBC release iPlayer figures for first quarter, some F1 included

The BBC have released some Top 20 iPlayer figures for TV and Radio for each month of the first quarter of the year, and included are some Formula 1 ratings of note. All the figures below cover the 7 days from original upload, as the Formula 1 material is only available on iPlayer for 7 days.

On the television side of things, 417,000 people watched highlights of the Australian Grand Prix on iPlayer after it was broadcast. A week later, 58,000 people chose to listen the 5 Live commentary of the Malaysian Grand Prix. Moving onto April, the Chinese Grand Prix live broadcast was watched by 316,000 people on iPlayer within the seven days after original transmission. I can see the logic in the 316,000 people, getting up later and straight onto the iPlayer knowing that the programme would be online, ready to watch.

I’m surprised though that 417,000 watched the highlights after it was broadcast, as it was broadcast at a daytime hour and not early-morning. In any case, you may ask “why don’t I add these to the other figures I publish on here?”. The simple reason is that you don’t know how many of the 417,000 people watched it on TV. How many of the 417,000 that were watching wanted to compare it to what Sky did? How many of the 417,000 people missed something earlier and watched it again? There’s no way to say that all 417,000 viewers are ‘new’. So for that reason, I tend to keep it fairly simple with just the live and first re-run.

In any event, I thought these figures would be worth publishing as there are not many Formula 1 viewing figures available for online, so it still makes for interesting reading nevertheless. As always, comments and queries are welcome.

Why the Indianapolis 500 gets little news coverage in the UK

I’ve seen several people and journalists say on Twitter “why does the Indy 500 not get much coverage” in the UK, despite a Scottish winner? I admit, it’s a valid question. The answer is, unfortunately, that people are not really interested in this country about the Indianapolis 500 or American motor sports as a whole. Here’s the Indy 500 overnight viewership for this year and the past two years:

2010 – 14,000 viewers (17:30 to 22:00 – peaked with 27,000 at 21:10)
2011 – 39,000 viewers (16:30 to 21:00 – peaked with 65,000 at 20:10)

And this past Sunday on Sky Sports 4 averaged 28,000 viewers between 16:30 and 21:00, peaking with 53,000 at 17:20, interestingly at the start of the race rather than the end of the race.

One would have to ask whether the above 2012 rating would have been higher had it have been on Sky Sports F1. Unquestionably, yes, given the reasons I outlined here about the similar audience profiles. In comparison, an unadvertised IndyCar Series race live on Sky Sports F1 on April 29th had 16,000 viewers (moved from Sky Sports 4 at late notice).

One thing that bemused me was how they failed to promote it at the end of the Monaco Grand Prix programme, yet, if you were watching Sky Sports 4 for the Indy 500 you would have been bombarded with “the new home of F1 in HD” trailers. I mean, surely the majority of people watching Sky Sports 4 would have previously been watching the Monaco Grand Prix? It shall be interesting to see how the repeat of the Indianapolis 500 does on Sky Sports F1 tomorrow at 20:00, we should find out a week on Monday in the official BARB update.

I’m sure over the next months I’ll probably do a blog on MotoGP ratings, BTCC ratings and the such like, but in general, the situation in the UK in terms of ratings is…

1) Formula 1 (BBC and Sky)
2) MotoGP (BBC and Eurosport)
3) BTCC (ITV)

All of the rest is under 200k, or even under 100k the majority of the time. Things like GP2, WTCC and IndyCars are nearly always under 100k. Back to the original point though, the result of the Indy 500 does not get mentioned in news bulletins because it is something of minority interest in the UK, as the ratings show.

Comments and thoughts, as always, are welcome.

Note: The ratings information comes from BARB, Digital Spy and Attentional.