A tale of two halves as TV ratings increase slightly

The 2013 Formula 1 season brought in a higher viewership than 2012 in the United Kingdom, according to unofficial overnight viewing figures. However, a deeper look inside the figures shows that the season was a tale of two halves.

The season, when taking into account Sky’s longer running time for each race programme, averaged 4.11m across the nineteen races on BBC One and Sky Sports F1. This is an increase of 130k (or 3.3%) on the 3.98m average recorded for 2012, but is again down on the figures recorded between 2009 and 2011 when Formula 1 was exclusively live on the BBC. Despite an overall increase, viewing figures dropped a million viewers from the first half to the second half of the season. The first half of the season averaged 4.58m (2012: 4.06m), whilst the second half of the season averaged 3.59m (2012: 3.89m), a 27.6% drop compared with a 4.4% drop in 2012.

BBC’s Formula 1 coverage was the reason for the increase, averaging 3.42m viewers throughout 2013 for their race-day coverage, compared with 3.22m in 2012, an increase of 6.2%. The main source of the increase was the high German Grand Prix highlights rating, which averaged 5.15m and benefited from following the Wimbledon final. Removing this would still keep 2013 above 2012 for the BBC. Nevertheless, the first half of the season averaged 3.81m (2012: 3.21m), with the second half averaging 3.00m (2012: 3.23m), a 27.0% drop compared with a 0.6% increase last year, slightly below the overall average drop. It shows how well the first half of the season did, helped not only by the German Grand Prix, but also the controversial Malaysian Grand Prix.

Unlike BBC, Sky Sports F1’s coverage dropped throughout. When putting it on a level playing field with the BBC, the main part of their race-day programming averaged 685k, down on the 767k recorded in 2012, a decrease of 12.0%. There is no particular race that struggled, but rather an overall declining picture for the channel compared with 2012. 770k (2012: 855k) watched the first half of the season with Sky, this number dropping to 590k (2012: 659k) for the latter half of the season. In both 2012 and 2013, Sky’s coverage has dropped across the season: a decrease of 30.5% compared with a 29.7% drop in 2012.

The F1 Broadcasting Blog says: The season from a ratings perspective can only be described as a tale of two halves in about every possible way. From a television point of view, producers would expect and hope for the season to start slowly and then build to a crescendo towards the end, 2008 is a perfect example of that with the Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa battle bubbling up at several points in the season before the season finale. 2013 was almost the opposite in that round two had the biggest story of the entire year, with Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel’s on track battle. It was downhill from there. Casual fans love stories like that. Sadly though for companies around the world, it was never followed up on where the on track action was concerned. There was no juicy follow up, and I don’t think Webber and Vettel ever got close on track again.

Instead, the second half of the season seen Vettel dominate, and viewing figures plunge. I imagine, although I cannot verify, that a similar picture was repeated around the world. I’d be surprised if the UK was an anomaly given the context of the season. Which leads me onto double points.

AUTOSPORT has learned that teams were pressured into supporting the move because they were told by Bernie Ecclestone that television companies and race promoters had asked for a way to ensure the world title battle was kept alive for longer. – AUTOSPORT – December 20th

Obviously broadcasters can see the ratings as soon as they are released and may well have done the same comparisons as I have shown above. Has one of them forced Formula One Management (FOM) to press the panic button? I think they did. And rather stupidly too, given that 2013 was definitely not a typical season in terms of layout. As good as the Webber and Vettel story was, the other stories, the public simply don’t care about, for example the ‘tyre test’ and the outcome of that. They care about personalities. More of Webber and Vettel, less of the tyres which I suspect no one out of the Formula 1 bubble really cares about.

A good season for the BBC, they will be pleased to be up versus 2012. Yes, they did drop in the latter half of the season, but given the context, it is difficult to have expected anything different. What I would say is that the BBC ratings do show is that Formula 1 needs to keep the terrestrial television presence, which I hope continues beyond 2018, although that is a long, long way away yet. Whilst Sky’s decline in the latter half of the season is unsurprising, the first half of the season also declined, which was not a good sign from the get-go. From a ratings perspective, they desperately need stability and avoid the free-fall continuing into 2014. How do they do that?

Unlike BBC, which is purely dependent on the on-track action, Sky need to consider how Formula 1 is packaged within their portfolio of channels. Limiting who can, and cannot view Formula 1, and punishing people through loopholes is not the way to go. At the end of the day (and this will apply to BT Sport with MotoGP too), Sky need to make their coverage more accessible to people and not price them out of the market. I’m not sure that will happen, and if it doesn’t happen, then I only see viewing figures continuing to drop for Sky. The aim of the game needs to be to get Formula 1 ratings in the UK back up to the levels seen between 2009 and 2011. And who knows, for the moment, 2014 may be make or break where that is concerned.

TV season review shows drop

With the 2013 season ending on a bit of a dull note, it is perhaps no surprise that the end of year season review shows on BBC One and Sky Sports F1 suffered as a result, according to unofficial overnight viewing figures.

BBC One’s show, entitled ‘A Record Breaking Show’ averaged 880,000 (8.5%) on Saturday 28th December. It was the first time since the ITV days that a season review had dropped below one million viewers. The previous lowest on BBC was in 2009, which averaged 1.10m (12.5%) albeit that was broadcast a week after the season concluded. Since then, the season reviews have average between 1.1 million and 1.3 million viewers, so the 2013 overnight figure comes in slightly below that.

Unofficially, Sky’s review show averaged 1,000 (0.01%), despite it being half the length of last year’s season review show. Seeing something average 1,000 viewers is very, very rare, and it should be said that the smaller you go, the margin of error gets bigger. Nevertheless, I imagine both BBC and Sky are fairly glad to see the back of 2013.

Special edition of The F1 Show to air on January 31st

A special edition of The F1 Show will air on January 31st at 20:00 on Sky Sports F1, it has been confirmed. The half an hour episode, entitled ‘The F1 Show Special: Motor Sport Hall of Fame’, will be filmed at the 2014 Motor Sport Hall of Fame awards on Wednesday 29th January and fronted by Natalie Pinkham. Simon Lazenby will present the awards itself.

Damien Smith, editor of Motor Sport magazine said: “The Royal Opera House is a suitably grand venue to honour some of motor sport’s greatest names and we could not dream of a better Broadcast Partner than Sky Sports. To mark our 90th birthday in suitable style, we have four true motor sport legends being inducted into the Motor Sport Hall of Fame in January. It’s going to be another memorable evening and for those not lucky enough to be present, as in F1, Sky Sports F1 will be the next best place to follow all the action.”

Good to see Sky doing things like this, and it is an expansion on the coverage last year which was within a normal episode of The F1 Show. The schedules themselves have not been updated yet (as the last week of January is also meant to feature F1 testing from Jerez), but it should not be too long before we have a clearer picture of what Sky are, and are not, doing.

Looking ahead to 2014

The first four parts of the 2013 verdict looked back at the year gone by and analysed both the BBC and Sky Sports F1 products, along with their respective teams. But of course while Formula 1 plays a large part in this blog (hence the blog name), it is easy every so often to get wrapped in the Formula 1 bubble. Which in why in 2013, I have been trying to cover more than just Formula 1 on the blog, on both two and four wheels.

Sometimes, in the broadcasting and media world, you have to look at the bigger picture to see what patterns are emerging, to see where the landscape is heading, to see what could be the next big thing. Enter BT Sport. Launching on August 1st, 2013, BT has only been on air for five months. March 2014 will signal the beginning of their MotoGP coverage. Sitting here, writing this at the end of 2013, we still do not know who will form part of the line-up. Obviously first impressions are vital, so it will be interesting to see who is announced, no doubt within the next month I imagine.

I hope that viewing figures are good for MotoGP, but we will only get the full picture after a few races of the season. Critically, they need a championship battle to last for the majority of the season to prevent viewing figures dropping. Of course, the figures will be lower than BBC, I just hope by not a huge amount. Another story in 2014 will be the Formula E rights announcement, which will be make up break for the series. If it is not on terrestrial television, then it will simply blend in with the rest and won’t stand out, simple as. If they want the concept to be successful in this country, it needs to be easily accessible. Time will tell.

And then of course we have all the usual Formula 1 discussion, from both BBC and Sky, home and abroad. Year three of a seven year contract means that both sides should have firmly settled in, although like last year, we could well see some surprising changes. Along with that there will be the usual ratings analysis, will the draw of the ‘2014 formula’ bring viewers back to Formula 1 again, or will viewing figures slip down a notch further? A lot of questions ahead for 2014, some bigger than others, and it looks set to be another interesting year on the broadcasting front.

Sky Sports F1’s output: The 2013 Verdict

The first two parts of the 2013 verdict looked at both the BBC and Sky Sports teams, as I looked at each individual’s contributions. The third part focussed on BBC F1’s programming, and suggested potential improvements. Part four switches attention again to look at Sky Sports F1’s programming over the course of the season, whilst the final part will cast an eye into the future as 2014 draws ever nearer.

Although the programming during a race weekend has largely stayed the same, it is the schedule outside of the race weekend which has seen the most movement. Before a Formula 1 weekend gets under way, Sky screen the Thursday FIA press conference, along with a ‘Gear Up for…’ programme which is a summary of the interviews precluding a race weekend. Their main action, however, begins on Friday’s with live coverage of practice.

Practice
Sky’s coverage formally begins with live coverage of all three practice sessions. The build-up for each session is typically 15 minutes long (Australia FP1 the exception at 30 minutes) with Simon Lazenby hosting the Friday sessions and Natalie Pinkham hosting third practice on Saturday morning. During the session itself, Sky take the World Feed, except this season they have done things a bit differently compared with 2012. Many would have noticed Sky cutting away from FOM’s feed in last season. In comparison, this season they have adopted a split screen approach, which I personally prefer as long as it is not overused.

There was nothing more annoying than Sky cutting away from the World Feed, so the split screen was a good replacement. As the season went on, I feel that they did get the balance near enough to okay, just got to make sure that when split screen is used, there is a justifiable reason to use it. Another addition to the practice coverage, and in general was Sky putting captions over FOM’s graphics, which was a nice addition from time to time. The actual look and feel aside from the above did not really change: David Croft and Anthony Davidson were on commentary and the issues surrounding practice three and going off air earlier remained.

Martin Brundle did stand at a corner of the circuit explaining differences he sees in car vs car and driver vs driver, but as I noted in part two, this really could benefit with a camera being down there with him. Like I said though, I’m not sure how possible this is. The only annoyance for me is Sky still rushing off air after practice three for no apparent reason, sometimes only three or four minutes after a session has ended. Aside from that, the coverage Sky provide for practice is good and not much more can be suggested here.

The F1 Show
Throughout 2012, The F1 Show was live on Friday’s, from either a race track or the studio, with Ted Kravitz and Georgie Thompson presenting. It was by far the best part of Sky Sports F1’s coverage, with Kravitz and Thompson presenting week in and out a high quality show. The duo were great together with a lot of rapport and were liked by viewers. Despite being on the initial Sky Sports F1 advertising for 2013, Thompson took the decision to head for pastures new, meaning it was Natalie Pinkham alongside Kravitz for the first ‘The F1 Show’ of 2013.

The majority of editions in 2012 were must see, with some good discussion points. 2013 has not been as good for the show, with the Midweek Report showing it up on occasions. Yes, there have been some good changes, for example featuring GP2 and GP3 more, but I’ve been left feeling that watching some editions has been a chore rather than must watch. Being on Friday’s for non race weeks does not help. I know it was following multi-21, but the highest rated edition was actually aired on a Thursday.

Sky appear to be persisting with the Friday slot for 2014. I just don’t think a Friday night works at all when most of its core audience are probably out and not wanting to watch F1. Interestingly, for one episode they did have a heavy social media presence, with people being invited to tweet their thoughts in. Whether that was a test for something in 2014, I don’t know. As it turns out, I really enjoyed that particular episode, but there have not been a huge amount of highlights this year for The F1 Show. I enjoy it still, just not as much as I did in 2012.

Pre-Session
Unlike in 2012, Sky’s race day programming now has three distinct parts. The track parade tends to take up the first twenty to thirty minutes of the build-up, whilst the remainder of the build-up is discussion and VT based. However, it was always signalled on the EPG as one part, that was until the Indian Grand Prix when the decision was made to have formal introductions for each of the three parts, thus splitting it into three parts. Some say that this was a ratings influenced move and they may well be correct…

One complaint last season was that the pre-show just did not have the right flow to it, thankfully the pre-show in 2013 feels more polished and overall a better feel than what it did this time last year. The VT quality has slightly improved as well, with the Sand Grand Prix actually turning out surprisingly well, one of the few things that Sky have hyped this year that have delivered to expectation. On the same level, the mundane VT’s wrapped around breaks have remained, and don’t look like disappearing any more. As thus, expect Foals to be getting a lot more playouts in 2014!

The Sky Pad has been used more than ever before in the build-ups, but very effectively too. As I noted previously, moving the Sky Pad outside was probably one of the best decisions Sky made this season, and it paid dividends for them with more attention being paid to drivers’ taking themselves around a lap of a particular circuit in these segments. I don’t think they need to change a thing with the Sky Pad segments for 2014, because they’ve turned something good from 2012 into an absolute gem in 2013 with Anthony Davidson at the helm.

Post-Session
Throughout the 2012 season, Sky typically went off an air between 90 and 120 minutes after a race had finished. At the beginning of 2012, the difference between Sky and BBC was alarming, as Simon Lazenby and Damon Hill were not the best duo, and the post-race show just felt completely wooden. It did improve a bit, but felt like they were a level below BBC’s previous efforts. They shortened the length slightly for 2013, consistently going off air at about 16:15 for European races. It turned into formally being called ‘Paddock Live’ from India onwards.

Whilst the pre-show has undoubtedly improved, it is the post-session coverage that has reaped the rewards in 2013. The post-show is 2012 was fairly structured, but now, with a bit of reworking, I think they have crucially got the structure right. Segments at the Sky Pad with Anthony Davidson looking at key moments from the race, discussion and analysis, and Ted Kravitz’s Notebook now means that Sky Sports F1’s post-race analysis is a step above BBC’s. Obviously, it helps them that BBC have a change in presenter, but credit to them nevertheless.

The Notebook’s in 2013 have been better than ever, from testing through to the last race in Brazil. Within the post-race show, the Notebook is normally five to ten minutes long with an extended version on the website. I do think the programming would be significantly weaker without his contributions, as the Notebook makes up a fair chunk of the post-race. Looking ahead to 2014, and I hope the post-race programming continues in the same vein. It is better than BBC’s post-race forum at the moment, so hopefully Sky don’t change for the sake of change.

Midweek Report
I was debating whether or not to include the Midweek Report as a separate section, but given that it has been a regular in the Sky Sports F1 schedules for the majority of the year, I thought it was necessary to give it its own section. Last year, Sky Sports did not have a midweek Formula 1 show. This year, the Midweek Report started online for the first few rounds with Anna Woolhouse presenting. It was pretty clear how cheap the budget was immediately, the show was filmed in the tightest of studios possible, and against a green screen!

Which does not really do it justice. It soon moved to the channel itself from April, which made complete sense. Irrespective of who’s budget the programme comes from, it is an F1 based programme made by Sky Sports, therefore it should be screened on the channel, simple as. The show itself is 30 minutes and is chit chat and discussion with two guests. And the difference between the Midweek Report and The F1 Show is simple. The F1 Show’s ‘guests’ are actually not really guests, but members of Sky’s team. The Midweek Report actually has proper guests.

Obviously for its low budget, the guests are not always fantastic (having someone from Planet F1 scraped the barrel), but on other occasions it hit a top note in a big way. After Abu Dhabi, they had Will Buxton and James Calado on. The discussion in that particular show was fantastic, because the guests were actually expressing opinion and not towing any line! It was brilliant and great to see. Midweek Report should continue in 2014, with a bigger budget, proper studio and who knows, maybe it will fully overtake The F1 Show too. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Other programming
Starting at the start, Sky’s 2013 contributions began with a few launches, kicking into gear further with live testing. I really enjoyed the testing coverage from them, with general chit chat and also insight from Mark Priestley. I normally would say that I hope live testing returns for 2014, with testing more critical than ever next season. Three letters, one word: FOM. If Sky want to screen testing live, once again they have to go through them. As always, FOM give Sky access, Sky can’t just walk in and around a live F1 circuit with cameras and start filming. So, we’ll see what happens.

Classic F1 has also began on the channel this season, with Sky screening near to 100 classic races. I’ll admit to not watching them all, but it was a much needed addition to the channels schedules and helped fill the gap between races. Hopefully the classics continue for 2014. GP2, GP3, Fast Track and Weekend in Stills have all continued on the channel. In particular, GP2 and GP3 have had a great year, with more fantastic commentary from Buxton and, at times Alex Brundle. GP2 and GP3 are back on Sky Sports for 2014.

One problem has continued though: advertising. I’ll keep this to this paragraph, but GP2 and GP3 need advertising. Desperately. How much does it take to knock a 30 second trailer together and air across multiple Sky Sports channels to get the message out? Similar arguably applies for the Midweek Report and Classic F1, although those are more of a case for the Sky social media team to get the message out given that I would expect neither of them to be advertised on-air. I’m hopeful this will improve, but who knows. All good advertising F1, but there is other programming too.

From a programming stand-point, Sky have improved leaps and bounds, albeit most of the changes have come outside of the race weekend. Which is good, after all we are talking about a channel here and not one individual programme or airing. The scheduling needs to change on some of the programming (original programming shouldn’t air beyond 23:00 or midnight), but 2013 has improved significantly on 2012’s baseline.