Motor sport ratings (week ending 27th October, 2013)

With the motor sport season winding to a close the only related ratings on BARB is for the Indian Grand Prix on Sky Sports F1. Interestingly though, the rating for the race day show is not split into three, but rather two. The full 08:00 to 13:00 average (the programme overran by 15 minutes) is 434,000 viewers, which breaks down as follows:

– 432,000 – Live Race (Sunday, 08:00)
=> 78,000 – 08:00 to 08:30
=> 474,000 – 08:30 to 13:10

Elsewhere on Sky Sports F1:

– 277,000 – Live Qualifying (Saturday, 08:30)
– 38,000 – The F1 Show (Friday, 13:30)
– 30,000 – Live Practice 2 (Friday, 09:15)
– 28,000 – GP Uncovered (Sunday, 13:10)

A fairly disastrous set of ratings outside of the live Qualifying and Race. I think the weekly reach of 1.729 million viewers is again one of their lowest yet for a race week.

Sky Sports F1 to continue broadcasting throughout the Winter and into 2014

Sky Sports F1 is to remain ‘open’ as a channel throughout the Winter, it has been confirmed today. As noted by the channel’s Insider Twitter account this morning:

We’re currently preparing for our Christmas shows back at HQ – something to keep you guys amused over the festive season. We’ll review each teams season as well as putting on a Christmas special. We’ll keep you updated about when you’ll be able to see these.

This is not a surprise, just confirmation of news that was expected given that the channel remained on air in Winter 2012 and that a season review on each team, as well as a main programme, was broadcast last year. Still, it is pleasing to see that the commitment remains the same.

Another piece of information is from the Sky Programme Information website, specifically in their Brazilian Grand Prix description:

Sky Sports F1 has delivered unrivalled coverage throughout 2013 and will be the only place to the see every race in the 2014 Formula 1 season live.

Again, this is really just confirmation of expected news, the channel will be remaining in 2014. There is always a slight worry that content may one day be merged into the main four Sky Sports’ channels, but it appears that Sky Sports F1 is definitely remaining for 2014. Once we are into the close season questions will begin to turn towards the 2014 build-up. I have not even seen a definitive 2014 testing schedule, but if Bahrain is the final test, I wonder if Sky will broadcast it live again? Time will tell, and as always I will update the blog as news becomes available.

Update on November 7th – The F1 Show will end the main 2013 series as expected on Friday 29th November.

Update on November 26th – Whilst the main The F1 Show series will end on 29th November, a ‘Journalists Special’ will air the week after on Friday 6th December, which appears to be new.

‘Dead rubber’ Abu Dhabi Grand Prix drops below 4 million

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix dropped below 4 million viewers to its lowest rating yet, overnight ratings reveal. This really should not be a surprise given the title race is over. What may be surprising, however, is that it appears that Sky Sports F1’s exclusive coverage actually did worse than the shared coverage for last year’s race. At this stage that is not 100 percent confirmed, and will only become confirmed in the official ratings next week.

BBC One’s highlights coverage averaged 3.367 million viewers, a 19 percent viewer share according to ITV Media. Qualifying highlights on the Saturday averaged 2.97 million viewers, a really good number for Qualifying, but again not surprisingly below what Pointless has been doing in the same slot on Saturday’s recently.

Last year, Sky Sports F1’s programme officially averaged 541,000, which is about 730,000 for 12:10 to 15:15. Yesterday failed to make ITV Media’s multi-channel top 10 which meant ‘it’ averaged under 607,000 viewers. What ‘it’ is, I don’t know. Is it the full programme average or is it the 12:00 to 15:15 average in Sky money? Either way, even with the title race over, this is fairly concerning – last year coverage was also live on BBC One, this year it was exclusively live on Sky. The problem for Sky though is that no casual viewers at all that would normally watch a race would be drawn at all towards their channel when a title race is over, they would have no reason to and are therefore unlikely to tune in. In that respect, terrestrial television and the BBC definitely has more of an advantage.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2009 – 4.88 million
2010 – 5.85 million
2011 – 4.69 million
2012 – 4.49 million / 4.68 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
– overnight figures were 4.40 million / 4.55 million
2013 – 3.82 million / 3.99 million (overnight rating)
– rough estimate and subject to revision

I’m not looking forward to USA’s rating, frankly. Another dead rubber race, which I cannot see doing well. It could well be a fairly embarrassing number. The side effect of that means that the season average is continuing to drop. It is not often the first half of the season is competitive and the second half of the year is domination all over. A tale of two halves, and the end number may not be pretty.

The 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Vettel’s title win improves on 2012 Indian Grand Prix rating

The Indian Grand Prix yesterday was seen by approximately 4 million viewers, overnight viewing figures suggest. The figure represents an increase on 2012, where only Sky Sports F1 shown it live, but a hefty drop on 2011. BBC One’s live airing averaged 2.53 million viewers from 08:30 to 11:45. Sky Sports F1, failed to make ITV Media‘s multi-channel top ten for last Sunday meaning it was perhaps unsurprisingly under 626,000 viewers. In comparison, BBC One’s live airing in 2011 had 4.18 million viewers, so we can already see the big drop.

BBC One’s repeat airing had under 1.38 million viewers. Nevertheless, we can see that there is a fairly big drop on 2011, although up on last year. For what it is worth, I will continue recording Sky’s full programme numbers even though they have split it into three. For 2014, if it is a three piece programme for the entire season, then I will only record the main race segment figure for the purpose of these blogs.

Indian Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2011 – 5.61 million
2012 – 3.46 million / 3.67 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
– overnight figures were 3.48 million / 3.66 million
2013 – 4.13 million / 4.27 million (overnight rating)
– rough estimate and subject to revision

The 2013 figure may fluctuate a few hundred thousand either way, but I think we can definitely say it was up and 2012, but down on 2011. I think it is an okay rating, but not spectacular when you consider that it was the title decider. It will be interesting to see the ratings for the final few races. Abu Dhabi and Brazil should be okay, but USA could be very low, with Sky exclusivity and BBC airing at 22:30.

The 2012 Indian Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Motor sport ratings (week ending 20th October, 2013)

Sadly there is not a lot to the motor sport ratings round-up from BARB this week. Motors TV did not report any ratings, whilst the final round of the IndyCar Series failed to make BT Sport 2’s top ten, meaning it had under 12,000 viewers.

The F1 Show recorded one of its lowest figures to date for a studio based edition on Friday 18th October. The figure, the lowest of the year, averaged 18,000 viewers. It was a low week across the channel, only five shows averaged above 10,000 viewers, which is really disastrous overall nearly two years in. I think the mid-week schedule outside of race weekends has to be more structured, because there is absolutely zero flow to the schedules at the moment, it could be described as one programme after the other with no real meaning.