Motor sport ratings (week ending 23rd June, 2013)

With BARB yet again not reporting any Sky Sports F1 ratings due to incorrect programme logs for the fourth week in five, I’ve decided to give the official ratings ‘series’ a little bit of an over haul. The main difference is the blog post title, but just so it is now clear that the posts will encompass the majority of motor sport ratings worth reporting. At this point it is also worth noting that BARB have not reported any ratings for British Eurosport unfortunately, although that has been the case for many months. As thus, no official ratings for the 24 Hours of Le Mans are available (the overnight ratings report can be found here).

Beginning on ITV4, the latest round of the British Touring Car Championship averaged a very healthy 387,000 viewers from 11:15 to 18:00, easily the highest rating of the year for the series. That does surprise me considering the competition with the 24 Hours of Le Mans, however on the other hand it would have benefited from no MotoGP or F1. Nevertheless, it is the highest average since June 19th, 2011 when it averaged 399,000 viewers from 11:30 onwards. The later start times do help the average, sometimes this season the programme has begun at 10:30 or 11:00, which hurts its average.

The IndyCar Series race from Iowa failed to make ESPN’s top ten meaning it had under 13,000 viewers. It is worth noting though that the channel is struggling badly now that it is winding down slowly, the highest rating for the channel during the week was just 18,000 viewers for the ESPN FC Press Pass programme. On Motors TV, their highest rating was for the FIA MX1 World Championship which had 18,000 and 20,000 viewers on Monday (17th June) evening.

Viewers not tyred of Formula 1 yet

The controversy surrounding yesterday’s British Grand Prix did not put viewers off, with the race climbing to a peak of 5.98 million viewers, overnight viewing figures show. It is the second highest peak of the season, marginally behind the Malaysian Grand Prix at its peak.

BBC One’s race programme from 12:10 to 15:30 averaged 3.72 million viewers, a 35.3 percent share. In the equivalent slot, Sky Sports F1 averaged 588,000 viewers, a 5.5 percent share. The full Sky programme, from 11:30 to 16:30 averaged 443,000 viewers. The combined average is therefore 4.32 million viewers, down significantly on 2010 and 2011:

British Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 3.40 million
2003 – 3.13 million
2004 – 3.63 million
2005 – 2.92 million
2006 – 2.18 million
2007 – 3.85 million
2008 – 4.53 million
2009 – 4.21 million
2010 – 4.80 million
2011 – 4.94 million
2012 – 3.60 million / 3.75 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
2013 – 4.16 million / 4.31 million

Both BBC One and Sky Sports F1 peaked at 14:30. BBC One peaked with 5.12 million viewers (43.7%) with Sky peaking with 860,000 (7.3%), combining to make 5.98 million viewers, a massive 51 percent share. The ratio of viewers for both average and peak is broadly similar, 86 percent for BBC with 14 percent for Sky. Again, as we have seen in the past, the majority of the gains during the race came from BBC’s broadcast, with Sky only increasing 110,000 viewers between race start and chequered flag. For me, that shows why Formula 1 needs to stay free to air as the terrestrial channels currently do a better job of attracting a casual audience than a dedicated channel.

UK viewership breakdown for the 2013 British Grand Prix.

Regarding the peak, it is not unusual for the British Grand Prix to peak with over a 50 percent share though, whilst the 5.98 million combined peak is great, it should be noted that it is marginally lower than 2008’s peak of 6.02 million and down significantly on 2010 and 2011’s peak which were in the 6.7 million region. I’m not surprised to see a drop compared with 2010 and 2011, as the weather was dry and warm across the country yesterday, fairly similar to the conditions that the 2009 race was held in.

It will be interesting to see how the German Grand Prix does this weekend, as temperatures are expected to dip into the 30’s, which could hurt the Formula 1 significantly, although it is weekends such as this one where the BBC One highlights programme will help rather than hinder the figures.

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

Scheduling: The 2013 German Grand Prix

If Formula 1 fans couldn’t get enough of the action, the teams, drivers and machinery very quickly head from Silverstone to the Nurburgring for the German Grand Prix. I suspect only one word will be on many people’s lips though…

Sky’s Classic F1 races this week are 1993, 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2011. Personally, I’m very happy to see 2000 being shown, so I look forward to seeing that race in full again! It is a BBC highlights weekend, meaning that coverage is on BBC One in the evening. There is a potential disclaimer if ~~Andy Murray gets to the Wimbledon final that the highlights could be moved over to BBC Two in the event it goes the full five sets but we will cross that bridge if it comes.~~ – see the bottom of this post.

Also because of Wimbledon, all of BBC’s radio coverage of the sessions is on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra. Here are all the scheduling details you need:

Tuesday 2nd July
20:00 to 21:00 – F1: 1993 German Grand Prix Highlights (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Jonathan Palmer
– repeated on Friday 5th July at 18:00
21:00 to 23:15 – F1: 2000 German Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Murray Walker and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Saturday 6th July at 06:30
22:00 to 22:30 – F1: Sir Frank Williams and Nigel Mansell (BBC Radio 5 Live)
– was originally meant to be shown last Wednesday

Wednesday 3rd July
20:00 to 22:00 – F1: 2005 German Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from James Allen and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Saturday 6th July at 17:15
22:00 to 00:15 – F1: 2009 German Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle
– repeated on Sunday 7th July at 06:05

Thursday 4th July
14:00 to 14:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
19:30 to 20:30 – F1: Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)
19:45 to 20:00 – F1: Gear Up for Germany (Sky Sports F1)
20:00 to 22:00 – F1: 2011 German Grand Prix (Sky Sports F1)
– commentary from Martin Brundle and David Coulthard
– repeated on Sunday 7th July at 19:00

Friday 5th July
08:45 to 11:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
11:00 to 11:35 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
12:45 to 14:45 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
12:55 to 14:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
14:45 to 15:30 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:00 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 18:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 6th July
08:45 to 09:25 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
09:45 to 11:10 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:05 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:55 to 14:05 – F1: Qualifying (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
14:35 to 16:00 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:05 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
17:55 to 19:10 – F1: Qualifying Highlights (BBC One)

Sunday 7th July
08:20 to 09:10 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:30 to 10:35 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
11:30 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
12:30 to 15:30 – F1: Race (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
16:15 to 17:15 – Architects of F1: Gordon Murray (Sky Sports F1)
18:00 to 19:30 – F1: Race Highlights (BBC One)

Wednesday 10th July
19:00 to 19:30 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Update at 21:45 on Friday 5th July – Andy Murray is through to the Wimbledon Men’s final and will be facing Novak Djokovic. If the match goes four or five sets, there is a chance that it could beyond 18:00. If that happens then either a) the F1 highlights will be moved to BBC Two or b) the F1 highlights will follow the Tennis at whatever time that will be. If you are heading out, I’d advise recording both BBC One and BBC Two manually from 18:00 onwards, as sometimes recordings fail if the time or channel changes. The Women’s final should be finished long before 17:55 tomorrow so I doubt tomorrow will be an issue.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 16th June, 2013) – ratings delayed

Another ratings related holding post as there are no Sky Sports F1 ratings on BARB.

Hopefully we should get the full set of ratings in BARB’s six week cycle. This comment from last week’s ratings post may hold some credibility: “Sky have been misrepresenting the length of some of their programmes to artificially bump up the averages, BARB have not fallen for it, hence the delay.”

Sky’s lack of promotion this week

I know that sometimes I do sound like I am banging a brick wall, this past week it feels like Sky’s promotion department has gone to sleep.

Classic F1 has not had much promotion since Sky began showing it. That had been improving. For whatever reason, it appears this has been a case of ‘two steps forward, three steps back’. Absolutely zero promotion for their Nigel Mansell Classic races last weekend and unfortunately the same goes for their GP Uncovered programmes. The only place where you could get the full details is this blog.

Sky’s own scheduling article omits several classic races (the only ‘Classic F1’ block is actually in the wrong place), Steve Rider’s look at how the British Grand Prix gives you Home Advantage and ignores the feeder series races that will be airing live on Sunday morning.

Apparently @SkyF1Insider gives you ‘the inside scoop on all things Sky F1‘. How many tweets have promoted their supplementary programming? None.

Why show things that you’re not going to bother to promote? No, I don’t know the answer to that either.