Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 24th June, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 531k – Live European Grand Prix (Sunday, 11:30)
2 – 348k – Live European Grand Prix: Qualifying (Saturday, 12:00)
3 – 70k – European Grand Prix Highlights (Sunday, 22:42)
4 – 64k – F1 Legends (Saturday, 09:35)
5 – 64k – Live European Grand Prix: Practice 3 (Saturday, 09:45)
6 – 64k – Live European Grand Prix: Practice 1 (Friday, 08:45)
7 – 61k – Live European Grand Prix: Practice 2 (Friday, 12:45)
8 – 49k – Fast Track (Sunday, 10:38)
9 – 47k – F1 Legends (Sunday, 11:06)
10 – 42k – European Grand Prix: Practice 2 Replay (Friday, 18:00)

Some notably poor figures above. Qualifying and the Race did fine, but all three practice sessions recorded surprisingly low figures, none of the three live showings breaking 64,000 viewers. In fact, the average of three sessions is the lowest since the Malaysian Grand Prix in March.

The channel reach was 2.19 million, which is also the lowest yet for a race weekend for the channel. BBC One’s live race programme entered the top 30 on BARB, with an average of 3.92 million viewers.

As I noted in my ratings piece last Monday, I expected the combined viewership to be the highest since 2000, and this is exactly the case with a viewership of 4.45 million viewers. The number is the second highest of the year, only behind the Chinese Grand Prix, also coincidentally a race that both Sky and BBC broadcasted live.

The Qualifying figure of 348,000 combined with BBC’s overnight rating of 2.24 million (25.2% share), brings a total combined viewership of 2.60 million, about 300,000 viewers down on last year.

Scheduling: The British Grand Prix

After a fantastic European Grand Prix, it’s time for Formula 1 to head home. And that means it is time for the British Grand Prix. While Sky are pulling out the stops with Classic F1 in the run up to the race, the same cannot be said for BBC. Due to coverage of Wimbledon, both Qualifying and the Race are on BBC Two, with only the Race Build-Up on BBC One.

As announced at the end of their European Grand Prix show, there is an extra F1 Show on Thursday 5th July, with a two hour build-up to the race on Sunday. Although I have not heard anything concrete, I would expect an increased on-site presence for Silverstone from both the News and F1 team, maybe even with a studio there aside from the Sky Pad, as going on air at 11:00 would be when the Porsche Supercup cars are still on track.

On BBC, there is an extra guy in the pit-lane for Radio 5 Live, former McLaren mechanic Mark Priestley is alongside Jennie Gow. 5 Live also have race car driver Tiffany Chittenden alongside them for the weekend. Finally, don’t be surprised if the F1 Forum overruns, as it is coming live from the main stage as Silverstone, so if you’re going, you may be caught on camera! I’ve also added Inside F1, presented by Lee McKenzie, below the poll for anyone interested.

Thursday 5th July
15:00 to 15:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
20:00 to 21:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 6th July
09:45 to 11:55 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
09:55 to 11:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Red Button)
11:50 to 12:30 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
13:45 to 15:50 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
13:55 to 15:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
15:55 to 16:45 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
17:15 to 18:00 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
18:00 to 19:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 7th 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 Red Button)
12:00 to 14:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
12:10 to 14:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC Two)
14:35 to 16:00 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:05 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Sunday 8th July
08:25 to 09:25 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:35 to 10:40 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
11:00 to 16:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
11:30 to 12:55 – MotoGP: Sachsenring (BBC Two)
12:10 to 12:55 – F1: Race Build-Up (BBC One)
12:55 to 15:30 – F1: Race (BBC Two)
15:30 to 16:30 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
17:30 to 20:00 – IndyCars: Toronto (Sky Sports 2)
20:30 to 22:30 – FILM: Senna (Sky Sports F1)

The schedules above are now confirmed, so should not change. I’ve also added BBC’s MotoGP coverage for the Sunday as that is partly the reason why the F1 build-up is on BBC One. IndyCars and a screening of the Senna film is also above.

News Articles – European Grand Prix

A summary of all the opinion and blog pieces from BBC and Sky over the past few days since the Canadian Grand Prix.

BBC
– Andrew Benson‘s Post-Race blog
– Gary Anderson‘s Technical Review
– Andrew Benson looks at Michael Schumacher’s contract status
– Jaime Alguersuari looks at a strange European Grand Prix

Sky
– Ted Kravitz‘s Notebook
– Martin Brundle explains why Kimi Raikkonen avoided a post-race penalty
– Mike Wise‘s Diary
– Pete Gill writes about Fernando Alonso’s race, lap-by-lap
– Pete Gill‘s Conclusions
– Martin Brundle looks at Fernando Alonso’s win
– Mark Hughes on why Fernando Alonso needs to repeat his Valencia victory

The Daily Mail story concerning the European Grand Prix

Normally on this blog I give my opinions on things on what I like and what I dislike, but here I want to make a few things straight.

On Sunday night, a BBC producer, specifically Richard Carr, tweeted the following: “Tedious delayed EasyJet flight. Enlivened by loud drunk TV presenter. Fortunately not a BBC TV presenter though. I give you two guesses…”

Obviously that led to a few people guessing who it may be. Which I guess, being Twitter, is to be expected, when you tweet something people respond. Someone asked whether the person in question’s first name began with a ‘T’ or ‘M’. He said “neither“.

Fast forward to last night, and this Daily Mail article written by Charles Sale. For those unaware of who Charles Sale is, he is a writer for the paper who writes daily sports columns covering the latest stories and gossip with ‘inside sources’, so to say.

The article states, specifically, that Simon Lazenby was the person acting drunk on the EasyJet flight. Now, I do not know whether those claims are true or not, Charles Sale is an insider whereas I am not. Therefore his words hold more strength than mine. But what I do not like, is when a member of the Formula 1 paddock, specifically Caterham’s Head of Communications Tom Webb and quashes the entire article, by saying: “Just seen Charlie Sale’s column today. What a complete load of lies. Good to see he’s not on his usual Beeb bash, but check your facts CS.”

Because by tweeting that, it makes it abundantly clear to me, that Lazenby was not the person involved in said incident on Sunday night, and therefore the article is an attempt at smearing and character defamation. The problem, is that the article is now being tweeted and shared with others all over Twitter, I seen one person refer to him as a “prick”. At the end of the day, there are real people, doing their job to the best of their ability. Yes, you can criticise their presenting, or their commentating or whatever may be. But unless you know them personally, you are in absolutely no position to call them a “prick” based on one single article, which, in this case, may not even be true at all.

I thought I would publish this particular blog, to set the record straight and to quash the article written by the Daily Mail which appears to be a smearing campaign, plain and simple. Irrespective of whether I like him or dislike him as presenter of the Sky Sports F1 show, what I do not like is people (or publications) who blatantly write articles, knowing what they are publishing is not strictly true and is only there to smear somebody else.

UPDATE at 19:31 on 26th June: The story has now been removed from the Daily Mail website.

UPDATE at 21:40 on 26th June: The article is back online at the same place.

European Grand Prix ratings soar to twelve year high

Boring was not the word on anyone’s lips yesterday afternoon, and the viewers seemed to agree as the European Grand Prix soared to a twelve year ratings high on BBC One and Sky Sports F1. The two broadcasters recorded a combined peak of approximately six million viewers. Five million were watching on BBC One with a further one million approximately on Sky Sports F1. The exact Sky Sports F1 peak figure is unknown, but I suspect it is around the one million viewers region.

In terms of averages, the BBC programme from 12:10 to 15:15 recorded an average of 3.83 million, a 32 percent viewing share, with Sky Sports F1 adding half a million viewers on top of it. The split is a mammoth 88% in BBC’s favour versus 12% for Sky Sports F1. This is by far the biggest split between the two broadcasters in the races that both broadcasters’ have broadcast live, with the split normally nearer the 80% to 20% region.

Irrespective of the splits and who had what, the viewing figures were the highest since the 2000 running of the European Grand Prix, which will please broadcasters after the Canadian Grand Prix was hit very hard from Euro 2012. One thing the new deal is doing is making the ratings analysis much more difficult, instead of it just being a constant low four million or high three million depending on whether, there are other factors to take into account depending on whether Sky has exclusive rights to that particular race and what time BBC’s highlights are on, as we seen with Canada. Here is how the European Grand Prix has rated since 2000:

2000 – 4.85 million
2001 – 3.14 million
2002 – 3.20 million
2003 – 2.80 million
2004 – 2.79 million
2005 – 2.42 million
2006 – 2.50 million
2007 – 3.24 million
2008 – 2.64 million
2009 – 4.09 million
2010 – 3.50 million
2011 – 3.89 million
2012 – 4.33 million

So a super rating for it yesterday, even if it is dwarfed by another certain football rating…

As of writing, I haven’t seen any Qualifying ratings so can’t comment on those.