Scheduling: The European Grand Prix [UPDATED]

From the Asia’s to the European’s to the North America and now back to Europe for, rather aptly, the European Grand Prix. Both BBC and Sky are live this weekend. As with Canada, the BBC team has undergone a few changes. Lee McKenzie steps into Jake Humphrey’s shoes, while Tom Clarkson again steps into McKenzie’s shoes, McKenzie confirming on Twitter this past week that Clarkson would be stepping in for this round, Germany and Hungary. Here’s how the schedule shapes up:

Thursday 21st June
14:00 to 14:30 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 22nd June
08:45 to 10:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Red Button)
10:55 to 11:35 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
12:45 to 14:50 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
12:55 to 14:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
14:55 to 15:35 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
16:00 to 16:30 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
17:00 to 18:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)

Saturday 23rd June
08:40 to 09:20 – 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 14:20 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
14:35 to 16:00 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
16:15 to 17:00 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
23:10 to 00:10 – Le Mans 24 Hours Highlights (Sky Sports F1)

Sunday 24th June
08:20 to 09:05 – 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)
12:10 to 15:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
15:15 to 16:15 – F1: Forum (BBC One)
16:15 to 17:15 – F1: Legends: Mika Hakkinen (Sky Sports F1)

One thing to note is that there is no sign of the Friday Press Conference with the Team Principles. I assume that is because the Press Conference clashes with the GP2 Qualifying session, and therefore Sky are only showing the Friday Press Conference when the two do not clash. I shall update this blog though if that changes.

Update on 19th June: Sky are showing the Team Principles Press Conference after all, at 16:00 on Friday. I’ve added that above. There are also highlights of the 24 Hours of Le Mans which I have added too. It looks like that may be the only showing, so record it while you can!

Update on 21st June: It turns out that most of my opening paragraph above is now irrelevant. Humphrey is travelling out to Valencia due to the way the Euro 2012 schedule has fallen, meaning McKenzie is doing the usual interviews and Clarkson presumably will not be with the BBC F1 team. Also, on the radio side of things Jonathan Legard is in again for James Allen. On the Sky F1 side of things, Allan McNish is the super sub in place of Anthony Davidson for practice, while Karun Chandhok is also with them for the weekend.

News Articles – Canadian 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 the new turbo-charged engine and the dispute surrounding it
– Gary Anderson looks at the pit-lane strategies from Canada

Sky
– Ted Kravitz‘s Notebook
– Mike Wise‘s Diary
– Pete Gill‘s Conclusions
– William Esler‘s updated Qualifying comparison
– Mark Hughes analysis on Jenson Button
– James Galloway assesses Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren future after his Canadian win

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.

Some thoughts on Sky’s Practice coverage

I thought, having watched both practice sessions today as I have done throughout the year, write some brief thoughts on Sky’s Practice coverage. It won’t be a really long blog, just a few pointers on where they could improve. For the most part, it is good, but there are a few areas where things do grind.

Firstly, there is the constant cutting away to their own cameras. There needs to be a balance, and I don’t feel that Sky have the correct balance at the moment. They normally cut away from the Formula One Management feed when David Croft hands over to Ted Kravitz or Natalie Pinkham, but I really don’t get why they cut away. They should only cut away if Kravitz has something to show us, as it adds to the coverage. But cutting away to show Martin Brundle interviewing Martin Whitmarsh is unnecessary, we know what both men look like so there is no need to cut away from the World Feed when there may be action on the track. In one example, they cut away to show Jacques Villeneuve walking through the paddock. Yes, he may be part of your coverage this weekend, but the cut away was not necessary, and did not enhance the coverage apart from say “ooh, we have a camera in the paddock!”. As I say, they should only cut away when Kravitz is showing us something, we know what people look like so we don’t need to cut away at any other time, especially if cars are on track, as that grates a lot.

The next point concerns Jerome d’Ambrosio. I’m not sure how many more Friday’s Anthony Davidson is away for, but d’Ambrosio does not really add to the coverage for me, and they would be much better rotating the co-commentary position, or have a guest commentator like BBC Radio 5 Live used to do when Davidson was unavailable. We had d’Ambrosio in Monaco, and as a practice commentator he doesn’t do much because he has not been high up the grid, so does not have the expertise that another potential co-commentator would have, take Johnny Herbert for instance for the sake of an example. At times it felt like Croft and d’Ambrosio were having trouble filling the time with awkward pauses, whereas someone like Herbert, who has a lot of past F1 experience, would be able to fill the time easily and tell ‘stories’ to relate to a current drivers’ situation. d’Ambrosio’s a fine commentator in GP2 and GP3, because he’s commentating on the action in front of him, but is not really suited to practice where they are in ‘discussion mode’, in my opinion.

Seven minutes off-air, that is still in force, and it grinds a bit when they could get a extra interview or two in. It is most noticeable though for practice three, as we witnessed in Monaco when they hurried off air a mere three minutes after the session had ended, despite incidents at the end of the session.

Anyway, I thought I’d write this blog, seeing as I had a few pointers in my head, but as always, your comments are welcome as well. Agree or disagree with the above?