Weekend in Stills – my thoughts

So, after several tweets from the Sky Sports F1 team informing us about tonight’s edition of Weekend in Stills, including Martin Brundle and Natalie Pinkham, I decided to give the show a go. Now in its third race, after it began in China, the programme is essentially half an hour of images from the Sutton Images collection.

When I first began this blog, in my ‘The Verdict so Far’ series, I described the Weekend in Stills show as “not my cup of tea”. Which, after watching tonight, is probably a sentiment that I would stick to. As a channel that is short of original content however, it is worth keeping.

Beginning on the imagery as a whole, there were some fantastic images in the programme, such as Sebastian Vettel in discussion with Bernie Ecclestone as well as Fernando Alonso embracing on the podium after Maldonaldo’s debut win. The latter of those two is best caught as an image as the camera was close up on both of them and caught the shot perfectly (I won’t at this point claim to know a lot about camera angles and taking pictures, it’s not my expertise area!).

Beyond the imagery however, it’s just that. The musical choice leaves a left to be desired and needs a lot more thought. The music used was actually that used in Sky’s very own Formula 1 trailers, such as this one. It needs a bit of imagination, instead of an instrumental in the background. Which brings us onto the next point and that’s the fading in and out of images. The ‘talking heads’ images would work much better with a fade in and out – fading out of one conversation and into another instead of snapping from one image straight to another.

I think one other thing that could do is bring some video into it. You may argue that defeats the entire purpose of the programme, but I think personally that it would enhance it. Say for instance with the start. You would show the start in video and then just as the cars are turning in cut to this image for instance, but stay on the image for a good 15 seconds. Or to give another example, when Maldonaldo goes around the final corner you have it all moving until the chequered flag when you cut to this shot. I think cutting between video and image would work better, in my opinion than a full half an hour show with just stills. At least with Weekend in Stills it has a purpose, unlike Weekend in Words which appears to regurgitate information we have already heard over the weekend and add nothing new.

As a show, it doesn’t really appeal to me with just half an hour of images, but I think interspersing moving clips with still photos may be worth experimenting with. It’s an okay show for what it is, but not something I can imagine watching on a regular basis.

Sky Sports F1 to screen Friday’s Team Press Conference live on channel

Following on from the decision to shown Thursday’s Driver Press Conference live on their channel starting from last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, it appears that they have made the same move with Friday’s Team Press Conference.

Due to the Monaco Grand Prix scheduling (where practice takes place on Thursday’s), the first Team Press Conference will air on Thursday 24th May at 15:00 on Sky Sports F1.

Sky Sports F1 – Top 10 ratings (week ending 6th May, 2012)

From BARB:

1 – 83k – The F1 Show (Friday, 20:00)
2 – 19k – 2003 Season Review: Part 1 (Friday, 21:00)
3 – 19k – 2004 Season Review: Part 2 (Saturday, 22:30)
4 – 11k – Chinese Grand Prix Replay (Sunday, 11:00)
5 – 9k – 2004 Season Review: Part 1 (Saturday, 21:03)
6 – 9k – Malaysian Grand Prix Highlights (Tuesday, 21:02)
7 – 8k – Australian Grand Prix Replay (Saturday, 11:00)
8 – 8k – Bahrain Grand Prix: GP2 Race 1 Replay (Thursday, 17:01)
9 – 8k – Fast Track (Tuesday, 18:59)
10 – 7k – 2003 Season Review: Part 2 (Friday, 22:18)

On the bright note, The F1 Show recorded it’s highest individual figure since launch. That’s about the only bright note. Only four shows above ten thousand viewers which is the lowest number for the channel so far. This is not really surprising though – in the three week gap between Malaysia and China, the second ‘off week’ performed worser than the first, and that is exactly the same here, with this week performing worser than last week.

The weekly reach for the channel is the lowest yet, albeit very marginally. The channel reached 607 thousand viewers for the week ending 6th May, compared with 608 thousand viewers for the week ending 8th April. Overall, though it’s not particularly surprising, although it shows why Sky needs to put more of an effort into its mid-week programming as I showed in Part 4 of my ‘The Verdict so Far’ series.

Spanish Grand Prix peaks with 5.6 million viewers

The Spanish Grand Prix peaked at 5.6 million viewers on BBC One and Sky Sports F1, overnight figures have shown. BBC One had 4.6 million of these viewers, with Sky Sports recording a peak of 1.05 million – a split of 82% to 18% in BBC’s favour.

In terms of programme averages (which is what I tend to use for comparison purposes), BBC One had an average of 3.49 million viewers from 12:10 to 15:15, while Sky Sports F1 had an average of 512,000 (3.6%) from 11:30 to 16:45, their programme extended by 15 minutes due to the events in Barcelona. This totals up at exactly 4 million viewers, with a split of 87% to 13% in BBC’s favour. The split is larger for the averages due to Sky’s longer pre and post race show. Doing some calculations shows that Sky had in the region of 770,000 viewers between 12:10 and 15:15.

But how does the split compare with China (the last race where both BBC and Sky were live), and how do the averages compare with previous years? For the Chinese Grand Prix, BBC recorded a 5-minute peak of 4.21 million, whereas Sky Sports F1 had a peak of 887,000 viewers. This was a split of 82.6% vs 17.4% in BBC’s favour. You could argue the split was 0.6 percent higher in Sky’s favour for Spain, but in reality the numbers are in the usual margin of error that you would expect. Overall, since China it seems Sky has not clawed anything from BBC, and vice versa.

The comparisons to previous year’s make for interesting reading, though. Last year’s race – which had the highest rating since 1996 – peaked with 6.2 million viewers and had an average of 4.68 million viewers. So this year marks a 600 thousand viewer drop on that figure. For the Spanish Grand Prix, that figure was abnormally high, the remainder of the Spanish Grand Prix races in the 21st century have either had bang on 4 million viewers, or below 4 million viewers. The 2012 figure of 4 million is in-line with the 2010 race day average which had 3.99 million, and above the preceding years. I guess, from a viewers’ perspective, a battle between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton is more intriguing than that of a relative unknown to viewers (Pastor Maldonaldo) and Fernando Alonso. It’s worth considering outside factors as well, it was the last day of the Premier League season yesterday which, although it did not clash with the F1, would have probably depleted the Formula 1 figures slightly.

Either way, although it’s down year-on-year, I think it was to be expected given last year’s surprisingly high figure. Moving onto Qualifying, Saturday on BBC One only had 2.10 million. I don’t yet know Sky Sports F1’s Qualifying figure, we probably won’t know until next Monday, but assuming it is above 200 thousand viewers, it will be higher than last year’s Qualifying figure of 2.30 million, albeit lower than 2009 and 2010.

In conclusion, I think the figures are solid, and as expected. Nothing too high, but nothing of much concern. Next, we move onto Monaco, which due to the glitz and glamour of the place and it being one of the main races of the year tends to bring higher viewing figures.

Note: The ratings information comes from Digital Spy, Media Guardian, the Controller of BBC News Kevin Bakhurst and BARB.

UPDATE: Seconds after posting this, James Allen claims that BBC’s show peaked with 6.2 million. I’m not sure how true this is, none of the averages or peaks that I have seen support his assertion.

Sky Sports F1 in u-turn: Classic F1 races to be shown on the channel

In a u-turn for Sky Sports F1, if the EPG is to go by, it looks like Classic F1 is coming to Sky Sports F1 starting next Sunday:

1982 Monaco Grand Prix – 40 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 09:00 to 09:40
– Wednesday 23rd May, 19:20 to 20:00

1983 Monaco Grand Prix – 40 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 09:40 to 10:20
– Friday 25th May, 19:25 to 20:05

2007 Monaco Grand Prix – 2 hours, 15 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 10:20 to 12:35
– Monday 21st May, 20:00 to 22:15

2008 Monaco Grand Prix – 2 hours, 40 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 12:35 to 15:15
– Tuesday 22nd May, 20:00 to 22:40

2009 Monaco Grand Prix – 2 hours, 15 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 15:15 to 17:30
– Wednesday 23rd May, 20:00 to 22:15

2010 Monaco Grand Prix – 2 hours, 25 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 17:30 to 19:55
– Thursday 24th May, 21:05 to 23:30

2011 Monaco Grand Prix – 2 hours, 50 minutes
– Sunday 20th May, 20:00 to 22:50
– Friday 25th May, 21:05 to 23:55

The length of the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix suggests that particular full race will be shown. I shall update this post later if more races are to be shown next Sunday, but definitely a great move considering it is a dedicated channel. Martin Turner said in his Questions and Answers blog on the Sky Sports F1 website a month ago that Classic F1 races would not be shown, hence my surprise at the u-turn. The lack of Classic F1 races I noted in my ‘The Verdict so Far’ posts, specifically here, so I am very glad to see a u-turn.

UPDATE at 20:50: Now that the EPG has updated, we can see that Sky are showing ‘Classic’ Monaco Grand Prix’s throughout the day next Sunday. I’m not sure that classic is the apt word here, but either way Sky are showing highlights of the 1982 and 1983 Monaco Grand Prix, along with the full races of Monaco for 2007 through to 2012. The length of the broadcasts suggest that this will be the World Feed only, with adverts throughout. Either way, it is a very pleasing step to see Sky take, and definitely makes it more like a Formula 1 channel now. I assume that this shall continue throughout the season, but as always, time will tell.

FURTHER UPDATE on 15th May at 14:00: The Radio Times website has the full Sky Sports F1 schedule through for 2 weeks, so I have added the Classic Monaco Grand Prix details above.