Scheduling: The 2014 United States Grand Prix

The United States Grand Prix is the seventeenth of nineteen stops on this season’s Formula One calendar. Now in its third year, the Circuit of the Americas plays host to the ongoing battle between Mercedes team-mates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, the Brit currently with the upper hand. Sky Sports have this race, and Brazil, exclusively live with BBC screening highlights. On the personnel front, Bruno Senna is with Sky for his sixth race of the year and James Allen is back in the 5 Live saddle for the final three races this year.

In a move likely to anger some people, the BBC highlights show has shrunk from two hours to an hour and a half, all previous American timezone races were two hours. This also applies for Brazil next weekend. I should note that BBC One in the 21:00 slot currently has a Death in Paradise repeat. They may well be planning a late swap, moving the F1 highlights to 21:00, with the news at 22:30. Of course, that would mean the highlights starting whilst the race is still ongoing which, whilst good for the viewers, could be something that Sky would object to as they would not benefit in any way. Hence, a compromise could be scheduling the highlights at 22:30, but actually airing them at 21:00 and announcing it at the latest possible opportunity, so that Sky do not lose out as a result. But we will see what happens.

Thursday 30th October
16:00 to 16:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
21:00 to 22:00 – F1: Preview (BBC Radio 5 Live)

Friday 31st October
10:00 to 10:15 – Gear Up for USA (Sky Sports F1)
14:45 to 16:50 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
14:55 to 16:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
18:45 to 21:00 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
18:55 to 20:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
21:00 to 21:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:00 to 00:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)

Saturday 1st November
14:45 to 16:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
14:55 to 16:05 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
17:00 to 19:45 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
17:55 to 19:05 – F1: Qualifying (BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra)
22:00 to 23:15 – F1: Qualifying Highlights (BBC Two)

Sunday 2nd November
02:30 to 09:35 – WEC: Shanghai (Motors TV)
07:30 to 09:00 – WEC: Shanghai (Eurosport)
18:30 to 23:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 18:30 – Track Parade
=> 19:00 – Race (simulcast on Sky Sports 1)
=> 22:30 – Paddock Live
19:30 to 22:00 – F1: Race (BBC Radio 5 Live)
23:15 to 00:15 – GP Heroes: Emerson Fittipaldi (Sky Sports F1)
22:30 to 00:00 – F1: Race Highlights (BBC One)

Wednesday 5th November
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
25/10 – 21:00 to 22:00 – 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix Highlights
26/10 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1982 German Grand Prix Highlights
27/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2012 Canadian Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
28/10 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1996 German Grand Prix Highlights
29/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 1981 Caesars Palace Grand Prix
30/10 – 21:00 to 22:45 – 2007 United States Grand Prix
31/10 – 16:50 to 17:35 – 1987 Detroit Grand Prix Highlights
31/10 – 21:45 to 22:45 – 1977 Season Review
01/11 – 16:15 to 17:00 – 1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix Highlights
02/11 – 14:15 to 15:15 – 1977 Season Review
02/11 – 00:15 to 00:45 – 1990 United States Grand Prix Highlights

This is the schedule as it stands, but as always I will update the above if anything changes.

Update on October 26th – I notice Sky are simulcasting next Sunday’s race on Sky Sports 1, the first time that has happened. They have simulcast the qualifying session on Sky1 before, but this is the first time the race will be simulcast on a different channel. No word yet on if Brazil could follow suit.

3.9m watch inaugural Russian Grand Prix

The Russian Grand Prix performed solidly in the UK viewing figures yesterday, unofficial overnight figures show.

Race
BBC One’s coverage of the race from 11:00 to 14:15 averaged 3.22m (31.3%), peaking with 4.56m (38.1%) at 13:30. Sky Sports F1 added an average of 665k (6.5%) from 11:00 to 14:30, peaking with 985k (8.2%). Obviously there are no historical comparisons, however the combined average of 3.89m is directly in-line with the season average so far, so its not a great rating, but it is not a poor rating either.

The combined peak figure of 5.55m (46.3%) at 13:30 is split 82% vs 18% in BBC’s favour, which is similar to the peak splits in the past, suggesting that there has been no real movement between the two channels in the past two years. As an aside, that peak figure is pretty impressive, which might indicate that some of the more casual audience was caught out by the earlier start time. Considering the race quality was pretty bad, it did well to hold a stable audience throughout, I suspect Lewis Hamilton leading had a lot to play in that. As there was a lot of motor sport yesterday, there will be another post soon summarising the remaining motor sport numbers from BTCC to MotoGP.

Qualifying
Live coverage of qualifying on BBC One averaged 2.10m (25.5%) from 11:15 to 13:30, whilst Sky Sports F1’s coverage from 11:20 to 13:35 averaged 442k (5.3%). The combined average of 2.54m is just above average, so a solid rating there. The most interesting story from Saturday though was not the qualifying rating itself, but rather how well the GP3 Series did sandwiched between practice and qualifying.

On Saturday, Sky Sports F1 stayed above 100k from 08:45 to 13:35, this including F1’s practice three and qualifying. I thought Sky did a clever move here, wrapping the qualifying build-up around GP3. The GP3 race from 10:35 to 11:20 averaged 161k (2.4%), which is an excellent number and Sky’s highest ever for a GP2 or GP3 race. GP2 after qualifying averaged 53k (0.6%), showing how much either GP2 or GP3 would benefit from a permanent slot in between F1 practice and qualifying on Saturday’s. Yes, Sky may ‘lose’ twenty minutes of F1 build-up, but how else are the likes of Jolyon Palmer going to introduce themselves to an F1 audience? If ‘the powers that be’ are reading, maybe Russia’s Saturday scheduling could become permanent for 2015…

2014 Japanese Grand Prix UK ratings report

Race
BBC One’s live coverage from 06:00 to 09:15 averaged 1.74m (37.1%), up on last year’s 1.30m (30.5%) Sky Sports F1 averaged 494k (10.0%) from 06:00 to 09:30, up on last year’s 370k. BBC One’s repeat from 13:15 to 15:15 averaged 2.24m (21.3%), up on last year’s 1.92m (15.3%).

The BBC live programme peaked with 2.84m (33.6%) at 09:05, with Sky’s live coverage peaking with 776k (9.5%) at 08:50. 3.55m (42.0%) were watching BBC One and Sky Sports F1 at 09:05. BBC’s highlights peaked with 2.80m (25.1%) at 14:55.

Year-on-year, the combined number of 4.48m is up significantly on 3.58m in 2013 and is the most watched Japanese Grand Prix since at least 2006, and probably the last decade and a half. Same applies for the combined peak of 6.35m, which is the second highest peak of the entire year. Given the circumstances, those facts are not worth boasting about though, really.

The 2013 Japanese Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

Sky pull remainder of today’s schedule

In light of this morning’s events in Japan, Sky have pulled the remainder of today’s F1 programming on Sky Sports F1. For the record, this is how the revised schedule for today (Sunday 5th October 2014) went:

06:00 – Live Japanese Grand Prix
10:15 – GP Heroes: Niki Lauda
11:15 – Horse Power
12:15 to 06:00 – Your Home of Formula One

Paddock Live was integrated into the main programme although in reality it was not your typical post-race show. Any programming related to the Japanese Grand Prix weekend was dropped, including Ted’s post-race Notebook (presumably they never filmed a notebook) and highlights showings. Their Classic F1 race, highlights of the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix, was also dropped.

BBC aired their highlights programme as normal at 13:15, this was accompanied by a message from Suzi Perry at the start of the show noting Jules Bianchi’s current condition, but that the accident would not be shown in the broadcast (as was the case in the live airing). For those stumbling across this post, as is always the case, BBC and Sky take the Formula One Management (FOM) World Feed, which did not play out Bianchi’s accident.

Update on October 5th at 18:00 – Sky have pulled repeats of practice that were meant to be broadcast tomorrow morning (Monday 6th October), and will remain off-air until at least 13:00.

Update on October 6th – Sky went back to their normal schedule at 13:00.

Scheduling: The 2014 Russian Grand Prix

The next round of the Formula One season is just a few days away, however there is a lot of other motor sport action next weekend. For those wishing to jump to the schedule, click the links below.

– Thursday 9th October
– Friday 10th October
– Saturday 11th October
– Sunday 12th October
– Wednesday 15th October
– Classic F1

Beginning with the F1, and Jack Nicholls and Bruno Senna are in for BBC Radio and Sky Sports respectively. The race will be the last for Nicholls this season, whilst Senna will also be with Sky for USA and Brazil. On the schedule front, it is a weird one with timings on Friday two hours earlier, and an hour earlier than a typical European race during the latter end of the weekend. Due to a clash with the Daily Politics, practice two on BBC Two is on a tape delay, however it will air live behind the Red Button. Another oddity concerns GP3, for some reason, the organisers have stuck GP3’s first race of the weekend in between F1’s final practice session and qualifying. What that means is that Sky’s qualifying programme is split into two.

Aside from the F1, there are a plethora of other events throughout the weekend: the BTCC season finale, Bathurst 1000, the 6 Hours of Fuji and MotoGP! The WEC will be tape-delayed on Motors TV and screened live only from Eurosport’s bonus online channel. Considering how other events try and avoid the F1, I’m unsure how we’ve ended up with several top flight series on the same weekend as the F1. In any case, the schedule as always can be found below…

Thursday 9th October
12:00 to 12:45 – F1: Driver Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
23:15 to 23:30 – Gear Up for Russia (Sky Sports F1)

Friday 10th October
06:45 to 09:00 – F1: Practice 1 (Sky Sports F1)
06:55 to 08:35 – F1: Practice 1 (BBC Two)
09:00 to 09:50 – GP2: Practice (Sky Sports F1)
10:45 to 12:55 – F1: Practice 2 (Sky Sports F1)
10:55 to 12:35 – F1: Practice 2 (BBC Red Button)
12:55 to 13:35 – GP2: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
13:20 to 15:00 – F1: Practice 2 Repeat (BBC Two)
14:00 to 14:45 – F1: Team Press Conference (Sky Sports F1)
15:00 to 16:00 – The F1 Show (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)

Saturday 11th October
06:30 to 07:05 – GP3: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
08:45 to 10:15 – F1: Practice 3 (Sky Sports F1)
08:55 to 10:15 – F1: Practice 3 (BBC Two)
10:15 to 10:35 – F1: Qualifying Build-Up (Sky Sports F1)
10:35 to 11:20 – GP3: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
11:15 to 13:30 – F1: Qualifying (BBC One)
11:20 to 13:35 – F1: Qualifying (Sky Sports F1)
13:35 to 15:05 – GP2: Race 1 (Sky Sports F1)
18:45 to 19:00 – Inside F1 (BBC News Channel)
23:30 to 07:30 – V8S: Bathurst 1000 (Motors TV)
00:30 to 07:30 – V8S: Bathurst 1000 (BT Sport 1)

Sunday 12th October
02:45 to 07:15 – MotoGP: Motegi (BT Sport 2)
07:30 to 13:40 – WEC: Fuji (Motors TV)
– tape delay
07:55 to 08:55 – GP3: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
09:00 to 10:15 – GP2: Race 2 (Sky Sports F1)
10:15 to 18:30 – BTCC: Brands Hatch (ITV4)
10:30 to 15:15 – F1: Race (Sky Sports F1)
=> 10:30 – Track Parade
=> 11:00 – Race
=> 14:30 – Paddock Live
11:00 to 14:15 – F1: Race (BBC One)
14:15 to 15:15 – F1: Forum (BBC Red Button)
15:15 to 16:15 – GP Heroes: Mario Andretti (Sky Sports F1)

Wednesday 15th October
20:30 to 21:00 – Midweek Report (Sky Sports F1)

Classic F1 on Sky Sports F1
06/10 – 21:15 to 22:30 – 1993 German Grand Prix Highlights
07/10 – 21:00 to 00:00 – 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix
08/10 – 21:00 to 23:45 – 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix
09/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2000 Belgian Grand Prix
10/10 – 16:00 to 16:45 – 1994 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
11/10 – 15:05 to 17:35 – 2008 British Grand Prix
11/10 – 20:20 to 21:20 – 1976 Season Review
12/10 – 19:45 to 20:45 – 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix Highlights
13/10 – 21:00 to 23:30 – 2012 European Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
14/10 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1982 Monaco Grand Prix Highlights
15/10 – 21:00 to 22:00 – 1985 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
16/10 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2012 British Grand Prix (Sky commentary)
17/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2010 Belgian Grand Prix
18/10 – 21:00 to 21:45 – 1991 Spanish Grand Prix Highlights
19/10 – 21:00 to 21:30 – 1987 Australian Grand Prix Highlights
20/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix
21/10 – 21:00 to 23:00 – TBA
22/10 – 21:00 to 23:00 – 2005 Belgian Grand Prix
23/10 – 21:00 to 22:45 – 2003 British Grand Prix
24/10 – 21:00 to 23:15 – 2010 German Grand Prix

If anything changes, I will update the schedule.