96 replies to this topic

[RTH]

Anyone know where we could see a 10 year graph of audience TV viewing figures that are genuine and independent for :-

1. UK
2. Europe
3.World

Presumably car,track banner,and Ad break sponsors must want to keep a close check on viewer numbers, I can't seem to find anything published, - might be interesting.

[howardt]

Try :

www.barb.co.uk
www.nielsenmedia.com

But I don't think they give away info like this - they're in the business of selling this to TV stations. Still, you could ask...

[Ross Stonefeld]

10 year? Good luck


For 2004

Monaco
Australia .455mil
Austria .792
Denmark .234
Finland .973
France 5.015
Germany 10.820
Greece .394
Holland 1.053
Hungary 1.390
Italy 12.482
Poland .441
Spain 4.337
UK 3.912
US .361

[mikedeering]

That Spanish figure is pretty impressive - IIRC before Alonso joined Renault they didn't have live coverage as they were too busy watching the bikes.

[cozworth]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
10 year? Good luck


For 2004

Monaco
Australia .455mil
Austria .792
Denmark .234
Finland .973
France 5.015
Germany 10.820
Greece .394
Holland 1.053
Hungary 1.390
Italy 12.482
Poland .441
Spain 4.337
UK 3.912
US .361

India : 0 -> reason : STARSPORTS

[lukywill]

nobody cares anymore for f1. believe me.

[mikabest]

Originally posted by mikedeering
That Spanish figure is pretty impressive - IIRC before Alonso joined Renault they didn't have live coverage as they were too busy watching the bikes.

The figures of Spain might be impressive, but they're not topping the list if you look at the figures of the countries Ross posted and compare them to the population of each country. The result looks like this:

1) Italy 21,5 % of the population
2) Finland 18,7 %
3) Hungary 13,9 %
4) Germany 13,1 %
5) Spain 10,8 %
6) France 8,3 %
7) Netherlands 6,5 %
UK 6,5%
9) Austria 5,6 %
10) Denmark 4,3 %
11) Greece 3,7 %
12) Australia 2,3 %
13) Poland 1,1 %
14) US 0,12 %

Two countries above others I'd say ;)

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

[Jack Rabbit]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
10 year? Good luck


For 2004

Monaco
Australia .455mil
Austria .792
Denmark .234
Finland .973
France 5.015
Germany 10.820
Greece .394
Holland 1.053
Hungary 1.390
Italy 12.482
Poland .441
Spain 4.337
UK 3.912
US .361

Where are the figures from?

[Ross Stonefeld]

In a magazine via FOM. Or maybe its from one of the teams, but originally FOM data.

[Jack Rabbit]

Thanks!

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by mikabest


The figures of Spain might be impressive, but they're not topping the list if you look at the figures of the countries Ross posted and compare them to the population of each country. The result looks like this:

1) Italy 21,5 % of the population
2) Finland 18,7 %
3) Hungary 13,9 %
4) Germany 13,1 %
5) Spain 10,8 %
6) France 8,3 %
7) Netherlands 6,5 %
UK 6,5%
9) Austria 5,6 %
10) Denmark 4,3 %
11) Greece 3,7 %
12) Australia 2,3 %
13) Poland 1,1 %
14) US 0,12 %

Two countries above others I'd say ;)

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

The numbers refer to the numbers of TV sets ("households") I guess that are tuned at the GPs (that's the way they count it in the Netherlands anyway) - not the number of people. So the % of the population might be higher.

[mikabest]

Originally posted by scheivlak


The numbers refer to the numbers of TV sets ("households") I guess that are tuned at the GPs (that's the way they count it in the Netherlands anyway) - not the number of people. So the % of the population might be higher.

You might be right. Anyhow the comparison between the countries is still at least roughly correct. Italians leading, which is not a very surprising fact - neither is the identity of the last place holder . The ratio between them being something like 1/200.

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

[checkonetwo]

i believe that any officially released figures on tv audience are totally useless. there´s hardly anything in todays world where there´s more spin layed on. wait......one or two things come to my mind...

[mikabest]

In Finland the figures indicate the number of people, not households. The survey is made by Finnpanel (their english summary page here http://www.finnpanel.fi/english.html). They are using 1000 households in which there are 2200 people altogether. Each family member has their own remote that registers the channel they're watching and the time they're watching it.

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

[JForce]

Originally posted by checkonetwo
i believe that any officially released figures on tv audience are totally useless. there´s hardly anything in todays world where there´s more spin layed on. wait......one or two things come to my mind...

JVi?;)

I was told by the presenter of our F1 coverage that here in NZ we average between 150-200,000 which I think is pretty impressive given the races are at midnight.

[Zippity]

Published television viewer numbers are a load of complete and utter bullshit.

No one knows who watches what and when.

The ficticious figures created are generated to convince advertisers and politicians of their own importance.

[howardt]

They're not 'fictitious', but they are based on a very small sample. Most countries seem to measure the viewing of around 5000 homes, and then extrapolate this to the entire country. Even in the US with 400million or so people, they are only measuring 5000 homes. Thus there's a good chance that the figures are wildly inaccurate. IT's a bit like asking someone who they'd vote for in an election, and then predicting that person to be the next president.

These figures are taken as gospel by the industry, however, because it's the closest thing to scientific research that they have, and it's used as a standard.

[mikabest]

Originally posted by howardt
... Even in the US with 400million or so people, they are only measuring 5000 homes. ...

I hope that the number of illegal immigrants in the US is not that big (about 100 million) ... the official estimate of the population of the US is only 293,027,571 (July 2004 est.)

Just to be accurate....

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

[tintin]

Originally posted by howardt
They're not 'fictitious', but they are based on a very small sample. Most countries seem to measure the viewing of around 5000 homes, and then extrapolate this to the entire country. Even in the US with 400million or so people, they are only measuring 5000 homes. Thus there's a good chance that the figures are wildly inaccurate.

If you knew anything about statistics and probability you'd know that they are not wildly inaccurate.

In the UK (a country of 40m adults) they survey around 3,000 households - or 8,000 people.
The margin of error in those figures when extrapolated across the whole population is only a little over 2%.

[917k]

Originally posted by Zippity
Published television viewer numbers are a load of complete and utter bullshit.

No one knows who watches what and when.

The ficticious figures created are generated to convince advertisers and politicians of their own importance.

Some one has to tell the Neilson folks,cause they have made a pretty good industry of selling ''bullshit.''

Samples are the only way to tell what viewership is.Companies spend millions for the data Neilson compiles.If it was useless,I'm pretty sure someone would point that out.[someone NOT posting on an F1 message board,that is.]

[sdaouk]

F1 TV audiences on a high according to http://uk.sports.yah...12/13/5ksv.html

[Don Ato]

Originally posted by lukywill
nobody cares anymore for f1. believe me.

Except for.. what.. 30 million people?

[Viktor]

The viewing figures for Sweden is about 300.000-400.000 for every race, about 5% of the population (we just went up to 9.000.000 today ).

/Viktor

[Jason]

Originally posted by mikabest


The figures of Spain might be impressive, but they're not topping the list if you look at the figures of the countries Ross posted and compare them to the population of each country. The result looks like this:

1) Italy 21,5 % of the population
2) Finland 18,7 %
3) Hungary 13,9 %
4) Germany 13,1 %
5) Spain 10,8 %
6) France 8,3 %
7) Netherlands 6,5 %
UK 6,5%
9) Austria 5,6 %
10) Denmark 4,3 %
11) Greece 3,7 %
12) Australia 2,3 %
13) Poland 1,1 %
14) US 0,12 %

Two countries above others I'd say ;)

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

Japan didn't even crack the top 14? What's up with that?

[mikabest]

Originally posted by Jason

Japan didn't even crack the top 14? What's up with that?

I only made the comparison between the countries that were mentioned in the post Ross wrote. There must be many countries missing. Viktor mentions above that the normal amount of viewers in Sweden is about 300.000 - 400.000 which is 3,5 - 4 % of the population. It would be there somewhere between Greece or Denmark. And surely the figures of Japan must surpass those of the US - mustn't them...;)

yours,

ever so biased
mikabest

[nicholasc]

Where's the evidence that F1 viewership is falling rapidly.....?
Every F1 internet "news" site seems to mention this incessantly.

Personally I don't buy it. F1 has always been popular due to it's ability to gain new viewers, generation after generation.

anyway, back to the discussion...it's my understanding that 1 company sells the rights to all track advertising, while individual broadcasting stations sell their own airtime. So, there's no competition from the track point of view, and it may not even be sold based on numbers. The seller sets the price, and there's more than enough demand for it. The seller is only paying Bernie a fee with negligible overheads...closed shop, and with Bernie involved, a very closed shop. On a broadcast by broadcast situation the numbers are national only and 'packaging' including the home event weekend is very likely to obscure the true situation also. So - it appears that it's not really in anyones interest, who have the ability, to collect or publish really accurate figures.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Zippity
Published television viewer numbers are a load of complete and utter bullshit.

No one knows who watches what and when.

The ficticious figures created are generated to convince advertisers and politicians of their own importance.

Originally posted by nicholasc
So - it appears that it's not really in anyones interest, who have the ability, to collect or publish really accurate figures.

I'm beginning to wonder what's going on down under.....

Maybe we're naive, but here in the Netherlands - and I think most north/western European countries - the viewing data collected on all broadcasts by some official institute are simply taken more or less for granted. And anyway, even if the numbers are not completely accurate the trend analysis (upwards/downwards) of viewing figures might still be close to reality.

And BTW - for advertisers it's very important to know the really accurate figures! They won't like to be cheated with fancy numbers.

[Jack Rabbit]

this source says Canada's viewing figures have dropped from an average of one million per race to 150, 000 this year.

[nicholasc]

Originally posted by scheivlak




I'm beginning to wonder what's going on down under.....

Maybe we're naive, but here in the Netherlands - and I think most north/western European countries - the viewing data collected on all broadcasts by some official institute are simply taken more or less for granted. And anyway, even if the numbers are not completely accurate the trend analysis (upwards/downwards) of viewing figures might still be close to reality.

And BTW - for advertisers it's very important to know the really accurate figures! They won't like to be cheated with fancy numbers.

I don't doubt your knowlege, but given the virtual column inches devoted to the subject you'd think someone would do a 'real' news story on it backed up by facts and figures - it doesn't seem to be the case.
BTW - who is the 'official institute' and who funds it?

[boyRacer]

Originally posted by lukywill
nobody cares anymore for f1. believe me.

you = nobody

[StickShift]

One million people watched F1 in Canada? Yeah, right...

[917k]

Originally posted by Jack Rabbit
this source says Canada's viewing figures have dropped from an average of one million per race to 150, 000 this year.

The only race to get a million would be the Canadian GP,on network TV.The rest of the races have averaged 100-150,000 for many years now.They are broadcast on TSN,a national sports channel,and have been for 15 years or so.

If the numbers are 150,000 a race,they are holding steady.

[Jack Rabbit]

I think unless your willing to pay an agency like Nielsen Media Reseach, the numbers you get from anyone are going to be suspect. I remeber reading an article about how public perceptions can be manipulated in a psych journal. In one chart, they looked at the 'reported' tv viewing numbers for events like the superbowl and the Oscars and compared them with the real numbers advertises use when deciding on which shows to buy advertising on. And the differences were huge.

I think, therefore, getting reliable numbers without paying for them is impssible. imho.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Well, tehy generally do pay for them. I dont know of any ad agency researcher that does it for free.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by nicholasc


I don't doubt your knowlege, but given the virtual column inches devoted to the subject you'd think someone would do a 'real' news story on it backed up by facts and figures - it doesn't seem to be the case.
BTW - who is the 'official institute' and who funds it?

Here in the Netherlands it's the Stichting Kijkonderzoek http://www.kijkonderzoek.nl - a non profit organisation in which both the public and the commercial broadcasting organisations as well as the Bond van Adverteerders ('League of Advertisers') and the 'Platform of Media Agencies' participate with the specific aim of collecting reliable and valid data.
Here in this country there's basically never a discussion about the reliability of their research.

[zengiman]

In the Netherlands anybody can get those figures free. The general numbers of viewers are out in the open. It will be the same in every country all over the world.

If you do a simple search you will find the viewing figures for every bloody Big Brother in the world.
Must be the same for Formula one.

Commercial television exists because of those numbers. They are public everywhere.

I will can ask a friend who works in the media business to find those numbers. I see him on friday, so maybe he can get them for me next week..

[Jack Rabbit]

Originally posted by zengiman
In the Netherlands anybody can get those figures free. The general numbers of viewers are out in the open. It will be the same in every country all over the world.

If you do a simple search you will find the viewing figures for every bloody Big Brother in the world.
Must be the same for Formula one.

Commercial television exists because of those numbers. They are public everywhere.

I will can ask a friend who works in the media business to find those numbers. I see him on friday, so maybe he can get them for me next week..

Cool, but then how to agencies like Nielsen make their cash? Do they collect that information for free?

[ralphrj]

Originally posted by Jack Rabbit


Cool, but then how to agencies like Nielsen make their cash? Do they collect that information for free?

My guess:

Whilst the total viewing figures are freely available Nielsen can provide clients with a breakdown of the audience by gender, age, income etc that is important when selling advertising.

[B747]

1) Italy 21,5 % of the population
2) Finland 18,7 %
3) Hungary 13,9 %
4) Germany 13,1 %
5) Spain 10,8 %
6) France 8,3 %
7) Netherlands 6,5 %
UK 6,5%
9) Austria 5,6 %
10) Denmark 4,3 %
11) Greece 3,7 %
12) Australia 2,3 %
13) Poland 1,1 %
14) US 0,12 %

I believe UK should have numbers close to that of Germany at least, quite higher if we consider most F1 is based there.

so this scarse 6.5 % of UK shows, I believe the truth about the so called "F1 crisis", wich really could be more accurate to calle it "anglo F1 crisis", not only because of UK, but also because of english as language through the word, if tomorrow MS quits and there is no german driver, engine, team, etc, and because of that audience falls dramatically in germany, well. it would simply be considered a "local F1 crisis".

[Exar Kun]

With 70-80% (at least) of F1 viewership being Ferrari and/or Schumi fans then I can't see why audience figures would be dropping too much. None of my friends watch F1 anymore (even the Ferrari fans) but this is Australia - where races are shown late on a Sunday night and most people would rather get to bed because of work the next day than watch a sporting event that they already know the result of. If F1 was on during the afternoon as it is in Europe then I'm sure we'd have much greater viewer numbers.

[be1bv]

Here are F1 tv-ratings for Germany since 1992
average of viewers per race source:RTL
1992-1.76 mil
1993-2.50 mil
1994-3.55 mil
1995-5.63 mil
1996-6.39 mil
1997-7.89 mil
1998-9.19 mil
1999-8.91 mil
2000-9.87 mil
2001-10.44 mil
2002- RTL : 9.32 mil
most watched f1 races on pay-channell Premiere were San Marino with 1. 7 mil.viewers, Canada with 1.55 mil.viewers and Brasil with 1.52 mil.viewers
2003- RTL : 8.97 mil
Premiere: 1.3 mil

[Julli]

Hi,

How about the spectators who are watching GP at the location. In Hungary for example the seats were half empty in sunday, and saturday they were more empty and friday they were a joke.

I don't believe it for a second that the tv-audience is on a high. Well, maybe in Germany and in Italy, but not in the whole world.

Julli

[Jack Rabbit]

Me too, hence my severe skepticism about the publicly available numbers. Although be1bv's numbers seem reasonable.

But then again, some advertising exec once said something like 'never overestimate the intelligence of your audience.' Maybe people like watching crap racing.

[be1bv]

Here are f1 tv ratings for Italy 2000-2004
source:SIPRA TV/RAI (RAI is F1 tv broadcaster in Italy)

2000 SEASON
France
race:11.476 mil.

Austria
race:9.2 mil.

Belgium
race:10.99 mil.

Italy
race:14.37 mil.

2001 SEASON
S.Marino
qualifying: 7.1 mil.
race: 12,7 mil.

Spain
qualifying: 5.3 mil.
race: 11.85 mil.

Austria
qualifying: 5.3 mil.
race: 13.3 mil.

Monaco
qualifying: 5,7 mil.
race: 12.1 mil.

Canada
qualifying: 4.65 mil.
race: 11.2 mil.

Europe
qualifying: 5.3 mil.
race: 11.95 mil.

G.Britain
qualifying: 5.75 mil.
race: 11.1 mil.

France
qualifying: 5.6 mil.
race: 11.4 mil.

Germany
qualifying: 4.8 mil.
race: 10.75 mil.

Hungary
qualifying: 4.8 mil.
race: 10.15 mil.

Italy
qualifying: 5.96 mil.
race: 11.84 mil.

USA
qualifying: 3.86 mil.
race: 11 mil.

2002 SEASON

San Marino
qualifying: 6.3 mil.
race: 13.2 mil.

Monaco
qualifying: 5.7 mil.
race: 11.5 mil.

Canada
qualifying: 4.54 mil.
race: 11.4 mil.

Europe
qualifying: 4.8 mil.
race: 10.6 mil.

Great Britain
qulifying: 5.95 mil.
race: 10.9 mil.

France
qualifying: 4.7 mil.
race: 10.45 mil.

Germany
qualifying: 4.4 mil.
race: 10.1 mil.

Hungary
qualifying: 3.7 mil.
race: 8.5 mil.

Belgium
qualifying: 3.97 mil.
race: 9.55 mil.

Italy
qualifying: 5.16 mil.
race: 10.4 mil.

USA
qualifying: 3.2 mil.
race: 10.76 mil.

Japan
qualifying: 1.35 mil.
race live: 2.9 mil.
race replay: 1.6 mil.

2003 SEASON

Australia
qualifying: 0.36 mil.
race: 3.7 mil.

Malaysia:
qualifying: 1 mil.
race: 6.4 mil.

Brasil
qualifying: 2.7 mil.
race: 11.55 mil.

S.Marino
qualifying: 6.2 mil.
race: 11.96 mil.

Spain
qualifying: 5.9 mil.
race: 10.9 mil.

Austria
qualifying: 6.22 mil.
race: 11.46 mil.

Monaco
qualifying: 5.45 mil.
race: 10.64 mil.

Canada
qualifying: 2.54 mil.
race: 9 mil.

Europe
qualifying: 4.1 mil.
race: 10 mil.

G.Britain
qualifying: 4.95 mil.
race: 9.33 mil.

France
qualifying: 3.63 mil.
race: 9.97 mil.

Germany
qualifying: 5.15 mil.
race: 9.7 mil.

Hungary
qualifying: 4.6 mil.
race: 9.6 mil.

Italy
qualifying: 5.96 mil.
race: 13.3 mil.

USA
qualifying: 5.66 mil.
race: 13.99 mil.

Japan
qualifying: 1.25 mil.
race live: 6.56 mil.

2004 SEASON

Malaysia
qualifying: 1.4 mil.
race: 6.48 mil.

Bahrain
qualifying: 4 mil.
race: 13 mil.

Spain
qualifying: 5.42 mil.
race: 11.66 mil.

Monaco
qualifying: 5.05 mil.
race: 12.48 mil.

Europe
qualifying: 5.35 mil.
race: 11.31 mil.

Canada
qualifying: 1.55 mil.
race: 8.02 mil.

USA
qualifying: 3.3 mil.
race: 10.79 mil.

France
qualifying: 4.15 mil.
race: 9.5 mil.

G.Britain
qualifying: 3.82 mil.
race: 10.08 mil.

Germany
qualifying: 4.04 mil.
race: 9.9 mil.

[917k]

A bunch of Coldhearts here.You are given the actual data,all the hard numbers yet still don't believe them.

What do you believe,a straw poll on an internet website that says no one watches F1 anymore?

Give it up.

[Rene]

Originally posted by 917k
A bunch of Coldhearts here.You are given the actual data,all the hard numbers yet still don't believe them.

What do you believe,a straw poll on an internet website that says no one watches F1 anymore?

Give it up.

These numbers are notoriously inflated by FOM, that breeds skeptisism about all numbers as the 'official' numbers are always extremely inflated...

Formula One racing reached a total of 54,477,361,661 - 54.47 billion - television viewers in 2001 , according to the statistics made public by Formula One Management, the company in charge of the commercial running of the sport.

Source:http://www.atlasf1.c...p/id/6488/.html

[Ross Stonefeld]

Thats not even the same. The FOM mega figure is 54billion 'views' or whatever. You and I watching 16 races counts as 32 viewers over a year. Plus what we see in news clips, highlights, etc.

The figures he was posting were live viewers for the event country to country.

The more accurately re-judged figures of the last year or two puts the audience per GP at about 150mil average.

[Rene]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Thats not even the same. The FOM mega figure is 54billion 'views' or whatever. You and I watching 16 races counts as 32 viewers over a year. Plus what we see in news clips, highlights, etc.

The figures he was posting were live viewers for the event country to country.

The more accurately re-judged figures of the last year or two puts the audience per GP at about 150mil average.

My point was (I will re-state) was the TV numbers always seem inflated, hence the skeptisism of the number people have posted....nothing more than an explaination of the skeptisim and an example of why we are so cynical...

[Ross Stonefeld]

Well 150 is the corrected and more accurately accepted numbers, down from the (still used by some unfortunately) 250-300mil per race claims.

[Jack Rabbit]

Originally posted by Rene


These numbers are notoriously inflated by FOM, that breeds skeptisism about all numbers as the 'official' numbers are always extremely inflated...

Formula One racing reached a total of 54,477,361,661 - 54.47 billion - television viewers in 2001 , according to the statistics made public by Formula One Management, the company in charge of the commercial running of the sport.

Source:http://www.atlasf1.c...p/id/6488/.html

Thanks Rene for that hilarious quote. Thats exactly what I mean about why I am skeptical about the numbers. ...Still, I would like to see 10 year graph of viewing figures.