96 replies to this topic

[CampioneFerrari]

All i know is that in the U.S. Speed channel has never had such high ratings for F1 this year.

[be1bv]

Australian Grand Prix tv ratings in Australia
on Channel 10, source:OZTAM

race:2003
5 cities total:1.73 mil. viewers.
It was most watched tv program of the week on australian tv network.

race:2004
5 cities total:1.54 mil.viewers


F1 2004 Season tv ratings in Spain
on Tele 5

Spanish GP
race:4.24 mil. viewers
Monaco GP
race:4.32 mil.viewers
France
race:3.93 mil.viewers

Germany
source:GfK/RTL
most watched races in 2000 on RTL were
Brasil:14 mil.
USA:13.1 mil.
Europe:11.9 mil.
San Marino:11.58 mil.
Monaco:11.06 mil.
Belgium:11.05 mil.
Italy:10.87 mil.

most watched races in 2001
Canada:14.62 mil.
Brasil:14.2 mil.
France:12.2 mil.
Europe:11.43 mil.

Season 2003 in Germany on RTL
source: Media Control, GfK

San Marino:9.59 mil.
Germany:9.28 mil.
Hungary:9.4 mil.
Italy:9.17 mil.
USA:11.62 mil.
Japan
post-race:8.05 mil.

Season 2004 in Germany (RTL)
source:Media Control, GfK

Malaysia:7.96 mil.
Bahrain:11.55 mil.
San Marino:9.95 mil.
Spain:9.24 mil.
Monaco:10.82 mil.
Europe:8.06 mil.
Canada:9.56 mil.
USA:11.3 mil.
France:8.28 mil.
Great Britain:9.73 mil.
Germany:9.04 mil.
Hungary:7.21 mil.

TV Ratings in France on TF1
2003
Brasil:9.5 mil.
Austria:4.9 mil.
USA:6.14 mil.
2004
Australia
live:0.4 mil.
replay:1.8 mil.
Monaco:5 mil.

[angst]

Yeah, you're right. There is no crisis in F1.....that's why all those sponsors are out there banging on the door trying to get some exposure .

You think the costs in F1 are sustainable without good sponsorship revenue? Why do you think Bernie is SO keen on improving the show? Do you think it's because he believes all is well?

The majority of the races this year have been incredibly dull to watch. A group of cars speeding round as if on rails. Very, very little overtaking (even attempts). Predictable results. A bunch of sprint races split up by fuel stops, which the commentators still try and turn into a potential excitement - 'perhaps (driver a) is on a two stop instead of a three stop, maybe that would explain his lack of pace' - when in reality, no, he really is that far off the pace. For alot of F1 fans it is bad enough, but to the general public looking in to see what all the fuss is about - what a turn off.

I think the factor to look at here, the real 'barometer' of how F1 is doing is Bernie Ecclestone. He is NOT happy with the way things are, he is trying to inject some excitement into qualifying and the races - and his knee-jerk ideas should perhaps be seen as an indication of how bad the situation might be.

I'm hoping that the reduced aero and one tyre rule will improve matters somewhat (in fact I'm quite optimistic). There will be fewer fuel-stops (I'd prefer none) because the advantages of fresh tyres will not be there and the reduced effect of the aero may aid in overtaking attempts (pluss the variations in tyre wear, brake management). If there's one thing I could change about next year's regs it would be to bring back wider slicks - it would allow the cars to slide/drift more spectacularly.

[petri]

Quote

Originally posted by mikabest
1) Italy 21,5 % of the population
2) Finland 18,7 %

The fever has actually ceased in Finland. When Häkkinen was WDC, we were on top.

[RTH]

Auto Express magazine in the UK this morning reports :-

" OFFICIAL : F1's a turn - off

Formula One's popularity in the UK showed a dramatic dip in 2005.
Television viewing figures for ITV's exclusive coverage were nearly 20 percent down on those for 2004 with an average audience totalling around 2.6 million for each race. "


1998 was the high water mark for viewer numbers in UK ,since then it's been a steady decline.
With ITV now paying £20M per season to F1 to be allowed just to show the pictures plus then their own production costs, in the region of £5 - 10 M for the year, given ITV's advertising revenue decline generally and their stated aim of cost reductions, no doubt they will closely review the present position, cost per viewer looks expensive .

[FredF1]

Not to mention ITV wishing to get out of terrestial tv and into satellite/cable. Sky is eating them alive when it comes to advertising revenue so ITV want to fight it out on Sky's turf with no news, religion, current affairs remit 'holding them back'.


What happens to 'Free To Air' then?

[RTH]

Quote

Originally posted by FredF1
Not to mention ITV wishing to get out of terrestial tv and into satellite/cable. Sky is eating them alive when it comes to advertising revenue so ITV want to fight it out on Sky's turf with no news, religion, current affairs remit 'holding them back'.


What happens to 'Free To Air' then?

Well indeed, not much sign of any of that subject matter on ITV now . The 5 major terrestrial network stations are now so awash with daily soap operas and the vile 'big brother' and 'talent' shows formats as to be virtually no go areas.

Freeview with an extra 30 channels has been a huge take up success 2 or 3 of which are actually watchable. Sky's next thing is high definition picture quality which launches in 6 months and talk of a limited free to view basic package of channels to compete with freeview.

[FredF1]

The key word there is 'limited'. The trouble with Sky is that they're offering a 'sample hit' for a low cost. They're under-charging the subscribers and over-paying the channels that join their package. This way, a lot of broadcasters drop their own digital launches because it's cheaper to go with Sky. But what happens when Sky turn around and drop a channel without warning? Having been a cable subscriber for 20-odd years, I'm well used to channels vanishing without any valid reason other than the "Customers wanted channel X instead" malarkey.


Living in Ireland, that's what's already happening here. The national broadcaster, RTE, despite 3 seperate licence fee increases "To facilitate digital broadcasting", dropped the whole idea and signed up to Sky instead. Now there's murmurings from Sky about costs and veiled threats of dropping channels instead.

[RTH]

In recent weeks Freeview has suddenly dropped the "Men and Motors " Channel without warning shame as amongst other things it carried circuit racing the daily WRC coverage as well as used car programmes , marque profiles and more , suppose it got popular !

[RTH]

Autosport reports this week historic lows of UK F1 viewing figures since TVSM started collecting figures nearly a decade ago.

The UK TV audience has almost halved since 2000 when it was 4.4 M to 2.5 M for this year

Slumps are mirrored in Italy, Germany, Holland and Finland. With ITV unable it seems to find a CEO facing declining advertising revenue and a take over target. Concluding their period of covering Grand Prix racing and the enormous costs involved must now be a real possibility when the present contact expires

[jokuvaan]

No wonder Bernie is worried about driver pool of F1.

[scheivlak]

Quote

Originally posted by RTH
Slumps are mirrored in Italy, Germany, Holland and Finland.

This is complete nonsense.
Viewing figures are still high in the Netherlands: 1.317.000 viewers for Brazil which is really high, it was the best viewed program on any Dutch station that day! (I guess there was no football?) Of course the championship excitement helped, plus the fact that it was a 'prime time' race. But the Monaco GP also had more than a million viewers this year and I can't remember the time that an afternoon race had more than a million viewers over here.

Also, Schumi's return to the front skyrocketed viewing figures in Germany in the later part of the season. A massive 14.830.000 people watched the Brazilian GP!
Of course next year will be different over there....

In Spain 9,3 million viewers watched F1 races on average, versus about 8 million viewers last year. The Brazilian GP was viewed by 60% of the Spanish viewers (source: F1total.com).

[FLB]

A bit of ITV news giving an idea where they're headed (general, not F1-specific) :

http://www.variety.c...&cs=1&query=itv
http://www.variety.c...&cs=1&query=itv

[Juan Kerr]

One thing is certain James Allen has got to be responsible for most of the fall in TV ratings. Even now I still get excited coming up to a Grand Prix and every now and again I forget that its him commentating and every time without fail if I forget as soon as he opens his mouth I suddenly change from excitement to frustration.

[Ross Stonefeld]

But you rarely change the channel. And let's face it, we are a very very small % of the ITV viewing audience.

[RTH]

Quote

Originally posted by scheivlak

This is complete nonsense.
Viewing figures are still high in the Netherlands: 1.317.000 viewers for Brazil which is really high, it was the best viewed program on any Dutch station that day! (I guess there was no football?) Of course the championship excitement helped, plus the fact that it was a 'prime time' race. But the Monaco GP also had more than a million viewers this year and I can't remember the time that an afternoon race had more than a million viewers over here.

Also, Schumi's return to the front skyrocketed viewing figures in Germany in the later part of the season. A massive 14.830.000 people watched the Brazilian GP!
Of course next year will be different over there....

In Spain 9,3 million viewers watched F1 races on average, versus about 8 million viewers last year. The Brazilian GP was viewed by 60% of the Spanish viewers (source: F1total.com).

This is as reported in 'Autosport' magazine this week ( the parent publisher and owner of this website and forum ) They normally do all they can to talk up popularity, which makes the report even more significant.

The 'Alonso' effect in Spain is all to do with the sporting success of a national citizen and as in all countries when this happens is not representative of the general popularity of the sport as a whole . Typically , fine weather supporters melt away again very quickly when drivers from other countries again consistantly hit the headlines with success.

The figures and graphs in the magazine concentrate on the last 6 years and are viewers over a year long period not individual races with special factors.

It shows a consistant and undeniable decline in it's popularity and a clear downward trend especially in the UK as well as other European countries in this period with research from marketing trade publication 'TV Sports Markets '
Every country cannot have the world champion every year, to be generally popular it needs to be entertaining and attractive to the viewer, which is why the technical and sporting regulations need to keep pace with technological advance. If the viewers and paying spectators go then professional sport stops and will revert to unpaid amateur sports.

[GrzegorzChyla]

Quote

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
10 year? Good luck


For 2004
Poland .441

For me it is much higher I thought.
441 thousand people?
about 1 percent population.
Incredible because F1 was not shown by mainstream channels...
Only one was TV4 which is only aired through satellite and in a couple of large cities...

And it was well before we had our driver in F1...

[giacomo]

Quote

Originally posted by tintin
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%.

If you knew anything about statistics and probability you'd know that there is exactly zero guarantee that those certain 8.000 people are delivering an exact display of the behaviour of the whole population of 40.000.000 people.

That's the main reason why pollsters are always surprised about the outcomes of elections.

[andy-i]

The approx size of the UK figures for 2006 quoted by Autosport sound about right.

If you check the BARB website they list the top 30 programs for all UK terrestrial TV stations every week. The ONLY F1 broadcast to feature was the Brazilian GP with 5.36M viewers.

As the 30th ranked program usually has around 3-3.5M viewers the other GP's must of had less.

Another rule of thumb is the "water cooler" effect. How many people in the UK (outside of F1 forums) are talking about F1 in the Pub or at Work. In the UK the answer is probably not many.

Viewing figures will probably rise a bit next year due to the Hamilton effect but there's no doubt from a comerical point of view ITV overpaid for F1 (but I dont give a **** as their sports coverage is truly wank, first James Allen!!! and now Steve Rider doing the footy AGhhhhhhh!!!!!!)

Andy.

[FredF1]

The depressing part is that, instead of taking stock and wondering why everyone is switching off, the FIA, in their infinite wisdom, will just start mucking about with the rules yet again in order to Improve the show.

[Juan Kerr]

Well my only advice to ITV is lose James Allen and I guarantee your viewing figures will go up significantly regardless to what other choices there are compared to when Murray was around.
Actually that's bullshit anyway Bernievision being the alternative back then should've giving them more figures now not less.

[Dudley]

Quote

Originally posted by tintin


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%.

Or it would be if they had an actual cross-section of people, which they don't.

They have a reasonable cross section of the kind of people who are willing to have a shitty spyware box in their house. My parents, nor anyone like them would ever do so, but they watch TV.

[angst]

Quote

Originally posted by Dudley


Or it would be if they had an actual cross-section of people, which they don't.

They have a reasonable cross section of the kind of people who are willing to have a shitty spyware box in their house. My parents, nor anyone like them would ever do so, but they watch TV.

That is one part of the basis of the statistical BS that passes itself off as TV viewing figures. Ask yourself, do you know anybody who is a part of the survey? Do you know anybody who knows anybody who is part of the survey? Another part (especially with F1) is that they count the viewing of any news programme that contains a report about F1. So, even if the News was turned off before it got to the 10 sec (if that) footage of F1 that will still count as a viewing of F1. Things like that have been added in since it was clear the viewing figures were dropping year on year.

Here's a really simple way to get a clearer idea of real viewing figures. Find out how many people you know (at work, where you socialise) watch F1 or are interested. If you really believe the Bernie led hype, then you might be in for a surprise.

[djellison]

Actually - part of the process of collecting viewing figures is specifically that you're not supposed to be able to find out who it is that is part of the data collection process so that there can be no risk of people trying to influence the sample households. I'm not sure how many households there are, but if viewing figures are low for a program, I imagine just a handfull of sample-households being changed would make a large difference to the 'viewing figures'

It's not a perfect way of collecting this data, but it's hard to imagine how one could get better data and whilst it may not be 100% accurate, it is certainly more quantitative than qualitative.

Doug

[Rene]

Quote

Originally posted by djellison
Actually - part of the process of collecting viewing figures is specifically that you're not supposed to be able to find out who it is that is part of the data collection process so that there can be no risk of people trying to influence the sample households. I'm not sure how many households there are, but if viewing figures are low for a program, I imagine just a handfull of sample-households being changed would make a large difference to the 'viewing figures'

It's not a perfect way of collecting this data, but it's hard to imagine how one could get better data and whilst it may not be 100% accurate, it is certainly more quantitative than qualitative.

Doug

That is the way it was done, with digital tv it is easy to tell exactly what 100% of digital TV viewers watch....

[Dudley]

Quote

Originally posted by Rene


That is the way it was done, with digital tv it is easy to tell exactly what 100% of digital TV viewers watch....

No it's not.

It's not technically possible on DTT and I don't believe either cable or sattellite providers collect this data in the UK.

[Clatter]

Quote

Originally posted by Rene


That is the way it was done, with digital tv it is easy to tell exactly what 100% of digital TV viewers watch....

How?

[RTH]

News today Michael Grade has resigned from Chairman of the BBC to become Chairman of ITV (BBC Radio reports his salary will go from £140,000 p.a to over £1M per year)

ITV is in trouble falling viewing and falling advertising, he is a VERY hands-on in changing programme schedules and getting value for money. He is also in favour of more light entertainment and popular quality drama series and is likely to put ITV's financial resources in to originating new programmes which will be both popular and can be sold around the world.

I would take this development today as making ITV keeping faith with showing F1 at such a cost as less likely in the future, as big changes to programmes will be an urgent priority.

The annual £20M fee for the picture feed of GPs in the UK is vastly beyond the BBCs purse and all the other smaller channels , so coverage may well disappear from terrestrial TV in the UK as now being beyond all their reach with relatively small audiences.

[angst]

Quote

Originally posted by RTH
News today Michael Grade has resigned from Chairman of the BBC to become Chairman of ITV (BBC Radio reports his salary will go from £140,000 p.a to over £1M per year)

ITV is in trouble falling viewing and falling advertising, he is a VERY hands-on in changing programme schedules and getting value for money. He is also in favour of more light entertainment and popular quality drama series and is likely to put ITV's financial resources in to originating new programmes which will be both popular and can be sold around the world.

I would take this development today as making ITV keeping faith with showing F1 at such a cost as less likely in the future, as big changes to programmes will be an urgent priority.

The annual £20M fee for the picture feed of GPs in the UK is vastly beyond the BBCs purse and all the other smaller channels , so coverage may well disappear from terrestrial TV in the UK as now being beyond all their reach with relatively small audiences.

This move may also have a little to do with the BBC being in the middle of very protracted negotiations with the Government on the future of the licence, I think ITV took Michael Grade as much to disrupt and undermine that as for his other skills.

[Owen]

I wouldn't worry too much about F1 dissappearing from terrestrial telly in the UK anytime soon. The sponsors and manufacturers (i.e. the people bankrolling the whole circus) depend on free to air coverage - why else would they get involved if not to appear on a global stage to as many people as possible?. Strings will be pulled to keep it on terrestrial.

[RTH]

I think the people who run F1 are currently far more interested in playing to Middle East and Far Eastern markets and are content to delete more races in Europe completely and unconcerned if it disappears from some screens in European countries as they perseve stong demand in other parts of the world and generating money is the only thing that counts and sentiment now does not enter in to it. UK's viewing audience would be regarded as trivial and unimportant.

[Owen]

Quote

Originally posted by RTH
I think the people who run F1 are currently far more interested in playing to Middle East and Far Eastern markets and are content to delete more races in Europe completely and unconcerned if it disappears from some screens in European countries as they perseve stong demand in other parts of the world and generating money is the only thing that counts and sentiment now does not enter in to it. UK's viewing audience would be regarded as trivial and unimportant.

The Uk has the 4th largest economy in the world and along with 3 other european countries make up half the G8. So I think the european audience is still very important for F1.

[RTH]

We may think that and hope it is the case, but only 4 % of the UK population are now watching. It would not surprise me if they would rather keep the F1 television tariff up worldwide for the pictures than make any concession for UK.

[Owen]

Quote

Originally posted by RTH
We may think that and hope it is the case, but only 4 % of the UK population are now watching. It would not surprise me if they would rather keep the F1 television tariff up worldwide for the pictures than make any concession for UK.

Perhaps the decline in the UK audience has more to do with the fact that we don't have a front running (championship contender) British driver yet? The Spanish viewing figures have gone through the roof, presumably thanks to Alonso.

[djellison]

Quote

Originally posted by Rene


with digital tv it is easy to tell exactly what 100% of digital TV viewers watch....

Pray tell, how does my Sky box ( with no phone connection ) or a Freeview box (with no phone connection ) contribute to this? The technology is there to make the collection of data easier nowadays perhaps - but there is still the issue of who is in the room watchhing the TV at any time. The current method involves a set top box which the household uses to identify who is watching the tv (i.e. "Mum" "Mum+Dad+Kid1+Kid2" etc) , when, and what the tv is showing. From that data, the viewing figures are calculated.

Digital TV does not alter that in any way, nor does it in any way shape or form tell what 100% of viewers are watching. To state as fact that it does is wrong and intenionally missleading.

Doug

[RTH]

Quote

Originally posted by Owen


Perhaps the decline in the UK audience has more to do with the fact that we don't have a front running (championship contender) British driver yet? The Spanish viewing figures have gone through the roof, presumably thanks to Alonso.

Oh sure perfectly true, but only one nationality can be champion each year and the other 18 or so countries will not have a national champion.

Much could be done to make watching the races more interesting, attractive and exciting and spectacular. I think decisions in this respect have been in the wrong directions over the last dozen or so years, above all the cars need to look more unstable, more on the edge of being out of control so that viewers can marvel at driver skill and enjoy 90 mins of thrilling action no matter who wins. But then it seems no one else cares about that.

[Owen]

Quote

Originally posted by RTH


Oh sure perfectly true, but only one nationality can be champion each year and the other 18 or so countries will not have a national champion.

Much could be done to make watching the races more interesting, attractive and exciting and spectacular. I think decisions in this respect have been in the wrong directions over the last dozen or so years, above all the cars need to look more unstable, more on the edge of being out of control so that viewers can marvel at driver skill and enjoy 90 mins of thrilling action no matter who wins. But then it seems no one else cares about that.

Yeh. Agree with that. Some overtaking would be nice too. I honestly don't think any progress has been made in that area. The fans are important stakeholders in the sport.
The actual presentation of the sport could be improved also but ITV don't seem to have changed their approach in the last few years. Complancency has taken hold at ITV I think.

[RTH]

Absolutely agree, pity the FIA, FOCA , the circuit owners and ITV do not consult and listen to their customers, because as we here all know it could so easily be a whole lot better, in so many ways.

[Rockford]

Does anyone think that Michael Grade's imminent arrival at ITV will have any impact on their F1 coverage? He axed Doctor Who once because he thought it was crap...

[Owen]

Quote

Originally posted by Rockford
Does anyone think that Michael Grade's imminent arrival at ITV will have any impact on their F1 coverage? He axed Doctor Who once because he thought it was crap...

The earlier posts comment on this a bit.

[Rockford]

Quote

Originally posted by Owen


The earlier posts comment on this a bit.

Apologies. Found guilty as charged for being lazy. Carry on..

[FredF1]

Quote

Originally posted by RTH
We may think that and hope it is the case, but only 4 % of the UK population are now watching. It would not surprise me if they would rather keep the F1 television tariff up worldwide for the pictures than make any concession for UK.

It seems to vary race by race.

I was wandering about on the BARB site last weekend having a look at the lack of F1 figures. Some races couldn't even manage to get 2 million viewers to get into the Top 30.

[se7en_24]

Quote

Originally posted by Dudley


No it's not.

It's not technically possible on DTT and I don't believe either cable or sattellite providers collect this data in the UK.

Also, even if Sky or another provider did send the information down the phoneline, what about if you left the Sky box turned a particular channel (I rarely turn my sky box off). It would count about 9 hours of TV programmes while I was at work, then another 8 while I was asleep!

[The Kanisteri]

Quote

Originally posted by petri
---------------------------------
quote:Originally posted by mikabest
1) Italy 21,5 % of the population
2) Finland 18,7 %
---------------------------------


The fever has actually ceased in Finland. When Häkkinen was WDC, we were on top.

Okay
Now couple years later our relative viewer percentage will have major dropdown since 2007 season will be live and complete only in ppv channel. Only what's left for free channel are hours late highlights from race - which will be of course highly biased on finnish drivers.

If in these good old days from early 90's to 2006, Formula One weekend had over two million watchers from five - on peaks - in 2007 'we are happy' if we can reach even 100 000.


RIP free and live Finnish F1 coverage 1992 (?*) -2006

(* There's been random GPs from eighties in TV by YLE (Finland's Broadcasting Company) but they varied from full live to delayed highlights or even missing plenty of GPs.)

[9 Degrees 12 Min]

Any indication how F1 is faring in emerging markets like China or Indonesia? Maybe obtaining ratings from China at this juncture is difficult or impossible. Bernie may be betting on a long-distance horse that this catches fire in China.

[roadmap]

Bernie has made enough and I would think his view is just one more year one more £100m in the bank, trouble is it goes on and on.
Commercially it makes sense what F1 is doing and if I was involved I would do the very same as its about business and going forward making huge profits.

As an ex fan, I say ex as the last GP I watched from Silverstone. I actually fell asleep during the race, not through age but through the boring repetation, even the comentators now are tiresome. It needs new blood who can put a point of view over that doesnt seem to be a F1A written script.

I had been invited by a bank to go for the three days but just wasnt interested.

A combined front by the European/ traditional track owners could make a difference to how F1 manages to dictate when and if a track will be eligible for an event and how much they should pay but little else will interest the ruling body of the F1A other than financial incentives. If nothing is done very soon then there will be at least 4 European events scratched and the nostalgic/ historic thing that has millions of fans will disapear into oblivion in the raditional countries. The F1A have total control over motorsport in the EU, right down to grass roots level. I dont think any person employed or associated with the F1A should have any business connections with F1 at all and this would be a giant step in stopping the dominance of the firm and help keep what we all cherish.

[RTH]

Must agree with all that Roadmap, the short to medium term outlook is indeed bleak.

Long term maybe we will have to wait for meltdown and a rebirth in Grand Prix and most other racing.