MOTORSPORT: 1.5 million TV viewers missing

V8SA was talking there about its 2007 championship, and its chairman Tony Cochrane was very upbeat about this year.

"V8 Supercars Australia is looking to build on the record 22 million television viewers of 2007 -- up from 17.5 million on the previous season -- during this year's Championship Series," Cochrane said.

Now let's clarify something at the outset: 22 million is a bit more than the population of Australia, so the 22 million V8SA was talking about was not 22 million different people but a cumulative total of viewers throughout the season who, based on figures of OzTAM (Australia's official source of television audience measurement), watched V8 Supercar "main game" (i.e. Championship Series) racing last year.

So what that means is that one person could be counted 20-odd times, perhaps even around 30 times, over a 14-round championship if he or she watched a helluva lot of V8 Supercar racing -- like every day the V8 Supercars are telecast.

V8SA was crowing about "a 25 per cent hike in total viewers across Australian metropolitan and regional markets" with the return of touring car racing to the 7 network last year after its decade on the 10 network.

We commented on the situation here back in February.

After eight rounds of V8 Supercar racing in year two on 7 the audience has retreated about 14.2 per cent, based on the latest report from media agency Mitchell -- the same agency V8SA quoted when making its 22 million-in-2007 announcement.

This latest Mitchell report shows that V8 Supercars have had a cumulative 9,456,000 viewers so far this season, compared with 11,009,000 after eight rounds last year.

On those numbers, this year's audience to date has been 85.8154 per cent of last year's. In other words, more than 1.5 million viewers have vanished.

And, with six rounds to go, it would seem that -- unless something changes rather dramatically after the six-week break in the season -- V8SA is looking at an audience down somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million at the end of this year's championship.

Not good news for V8SA, nor for competing teams and drivers, and particularly not for sponsors, who enter arrangements largely on the basis of what they expect to get in the way of TV exposure.

Nor will it bring any joy to circuit promoters, who at least have already been advised that their sanction fees for a round of the championship -- believed to be about $500,000 an event -- will be frozen at 2008 figures for '09.

But, based on the evidence that is unfolding, those circuit promoters must be starting to wonder whether they ought to be getting the touring circus in '09 for less than they have paid or will pay this year.

This retreat in the TV audience also comes against a background of almost half the V8 Supercar drivers saying -- in the Auto Action V8 Supercar Drivers' Poll, the results of which were published in last week's edition of the magazine (No. 1303, at page 26), and which we commented on here a few days ago -- that V8SA does not do enough to promote the sport.

Yet wasn't that precisely what Tony Cochrane and his cohorts came in/were brought in about 12 years ago to do?

We first reported here a month ago that there was evidence that the V8 Supercar TV audience was in reverse.

To those in the sport who have had access to Mitchell's research all along that would have been known already. But there would be comparatively few people with that access, and it was hardly in the interests of most of them to be making the trend widely known.

As we said last month, the Mitchell reports paint a quite different picture to the regular 7 bulletins after its telecasts, which are posted at sevencorporate.com.au. The same can be said after the most recent V8 Supercar Championship round at Victoria's Winton circuit.

The 7 bulletin said: "V8 Supercars on Seven's coverage of round eight of the Championship Series from Winton dominated across Sunday (August 3), with 1.117 million Australians watching all or part of V8 Supercars on Seven coverage.

"Across Saturday and Sunday, 1.557 million Australians watch all or part of Seven's coverage of the championship."

There were all the usual references to market dominance and bumper shares of the overall TV audience in the telecast timeslots. But these numbers (1.117 million and 1.557 million) are a bit misleading, because many viewers who love V8 Supercar racing will have watched on both the Saturday and Sunday, so they, naturally, are counted on each day -- that is, twice.

The 7 bulletin concluded: "Including regional markets, 411,000 Australians watched V8 Supercars on Seven on Saturday (August 2) and 539,000 on Sunday (August 3)."

According to the Mitchell report post-Winton the Saturday national TV audience figure was 419,000 -- 8000 higher than what 7 said. But what Mitchell shows is that that 419,000 was 23 per cent down on the Saturday audience for the previous Winton round, in May 2007, of 545,000.

No mention of that from 7, even though that previous figure was also from a 7 telecast! Mitchell shows that the 539,000 on the Sunday this year was 9 per cent down on Winton's 590,000 for the Sunday the previous year, which was round four of the '07 championship.

Again no mention of this from 7.

The 2006 Sunday figure for Winton, when the telecast was on 10, was 598,000 -- that's 59,000 more than this year, and 8000 more than last year (both on 7).

Compared with '07's round eight, which was at Sydney's Oran Park, this year's 539,000 was down 23 per cent, according to a Mitchell graph.

By our calculations, the Winton audience was down 177,000 viewers over the two days this year. And, again by our calculations, that's 15.8 per cent overall.

Mitchell commented on Winton: "Over 40s again made up the majority of the audience, in line with the population. Viewing among under 40s was low on Saturday, but under 40s males recovered some ground on Sunday."

Nice to hear of some recovery on the Sunday.

Participating manufacturers Ford and Holden, which have become increasingly careful about how they spend their money in V8 Supercar racing, and sponsors might at least take a little heart from that.

But surely they'll be looking for a lot more recovery overall in the V8 Supercar national TV audience.

This victory came at Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix, in round 21 of the series.

Blanchard, from Melbourne, was second in the weekend's other round. He is still an outside chance for the title, trailing his Jamun Racing teammate Wayne Boyd by 36 points with three rounds to go -- all at Donington Park, which supposedly is to replace Silverstone as the British GP venue, on October 11-12.

A win in each of those races will be worth 30 points.

Blanchard is one of four young Aussies overseas with some financial support from the Australian Motor Sport Foundation.

The others are James Davison, who has had a win and a second place at his last two starts in the Indy Lights series in North America, and John Martin and Ashley Walsh, who have been doing it tough in Europe.

The country's best-performed expatriate young racer this year has been Daniel Ricciardo from Perth, with eight wins from 12 starts in two Formula Renault championships in Europe -- which resume soon from a mid-season break.

Blanchard is looking to move into the British Formula 3 Championship next year and has recently tested for the renowned Fortec team.

A seat there is sure to be his, if he can find the budget to secure it.

A report in Monday's Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper said the Confederation of Australian Motorsport (CAMS) would announce a 2009 Rally Oz route early next month, "with the Coast a frontrunner to host the event, according to organising committee chairman Garry Connelly".

The announcement will come after the 11th round of this year's WRC, Rally New Zealand, which -- under a restructuring of the series calendar -- will supposedly rotate with Rally Oz in future.

So Rally NZ on August 28-31 this year, Rally Oz next year, then Rally NZ again in 2010.

Remember that Repco announced a couple of months ago that it would sponsor the events in both countries.

We have been very skeptical here previously that Rally Oz will ever happen again, particularly after a grand plan a year or so ago for it to be based around a $650 million complex at Norwell, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, came to nothing.

Here is our most recent previous comment on Rally Oz, in June, with links in it to earlier commentary.

Yesterday's Bulletin report quoted Garry Connelly -- who is Brisbane-based but ran Rally Oz in WA for most of its almost two decades there and is Australia's representative on the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), but refused to reveal how he voted on Max Mosley recently -- saying of a 2009 Rally Oz: "The Gold Coast is obviously one of the areas open to us, but we have a number of areas open for a rally."

Bulletin reporter Steve Spinks said Connelly refused to confirm the rally's route but that he listed Canberra, some cities north of Sydney and the Sunshine Coast as possibilities.

Spinks said Connelly's comments are at odds with CAMS chief executive Graham Fountain saying organisers planned a NSW event.

But, Spinks wrote, Connelly had said Fountain's comments should not be taken to mean the event could not be based in Queensland with some stages held in NSW.

As we have mentioned previously, rumors suggest the plan is for the rally stages to take place around Kyogle in northern NSW but with much of the accommodation and perhaps the rally base to be north of the border on the Gold Coast.

Kyogle Shire Council chief executive Arthur Piggott was quoted saying: "We have had discussions with organisers for some time and we are fully supportive of the application for funding of the project, but there has been nothing official."

Piggott said Kyogle had discussed hosting the service centre, while Crowne Plaza Royal Pines Golf Resort and Spa in the Gold Coast hinterland said it was trying to build a relationship with the organisers to host the event.

Royal Pines was described as "well-positioned to be the host hotel as the nearby stadium at Carrara could be the service park".

Reporter Spinks wrote that "rumors within Gold Coast motorsport circles suggest the Gold Coast will get the nod, with the special dirt stages of the rally taking place around Kyogle".

And he added: "If the Gold Coast could lock in a leg of the WRC, no other city in Australia would be able to match its impressive motorsport resume of Indy and the V8 Supercars."

Spinks not only made no mention of the grand Norwell plan that never eventuated, he failed to mention that a big question mark hangs over the future of Indy beyond this year, and that if Indy eventually gets on the 2009 Indy Racing League calendar (it was not on the one announced a couple of weeks ago) but is moved forward from its traditional October to September to meet IRL wishes/demands, that Rally Oz and Indy could almost clash.

Nor did he properly address the matter of funding a new Rally Oz, which is likely to need substantial government money beyond Repco's sponsorship -- and how interested are the NSW or Queensland governments going to be in bankrolling an event unless it is entirely within their state boundaries?

The Queensland government is already heavily committed financially to Indy and the new Townsville V8 Supercar street race from next July.

Is it seriously going to entertain the idea of funding another major motorsport event so close, geographically and perhaps in scheduling, to Indy?

We doubt it. Let's see if the announcement in a couple of weeks can allay our fears that there will never be another Rally Oz.

French genius Sebastien Loeb won the Rally of Germany at the weekend for the seventh straight year.

It was the Citroen superstar's 43rd victory in the WRC and he has regained this year's championship lead from Ford's Mikko Hirvonen, who struggled in Germany on the debut of the 2008 Focus RS on tarmac -- not the Finn's favorite surface anyway.

Loeb's teammate, Daniel Sordo, finished second -- 47.7 seconds behind the Frenchman -- to leapfrog Atkinson into third in the championship, while tarmac specialist Francois Duval completed the podium in Germany, another 32.3 seconds back in a Stobart-Ford.

Then came Hirvonen, almost 80 seconds behind Loeb, Subaru's 2003 world champion Petter Solberg was fifth, and his teammate Atkinson was two minutes adrift of him after numerous minor issues throughout the event -- which marked the tarmac debut of the 2008 Impreza WRC hatchback.

Italian Gigi Galli broke his left leg when he crashed his Stobart-Ford on Friday, and a replacement will be needed for upcoming events, while Hirvonen's young Ford factory teammate, Jari-Matti Latvala, rolled on day two.

Citroen's 18 points from Germany has thrust it into the manufacturers' championship lead ahead of Ford. The French company's 49th WRC win moved it into third in the all-time WRC manufacturers' rankings, behind -- we believe -- Ford and Lancia.

Having beaten Hirvonen at his home event in Finland and dominating in Germany, winning 14 stages before easing up over the last five, Loeb is poised for a fifth world title with five rounds remaining -- two more of them on tarmac, in Spain and Corsica.

They will come after the NZ round on gravel on August 28-31.

Based again at Mystery Creek on the North Island, near Hamilton -- scene of April's new V8 Supercar street race -- WRC competitors will tackle 16 stages stretching over 355 competitive kilometres through the Waikato, Raglan, Otorohanga, Waitomo and Franklin districts.

The weather there in the last weeks has been stormy and changes have already been made to some of the stages as a result.

Atkinson -- who has scored points in seven of the 10 rounds so far this season, including five podiums -- is "really looking forward" to NZ.

"It's like my home rally ... I have a good feeling for the roads there and hopefully we can keep taking steps forward with the car on dirt," Atkinson said.

World rally drivers' championship standings -- Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) 76 points, Mikko Hirvonen (Ford) 72, Daniel Sordo (Citroen) 43, Chris Atkinson (Subaru) 40, Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford) 34, Petter Solberg (Subaru) 27.

WRC manufacturers' championship standings -- Citroen Total 123 points, BP Ford Abu Dhabi 115, Subaru 69, Stobart VK M-Sport 51, Munchi's Ford 19, Suzuki 13.

Counting down to the Safari out west
It's almost invisible on the national sporting -- even motorsport -- landscape, but this year's Safari starts in West Australian gold-mining town Kalgoorlie on Saturday (August 23).

It's the event's second year in WA and it's now known as the Australasian Safari.

After leaving Kalgoorlie it will visit Sandstone, Meekatharra, Mt Margaret, Mt Magnet and Geraldton, before finishing in Perth on August 30.

The Safari is the start of a big campaign for five-time winner Bruce Garland.

First he wants his Isuzu D-MAX ute to be the first diesel winner of the Safari, then it's off to Dubai for the UAE Desert Challenge in late October, and then the first South American "Dakar" in Argentina and Chile in January.

Garland raced in the (then) Paris-Dakar in 1998 and was in the top 10 when forced to quit with mechanical dramas in a machine that was supplied to him, rather than his strong preference for preparing his own equipment.

The South American "Dakar" will be a variation of the long-running annual event in Europe and Africa, which was cancelled this year because of terrorism fears, but organisers promise it will live up to its reputation as "the toughest race in the world".

We'll endeavour to keep tabs on the progress of Garland, one of the great but largely unsung heroes of Australian motorsport.

Ambrose has to settle for less on superspeedway
Marcos Ambrose's NASCAR "double duty" at the 3.2km Michigan International Speedway was quite a letdown from the adrenalin rush of the previous weekend, when he won the second-tier Nationwide Series round at Watkins Glen and finished third in the premier Sprint Cup round there.

At Michigan an engine failure in his Ford Fusion put Ambrose out of the Sprint Cup race within 20 laps of the start. The previous day he had finished 12th in the Nationwide Series round.

He is 10th in the Nationwide standings -- 23 points from ninth place and 60 from eighth place -- after 25 of 35 rounds.

We saw a report that he picked up more than A$100,000 despite being classified last in the Sprint Cup race. But it didn't come without a little bit of mystery about the way his exit was covered by telecaster ESPN, for which former top basketballer Brad Daugherty was commentating.

Now Daugherty is the new part-owner of Ambrose's JTG team in the Nationwide Series, even though he was driving this Sprint Cup race for Wood Brothers.

Here are some comments we picked up from a blog:
"Ambrose had engine failure and was trailing oil down pit road.

"Rather than head directly into the garage, Ambrose stopped in his pit as if the problem might be a loose oil line.

"That decision caused a big oil-down of pit road and when the Wood Brothers team tried to back Ambrose up to push him to the garage, the neighboring pit crew physically stopped the car from backing up.

"Unfortunately, ESPN ignored not only this situation but never followed-up with an interview of Ambrose.

"He was last week's Nationwide Series winner and the third place Sprint Cup finisher. Suddenly, Marcos Ambrose did not exist."

Here's the link to that blog. We find the remarks intriguing, but are not certain what the author is getting at. Surely not that there has been some kind of "smother" of a no-no because a new associate of Ambrose's was in the commentary team?

Anyway, Ford driver Carl Edwards won both races at Michigan. In the Sprint Cup round he beat series leader Kyle Busch and David Ragan.

NASCAR took 12 engines from the weekend for dyno testing and we're seeing reports that there was some funny business with a couple of the Toyota motors from the Joe Gibbs outfit for which Busch has been so dominant.

Although the checks do not appear to include Busch's engine, two Gibbs motors apparently had small magnets in them that may have been intended to foul the scrutineers.

After the ignominy of its turbocharger episode in the WRC in the 1990s, the last thing Toyota needs is a scandal about its engines in NASCAR.

NASCAR Sprint Cup standings after 23 races -- Kyle Busch 3429 points, Carl Edwards 3207, Jimmie Johnson 3127, Dale Earnhardt Junior 3084, Jeff Burton 3080, Tony Stewart 2871, Greg Biffle 2854, Kevin Harvick 2812, Jeff Gordon 2791, Matt Kenseth 2783, Kasey Kahne 2756, Denny Hamlin 2735. (Marcos Ambrose is 49th on 333 points from his four starts in the premier series).

NASCAR Nationwide Series standings -- Clint Bowyer 3582 points, Carl Edwards 3469, Brad Keselowski 3450, Mike Bliss 3223, David Reutimann 3219, David Ragan 3202, Kyle Busch 3003, Mike Wallace 2963, Jason Leffler 2926, Marcos Ambrose 2903.

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Tim Blanchard images: BAM Media