MOTORSPORT: Twilight TV realities dawn - from UK

Good Friday motorsport report

Less viewers instead of more for our GP in key market
The move to twilight for this year's Australian Grand Prix, meant to attract a larger international television audience, has backfired in a key -- arguably THE key -- European market, Britain.

Evidence is emerging that this year's race had fewer viewers in Britain than last year's.

The audience for the main telecast in Britain was down 500,000 viewers and the interpretation one of our European-based contacts with vast expertise in this matter is putting on the picture is that the race perhaps had more than one million fewer viewers in Britain this year.

This is precisely the opposite of what the twilight GP was supposed to deliver, and the attention the situation may draw could go some way to unmasking one of the great charades to which we've alluded here previously -- that the global TV audience for F1 is nothing like that often claimed by proponents who are big on bulldust but short on substance.

However, the Malaysian GP a week later appears to have doubled its British audience -- on the back of the Jenson Button/Brawn GP victory in Melbourne and the week of controversy surrounding Lewis Hamilton and McLaren and because the telecast was mid-morning in Europe rather than at breakfast time.

In the course of many hours of research on motorsport and TV over the past couple of days we've also discovered that:
>> The national TV audience for this year's Clipsal 500 in Adelaide was better than last year but well below previous levels.
>> The IndyCar series in North America's new TV arrangement appears to have cost it lots of viewers.

But our main focus here today is the F1 picture -- and the starting point is a brief report from the website f1fanatic.co.uk about the TV ratings in Britain for the two GPs run so far this season.

This report -- by Keith Collantine, whose work we've observed and admired over some years -- begins by posing the question: "How is the BBC faring since taking over from ITV as Britain's F1 broadcaster?"

Collantine then provides the following:
"Here's its (BBC's) preliminary viewing figures for the first two races: 2009 Australian Grand Prix live: 2.1m average, 3.4m peak; 2009 Australian Grand Prix repeat: 2.8m average; 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix live: 4.4m average, 5.2m peak."

Collantine continues: "Last year ITV's replay of the Australian Grand Prix attracted more viewers (3.8m) but its live programme had far fewer. Its figures for the Malaysian Grand Prix were below 2.8m."

And Collantine adds: "It's important to remember that the BBC will have benefitted from the later start times of these two races as well as increased attention not only in Lewis Hamilton but also Jenson Button."

His report, dated April 6, can be found here and concludes: "These are preliminary overnight figures -- when the official data is available they will be added to the F1 TV audience figures page" (on f1fanatic.co.uk).

So what's all this mean? We said earlier that the audience for the main telecast in Britain was down 500,000 viewers.

That's because we believed the audience for the 2008 Australian GP during the mid-afternoon replay on ITV in Britain on the day of that race to be 3.9 million (Collantine now says 3.8m).

Comparing that ("our") 3.9m with the 3.4m peak during the BBC's live telecast of this year's race, on March 29, the difference is 500,000.

Now it's clear we're not comparing like with like there -- the first was a replay, the second live.

But in 2008 the replay in Britain clearly was the main broadcast, because the race -- which began in Melbourne at 3.30pm -- was pre-dawn for the live telecast.

However, this year -- two weeks ago -- the 5pm start in Melbourne meant the live telecast began in Britain at 7am -- a more civilised, viewer-friendly hour, and Collantine's figures indicate that live telecast drew more viewers than the mid-afternoon replay.

On his numbers, the morning, live peak (3.4m) was higher than the mid-afternoon average (2.8m -- peak unknown).

Again, not quite like versus like. The great unknown for us in all of this is what the live telecast on ITV drew in 2008.

We would have thought comparatively few -- maybe a few hundred thousand, perhaps a million -- as the race start was 5.30am UK time.

However, our European contact points out that 2 million viewers were "registered" for the BBC's 6am preview show on March 29 this year.

Which raises the question of whether ITV may have had a similar number, perhaps a few less or maybe even a few more, for a live RACE broadcast half an hour earlier in 2008.

The difficulty in finding these numbers, particularly a year or more later, is that they are only easily traced if a telecast has figured in a network's top 30 programs for the week.

Our Euro contact suggests that perhaps the most appropriate comparison is the mid-afternoon replays in Britain last year and this year -- and points out that, on that basis, the 2.8m on the BBC in Collantine's article compared with his 3.8m on ITV in '08 (and "our" 3.9m) is a drop of 1m (or 1.1m against "our" 3.9m)!

A lot worse than the loss of 500,000. Twice as bad. The best comparison, of course, would be to add the live and replay figures from each year and compare '09 against '08.

But the difficulty there is that we do not have anything like a definitive live audience number from Britain in '08, and for that matter -- as Collantine points out -- the '09 numbers he and we are working off are still "preliminary overnight figures" rather than final and official.

However, our experienced Euro contact points out that any variation in the final figure(s) is unlikely to be more than 100,000 on numbers in the range of 2-3m. What is perhaps significant is that there is no sign of the BBC crowing about the success of its first telecast in its return to F1.

Equally, or even more, significant in the Australian context is that there have been no claims of extraordinary success of the twilight Oz GP on international television from the regular claimer of such successes, Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker -- never with any substantiation of such claims.

What is again clear is that 2, 3 or 4m people watch the Oz GP in Britain -- the heartland of F1, which has the reigning world champion, most of the teams based there, and this year produced both the winning driver and team owner in the Australian race. And indeed there was a strong pointer to that result, with a day to absorb that Button/Brawn were on pole position.

So if there are only 2, 3 or 4m people watching our race in Britain, and we are reliably informed the audience in Spain was about 4m this year, and Italy, Germany and France are the other main markets, all that is a pointer to an audience of 20-25m in the five key countries.

And that makes sense in the context of the conclusion we've come to, and reported here previously (including the third item, headlined 'Making sense of some F1 numbers' in a column in July 2008, (here) that the average global audience for an F1 GP telecast -- after all the extravagant claims of hundreds of millions for so many years -- is about 50-60m, spiking to 100-120m for world-deciding finales as we've seen in Brazil in recent years -- and which are in a perfect timeslot for the European heartland audience.

Indeed, what has been carefully guarded for years is the reality that the Oz GP has always been below the global average audience -- because it has traditionally been so time-unfriendly to that European heartland.

The move to a 3.30pm start in Melbourne last year and 5pm this year was meant to improve that situation, but the evidence emerging is that it's not -- certainly in the very important British market, and seemingly not helped -- and possibly hindered -- by the British telecast rights returning to the BBC from ITV.

On Keith Collantine's numbers in that brief f1fanatic.co.uk article, Malaysia has been a much bigger winner, in TV terms in Britain, from its move to a twilight start -- despite its race last weekend being stopped at barely half-distance because of a monsoonal storm.

The Malaysian figures he gives for last Sunday's race telecast in Britain -- 4.4m average, 5.2m peak -- are way ahead of that he gives for the '08 Malaysian GP in Britain -- 2.8m.

The live Malaysian race telecast began on the BBC last Sunday at 10am. So, weather aside, twilight appears to have worked for Malaysia in a TV context (and, even if it had begun a couple of hours earlier at its traditional 3pm Kuala Lumpur time, it would have been rain-affected).

F1's free-to-air broadcaster in Germany, RTL, has reported an average audience for the shortened Sepang race of 5.37 million viewers -- which it said was almost a 40 per cent market share. So another "win" for Malaysia.

Our Euro contact -- very considerate of Victorian taxpayers who fund the Oz GP to the tune of  $40m last year and, according to Auto Action magazine, perhaps $50-60m this year -- suggests that maybe it's best for Melbourne to revert to its traditional 2pm, or perhaps the '08 3.30pm start.

The Victorian government is insistent that it will not go to the expense -- several, if not many, millions of dollars -- to light Albert Park for a night GP, which is F1 commercial tsar Bernie Ecclestone's well-known preference.

Our Euro expert concludes: "What 2008 on ITV proved was that if you have an early, early live race (telecast in Britain) then a whole lot more people wait for the more viewer-friendly afternoon replay and you (Melbourne, Australia) get a higher audience -- and surely that's what Melbourne and Bernie Ecclestone both want."

So, with the F1 drivers and team bosses strongly opposed to twilight racing, is it back to square one -- or two, 3.30pm, Australian eastern summer time?

Network Ten announced a peak audience of 1.38 million viewers nationally, and an average audience of 1.04 million, for its Oz GP telecast -- and that it was March 29's  most watched program in Melbourne with 477,000 viewers.

We'll take a look at how F1 does on Australian television at some point in the future.

The Seven Network also announced that its telecast of Adelaide's V8 Supercar Championship season-opening Clipsal 500 "surpassed the combined audience of Nine and Ten across the weekend (of March 21-22)".

"Across Australia -- including metropolitan and regional markets -- V8 Supercars on Seven delivered an average national audience of 674,000 viewers on Saturday and 894,000 viewers on Sunday," Seven said.

The average audience for capital cities Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth was 508,000 on the Saturday and 620,000 on the Sunday, with the peak audiences across those cities on the two days 643,000 and 782,000 respectively.

As we've said here many times before, average audiences are the industry standard. So we dug out the average audiences for Clipsal the past couple of years. The good news is that the numbers are up this year.

The bad news is that the '09 numbers are well short of 2007 -- the year Seven returned as the touring car racing broadcaster.

This year's five-capitals Saturday average of 508,000 viewers for Clipsal was up 11,000 on '08 (497,000) but 32,000 short of '07 (540,000).

The Sunday average this year was up 48,000 from '08 (572,000) but was still 90,000 short of '07 (710,000).

We've reported extensively over the past year or so on V8 Supercar TV audiences being in reverse -- including here, here and here -- so we're pleased to be able to draw attention to an improvement.

The timing of this year's Clipsal was perfect, with no AFL -- which had completed its pre-season competition and was having a weekend off before the start of its season proper -- while last year Adelaide's Sunday race clashed with a one-day cricket international.

The upturn is only one event so far, but hopefully it's the start of a trend throughout the year.

Just how many saw Briscoe win IndyCar opener?
While we're devoting our energies to TV audiences today, we've spotted some trouble for the IndyCar series in the US.

On the one hand it's not of great consequence as the series is no longer coming to Australia, replaced at the Gold Coast in October by A1 GP, but there are two Australians racing in IndyCar -- Ryan Briscoe and Will Power, for Team Penske, and they were first and sixth in the season-opening race last weekend.

So it was disappointing to come across this news: "Last Sunday's Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg, the first-ever IndyCar Series race on (US cable television sports channel) VERSUS, earned 233,000 viewers.

"Last year's IndyCar season opener ... from Homestead-Miami Speedway earned 1.1 million viewers on ESPN2 on a Saturday night in primetime.

"That means this year's season opener was down 79 per cent. The '08 race from St Pete, which was that season's second telecast, earned 575,000 viewers on ESPN for a Sunday afternoon telecast, representing a drop this year of 60 per cent." That report is here.

A far more optimistic report is this:
"VERSUS kicked off the 2009 IndyCar Series season with the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg on April 5. The network's first race garnered a .3 national HH rating and peaked at a .4 during the race's final laps.

"The network's race coverage was seen by more than 2 million viewers, while all of the IndyCar Series telecasts surrounding the first event of the 2009 season reached 3.4 million viewers.

"We couldn't be happier with our opening week of race coverage on VERSUS," said Charlie Morgan, president and COO for IMS Productions.

"VERSUS' commitment was to 'super-serve' IndyCar Series fans and based on the response we have seen from our fans they are thrilled with the amount and quality of coverage available to them throughout the weekend." That report is here.

Strange how the two pictures are painted so differently. We'd like, for the sake of Briscoe and Power, to believe the latter, but suspect that the former is closer to the reality.

At least when the series gets to its crown jewel event next month, the Indianapolis 500, it will be on America's ABC free-to-air network before or as well as VERSUS.

Incidentally, we note that Aussie sports car ace David Brabham's Acura co-driver Scott Sharp will be back at the Indy 500 with Panther Racing.

V8 sponsor out, FIA inquiries, Schumi, business, tax, etc
Lots more happening in the world of motorsport that we can't do justice to here today. But we'll provide some direction to where you can get news on things if you wish.

Firstly, it was disturbing to discover yesterday that young internet tycoon Daniel Tzvetkoff ditched sponsorship of V8 Supercar team Inta Racing. A report on that here.

The change to the controversial V8 Supercar qualifying system foreshadowed here -- and earlier by our magazine "cousin" Auto Action -- was confirmed this week. BigPond Sport/Briar Gunther's report on how qualifying is now going to work is here.

Came across an interesting article titled "Who Killed NASCAR: NASCAR Moves to Irrelevance" here. Particularly interesting to us was the line in it that "a more true version of stock car racing is the V8 Supercars down in Australia".

But alarming was the mention that "unfortunately, we do not get any coverage of that here in the US".

Now there's something for V8 Supercars Australia chairman Tony Cochrane to remedy once he's got his Sydney 400 under control at the Homebush Olympic precinct. Incidentally, we hear that everything is finally signed off through the bureaucracy for that new December street race.

Upcoming on April 14 is the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) hearing into the legality of the "double-decker" rear diffusers on the Brawn, Toyota and Williams F1 cars.

We've had our fill on that subject already but reckon simply that it will be a gross injustice if those teams are penalised after having been given the FIA's blessing up to and including the start of the season in Melbourne.

And surely pragmatism will dictate that comparative minnows Brawn and Williams and the hitherto embarrassing underperformer Toyota be allowed to have a little time in the spotlight and on the podiums normally hogged by the likes of Ferrari and McLaren. It's spiced F1 up enormously.

Later in the month there will be other FIA hearings into the Lewis Hamilton lying affair -- which has cost McLaren sporting director, New Zealander Dave Ryan, his job after a 34-year careeer.

It's a highly political situation and an insight from The Times headlined 'Five key players in Lewis Hamilton's future' is here, an earlier stinging piece in The Times is here and a perspective on Ryan being driven out of McLaren is here.

The Telegraph's coverage of the affair is here , here and here.

And none other than the great Michael Schumacher, now three years retired from driving, is in the firing line over Ferrari's woeful start to this season. More, again from The Telegraph, here and here.

We learned of some messy business over the demise of Honda's former associate team, Super Aguri, here.

And another intriguing but happier F1 business/sponsorship story is here with a particularly interesting mention/claim that "more women are watching Formula One than ever before -- the male-female split is now 60/40" and that "the demographic is also getting younger".

America is almost the last place you'd expect to find anything interesting about F1, but we often spot gems on this New York Times blog. One such is here.

Also from America, veteran open-wheeler correspondent Robin Miller's update on Helio Castroneves' tax evasion trial is here. And another perspective here.

Mosley's latest idea - one engine for F1, rallying and F2
Something else we came across this week -- and it almost sounds like a late April Fool's joke.

The source read: "Max Mosley has revealed plans for a 'world engine' that in 2013 would be capable of powering FIA categories including F1, world rally and F2.

"On a visit last weekend to the rally of Portugal he said: 'It would work in turbocharged form for F1 and then all the way down to naturally aspirated form for the lesser categories and in a turbocharged or naturally aspirated form for the world rally championship.'

"The FIA president said the planning phase of the project is in its 'very early days', with the car manufacturers to be involved.

"In the case of F1, he said 'peripheral areas' of the engine will be open for development, including KERS and other energy recovery systems to be introduced.

"Asked for further information, he said energy could be collected not only from braking heat as at present, but 'from exhausts and even from the cooling system'.

"Referring to the universal FIA engine, he added: 'If we can -- and I'm not sure we can -- find a way of combining all forms of motor sport in that system then this would be useful because of the huge sums spent on motor sport."

A1 stumbles on at new track in Portugal
A1 GP is in Portugal over Easter -- for round six of eight at the new Algarve circuit. Ex-F1 driver Vitantonio Liuzzi is making his debut in the series representing Italy.

Switzerland leads the series, now in its fourth season, and Australia is eighth -- with John Martin continuing in the cockpit.

Incidentally, there are moves afoot in New Zealand to move that country's round next season from the Taupo circuit to the new Hampton Downs track between Auckland and Hamilton -- and to bring it forward to November, just after A1's debut at the Gold Coast event that was "Indy" but is now titled Super GP.