After much hype and build up ahead of the Firestone GP at St Petersburg I couldn't wait to finally sit down Sunday evening (well tell a lie, from 8 am through until 11 pm I constantly watched F1 and BTCC, which is an awesome way to spend a Sunday!) and watch the coverage of the race from Florida. Although not the most exciting of races still had its moments with some impressive performance throughout the field and of course, a touch of controversy (as you would expect).
Given I get to see the number of views each page receives, what search terms are used, which sites refer visitors to this website, I was surprised to see the viewing figures for the race on the excellent F1 Broadcasting blog, a 0.01% which translates to around 5,000 viewers, a significant drop on last season in terms of percentage if not actual numbers.
Whilst you can account for such a drop with a number of reasons, not all are able to spend the best part of 15 hours in front of the TV on a Sunday with F1 from Malaysia, then 8 hours of the opening BTCC rounds from Brands Hatch, and also factor in it was mothers day too. Having recently (finally) grown up and bought my own place, I can only imagine the glares from said mother when I would say what motor sport was on that Sunday!
Again another factor, the cost of BT Sport (inc ESPN) is between £12 - £18 a month dependent on you personal TV package and who it is with. (BT Broadband customers get the channels for free)
I do believe though the largest factor in poor viewership is down in part to the lack of promotion, correction, zero promotion by the channel, ESPN UK or by BT Sport. As a football fan I would subscribe anyway and it does form pack of my Virgin Media package. So as a result I do view the BT Sport umbrella of channels fairly regular and saw no promotion of Indycar at all, also zero mention of their NASCAR highlights package. To add insult to promotional injury I saw during a break an advert promoting ESPN's American sports coverage... again no mention of any motor sport. Even on their website you have to hunt round to find even a smallest mention, and even when asked... missing from the response. Even one of the main personalities from BT's presenter line up can't help but promote motor racing... on another channel! In his defense, although he did add Indycar in in a later tweet after a few mentioned this to him, nothing like promoting your own broadcast platform eh?
I can understand from a commercial viewpoint, for Football, Rugby and Moto GP where they have paid a huge amount of money to broadcast live, but they acquired rights to Indycar for next to nothing in comparison to these sports, so with live and original content why not even do small amount promotion for live sport?
With Sky Sports historically the viewing figures ranged from 15-20,000 and around 30,000 for the Indy 500. But since the change in broadcaster back at the end of 2012, there has been a large drop in these figures.
So is Indycar that unpopular in the UK? OK it is nowhere near F1 obviously, I would never expect it be, or even BTCC for that matter which is well supported by ITV4, with a full day dedicated to coverage at the track.
Below are twenty-three screen shots highlighting the search terms used which direct people to this website. To save you going through them all, I will break it down for you, the figures are for the whole of March, in the region of 85% where all asking about UK TV coverage in some way for Indycar. This is multiples of times more than twelve months previous.
Given I get to see the number of views each page receives, what search terms are used, which sites refer visitors to this website, I was surprised to see the viewing figures for the race on the excellent F1 Broadcasting blog, a 0.01% which translates to around 5,000 viewers, a significant drop on last season in terms of percentage if not actual numbers.
Whilst you can account for such a drop with a number of reasons, not all are able to spend the best part of 15 hours in front of the TV on a Sunday with F1 from Malaysia, then 8 hours of the opening BTCC rounds from Brands Hatch, and also factor in it was mothers day too. Having recently (finally) grown up and bought my own place, I can only imagine the glares from said mother when I would say what motor sport was on that Sunday!
Again another factor, the cost of BT Sport (inc ESPN) is between £12 - £18 a month dependent on you personal TV package and who it is with. (BT Broadband customers get the channels for free)
I do believe though the largest factor in poor viewership is down in part to the lack of promotion, correction, zero promotion by the channel, ESPN UK or by BT Sport. As a football fan I would subscribe anyway and it does form pack of my Virgin Media package. So as a result I do view the BT Sport umbrella of channels fairly regular and saw no promotion of Indycar at all, also zero mention of their NASCAR highlights package. To add insult to promotional injury I saw during a break an advert promoting ESPN's American sports coverage... again no mention of any motor sport. Even on their website you have to hunt round to find even a smallest mention, and even when asked... missing from the response. Even one of the main personalities from BT's presenter line up can't help but promote motor racing... on another channel! In his defense, although he did add Indycar in in a later tweet after a few mentioned this to him, nothing like promoting your own broadcast platform eh?
I can understand from a commercial viewpoint, for Football, Rugby and Moto GP where they have paid a huge amount of money to broadcast live, but they acquired rights to Indycar for next to nothing in comparison to these sports, so with live and original content why not even do small amount promotion for live sport?
With Sky Sports historically the viewing figures ranged from 15-20,000 and around 30,000 for the Indy 500. But since the change in broadcaster back at the end of 2012, there has been a large drop in these figures.
So is Indycar that unpopular in the UK? OK it is nowhere near F1 obviously, I would never expect it be, or even BTCC for that matter which is well supported by ITV4, with a full day dedicated to coverage at the track.
Below are twenty-three screen shots highlighting the search terms used which direct people to this website. To save you going through them all, I will break it down for you, the figures are for the whole of March, in the region of 85% where all asking about UK TV coverage in some way for Indycar. This is multiples of times more than twelve months previous.
I have worked on improving the websites standing with Google, and have adapted the main homepage so the key feature you see is the latest TV updates so hopefully that is of some use to you (UK only obviously!).
My concern and it is a very real one, mainstream media hardly recognises Indycar here (unless a negative story line - see Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti), and with figures like they were for the opening race, it is hardly making it appealing to potential broadcasters once the deal is up for renewal in 2016. In Marshall Pruett's recent article at Racer.com (page two) he highlighted the need to Indycar to look at international broadcasting rights, in regards to sponsor and driver exposure, both current and potential.
So whilst watching the races on BT Sport / ESPN, why not tweet saying you are, maybe then they will sit up and take note...
So BT, the demand is there, why not tell people you supply?
(At time of publishing, two days into April, 100% of search terms leading visitors to the website are about UK TV coverage, see that as you will...)
My concern and it is a very real one, mainstream media hardly recognises Indycar here (unless a negative story line - see Dan Wheldon, Dario Franchitti), and with figures like they were for the opening race, it is hardly making it appealing to potential broadcasters once the deal is up for renewal in 2016. In Marshall Pruett's recent article at Racer.com (page two) he highlighted the need to Indycar to look at international broadcasting rights, in regards to sponsor and driver exposure, both current and potential.
So whilst watching the races on BT Sport / ESPN, why not tweet saying you are, maybe then they will sit up and take note...
So BT, the demand is there, why not tell people you supply?
(At time of publishing, two days into April, 100% of search terms leading visitors to the website are about UK TV coverage, see that as you will...)