What were the Channel 4 live viewing figures like?

[majordad]

Wondering what difference being live meant and how their figures compared to Sky ?

[threespires]

I wondered the same thing. I hope somebody can provide viewing figures.

[MortyC137]

That would be interesting to know.

It's worth mentioning, I didn't watch it on C4 only because I'm not a Sky customer so can't follow the whole season. Very little point watching one race. No idea who any of the teams/drivers are these days. If every race was live on free telly, it would be like the old days and I'd watch every race. I wonder if there are many like me who just aren't into F1 any more, but definitely would be if it was accessible?

[Jasandjules]

I hope a lot switched off following the preposterous RB love in....

[Hungrymc]

Jasandjules said:

I hope a lot switched off following the preposterous RB love in....

I watched on sky (Croft and Ted really P**s me off)

Then I watched on C4 to see what all the fuss was about.... LOL... bloody hell... Never again.

[2fast748]

Jasandjules said:

I hope a lot switched off following the preposterous RB love in....

I used to like Webber and white pants but their judgement was severely out last weekend.

[Adrian W]

I watched it on Sky but recorded channel four just in case,

I couldn’t believe how bad it was

[Derek Smith]

The race commentary on Ch4 was pretty poor from the crash onwards. But the first four corners were fine.

I can't stand Sky's commentary team and normally turn on Radio5Live. I know it has its critics, but the most positive thing for me is that it is not Sky.

I follow the race on Now, f1.tfeed.net/ and R5L. It's a bit surreal as F1 Feed comes through first, then R5L and finally Now. What is irritating is that it's easy to see a midfield battle developing nicely over a few laps, but it's not mentioned on Now or R5L. Then we get a recording of a pass, or failure. The main advantage of my method is that I know when those on the lead lap come up to a backmarker so a drop in the lap times is explained. Or, more excitingly, not.

[coetzeeh]

2fast748 said:

Jasandjules said:

I hope a lot switched off following the preposterous RB love in....

I used to like Webber and white pants but their judgement was severely out last weekend.

Interesting that the C4 Commentators views and judgement was aligned with the stewards?

[jules_s]

coetzeeh said:

Interesting that the C4 Commentators views and judgement was aligned with the stewards?

LOL hardly

[Exige77]

C4 coverage was disappointing.

As mentioned already, the RB love in spoiled it completely.

Back to Sky.

It really showed how good the Sky coverage is, even Crofty isn’t too bad.

[Jasandjules]

coetzeeh said:

Interesting that the C4 Commentators views and judgement was aligned with the stewards?

Are you Dutch?

[cholo]

What was so bad about C4 coverage?
Enjoyed it myself.

[Gary29]

MortyC137 said:

If every race was live on free telly, it would be like the old days and I'd watch every race. I wonder if there are many like me who just aren't into F1 any more, but definitely would be if it was accessible?

Me.

I'm too tight to pay a Sky subscription, but I did enjoy watching the race on C4 at the weekend.

I do splurge every now and then and buy a day pass for Now TV if there's a race I'm particularly interested in, but not very often.

I used to be an avid F1 fan, but since it hasn't been free to air, my interested has slipped.

It hurts having to pay for something that used to be free

[majordad]

That’s why I asked the question, I’m hoping the figures show that there’s a whole lot of others out there like me that want to see it live on C4 but won’t pay to view.

[ch37]

majordad said:

That’s why I asked the question, I’m hoping the figures show that there’s a whole lot of others out there like me that want to see it live on C4 but won’t pay to view.

Last year the average was 1.1m on Sky and 2.3m on C4.

Sky F1 figures have been increasing each year but I'd assume a similar split this year.

[Cold]

cholo said:

What was so bad about C4 coverage?
Enjoyed it myself.

They dared to suggest that Hamilton might have had something to do with Max's crash.

[MKnight702]

Hungrymc said:

Jasandjules said:

I hope a lot switched off following the preposterous RB love in....

I watched on sky (Croft and Ted really P**s me off)

Then I watched on C4 to see what all the fuss was about.... LOL... bloody hell... Never again.

Personally, I really like the C4 coverage and there is no way on Earth that I would pay Sky to watch so all is good.

[cholo]

Cold said:

cholo said:

What was so bad about C4 coverage?
Enjoyed it myself.

They dared to suggest that Hamilton might have had something to do with Max's crash.

Ah right, As i say, no issues myself.

I did like it when Steve Jones asked CH "What do you know that the Stewards Don't" when he was asking him about the crash.

I honestly though CH was well out of order with the way he was speaking.

[TheDeuce]

majordad said:

That’s why I asked the question, I’m hoping the figures show that there’s a whole lot of others out there like me that want to see it live on C4 but won’t pay to view.

The problem is that after so long being largely behind a paywall (I don't count highlights as watching properly) that a large proportion of casual UK F1 fans will have simply let the sport slip from their attention.

Can't expect them all to suddenly cancel other plans and routines to spend the weekend watching F1 when it's no longer a regular part of their life.

Paywall is too tight in that regard, at least a handful of GPs need to be live ftv every season on order to maintain interest, and from sky's pov persuade more folk to stump up to view the entire season live.