How F1’s ratings can go Sky high
People might complain about the wall-to-wall coverage of English,Scottish and Spanish soccer, but for those involved in soccer, across thewater in particular, there is an acknowledgement that the vast amount of money coursing through the top level especially, is down to the change in how the English Premier League is covered.
The darts success story is actually greater. Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle always played to full houses. But it isn’t all that long ago that Jocky Wilson, Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Cliff Lazarenko were plying their trade in front of half-empty halls apart from world championship finals.
They smoked fags, drank pints and looked about as athletic as Brian Cowen after a Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis.
Sky took it, cleaned up its image and added some glitz, a few models, plenty of corny nicknames (Steve “Adonis” Beaton is my favourite and, theme tunes. They also pumped in serious money to make prize money worth winning. The result is that darts is now a travelling roadshow that is fullyprofessional at the top tier and plays to hundreds of thousands of partying, paying customers.
The days of the world champion going back to his job as a truckie the next morning are long gone, while Planet Funk’s song Chase The Sun is as synonymous with darts as the James Last production, Jagerlatein is to The Sunday Game.
Now, Formula 1 is getting the treatment. So much so that Sky hasestablished a new channel to cover the entire season, which gets under way this weekend with the first race kicking off in Melbourne on Sunday.
Sky Sports F1 HD is free to anyone on a Sky Sports’ package. If it seems like overkill and you can’t imagine how on earth they will provide enough programming, don’t fret.
The station launched on March 9 and there are plenty of fascinating stories, profiles and features. It’s not a world we really know and Martin Brundle, the former Jordan driver who will co-commentate with David Croft, is looking forward to peeling back the layers.
“Content is never a problem,” Brundle insists. “Time is the problem. The amount of great stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor. I did some stuff for Pirelli; it took us two days to film and probably another two days to edit down and I think it cost about £300,000 to make and it only got four two-and-a-half minute airings. Now, we have the scope to really drill down into F1.”
While they know that a significant portion of their audience will be well versed to the intricacies of motor racing, it takes more than a driver to make a team.
“There is so much more going on at a Grand Prix than just a driver talking about understeer or oversteer, so I think it’s great we are able to bring all these strands together over the course of the weekend,” Croft explains.
As for the racing itself, Red Bull remains in the box seat and Sebastian Vettel is pursuing a third successive world championship.
“I love Vettel,” enthuses Croft. “He was winning the title at a canter last year and then he goes off in Abu Dhabi and he stands there quietlyfuming at the side of the track. He cares. He wants to win.”
Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton are the likeliestchallengers to the 24-year-old German.
After getting to within one point of being world champion in his debut season and taking the crown the following year in 2008, Hamilton has had his issues, mostly played out in public.
Last year, he and Williams team-mate Felipe Massa clashed on and off the track on a number ofoccasions but Brundle doesn’t believe this will cause problems this season.
“I don’t really think Massa is Hamilton’s natural target, to be honest. They just happened to keep sharing the same piece of track. I remember in ’92, when I was driving for Benetton, I had the same thing with Jean Alesi when ended up at war. He gives me a big hug when he sees me now but he threatened to kill me once at Imola!”
These are the type of stories we want to hear. And from now on, we will.
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