WRC On ITV4

[mcmarteau]

as title says, that is great!

[dyfi1]

Wow, I`ve just read your post.... with 10 minutes to spare!! Oh, and on for an hour too... doubly great :-)

[Simmi]

Can anyone else not hear the stage commentator? Bit daft really.

[MikeWRC]

Yeah, the commentator was only coming from the left speakers for a while but it seems ok now.

It's somewhat worrying that the coverage has moved to ITV4. It's not going to affect 'proper' fans who have freeview but I assume it's going to mean that WRC will loose a significant amount of the remaining casual UK fans.

ITV4 is hardly mainstream - I clearly have never watched it seeing as I discovered tonight that my main freeview box isn't even properly set up for it.

I can't help but feel we're now deep into a viscious circle of less fans resulting in poorer coverage resulting in less fans etc.

Anyway, back to the coverage.

[Simmi]

Its stuff like this that annoys me. Who cares about these Mexican's really. It really is the hardcore fans who will seek out the coverage so they should at least stick to the rallying. Thank god for the helicopter cams btw.

[J4MIE]

Well just watched the coverage and I have to say I was bored stiff really. Poor sound, poor quality, poor night coverage (ok might be unavoidable but still...).

Think the stages looked ho-hum, not proper "alpine" roads around the mountains, no snow etc (not the event's fault but...) and the roads looked too wide.

Glad I never went :up:

[Simmi]

Yeah the roads this year didnt evoke anything in my opinion. Didn't bring anything new to the table. Obviously under a carpet of snow it wouldnt have mattered but it was hardly scenic like Jamie says.

[sal]

What the feck was the bit with the Mexicans all about? Who cares? I want to see the cars not a bunch of tequilla'd up blokes shouting. Great image of rally fans shown with them going through a French village in the middle of the night shouting out of the windows.Nice work, we are almost back to the bad old days of the ITV coverage where Angus thingy used to search out Norweigans who were pissed. Still any free coverage is better than none I suppose but looks as though the survey that was run by ISC/WRC.com at the end of last year was a waste of time.

[Tomski]

Thought they did a good jib considering the lack of action and spectacle in the event, the top 8 never really changed throughout the event.

Just hope theres plenty of snow and ice in Sweden & Norway, and no Mexican's!

[Mark]

I think the interviews with the crowd etc are good and do add a little colour to the preceedings. But overall you can tell it was done on a budget of €2.50

[AndyRAC]

I think the interviews with the crowd etc are good and do add a little colour to the preceedings. But overall you can tell it was done on a budget of €2.50

Really that much. They're really spoiling us!!

They'll have to cut back 0.99 is more like it.

Is it worth watching, waiting for Ralio on Thursday? Though if the event wasn't that exciting you have job making it seem so, that's the current WRC for you. No wonder its virtually ignored over here.

[tintin]

I think the interviews with the crowd etc are good and do add a little colour to the preceedings. But overall you can tell it was done on a budget of €2.50

The WRC TV coverage budget is £6m a year.

[Simmi]

Id love to know exactly where that goes.

[Waldrons11]

The regular 1 hour highlights will indeed be on ITV4 this season. Until the next McRae or Burns, they seem unwilling to go with terrestrial coverage. At least the time slots are a bit more sociable!

JWRC/PWRC 30 min highlights will also be on Men and Motors, along with the WRC Magazine (preview) shows.

Also there will be another 9 1 hour archive based shows (greatest cars, rallies, crash compilations etc) which I think will also be on ITV4. They already did a beginners guide I believe.

Eurosport still have the daily 30 minute highlights and another chance to see the 1 hour highlights later the next week, and the Magazine shows too.

So a couple of positives to go with the big negative of losing ITV1 coverage.

[Lousada]

I heard that 148.000 watched the Monte coverage on ITV4. Is this true?

[tintin]

It was 179,000 - which means it comfortably beat all its rivals (Deal or No Deal on More 4 came closest with 168,000)

109,000 of the audience were male (of which 69,000 were ABC1s); 169,000 were over 16,

[RS]

It was 179,000 - which means it comfortably beat all its rivals (Deal or No Deal on More 4 came closest with 168,000)

109,000 of the audience were male (of which 69,000 were ABC1s); 169,000 were over 16,

Beating a repeat of 'Deal or No Deal' also on a non-terrestrial channel isn't something to be particularly proud of. Ok, it's not a bad rating for ITV4, but 179,000 is pretty tragic in the great scheme of things.

[tintin]

It's a pretty poor rating for ITV4 actually - if it were a football match it would have got 6 or 7 times that.

But that sort of figure is what you'd expect for WRC.

Incidentally, it's around three times as many as watched the Eurosport coverage.

[RS]

It's a pretty poor rating for ITV4 actually -

Doesn't bode well for ISCs aim to get it back on ITV1...

Thanks for the info.

[Lousada]

Thanks for the information. It puts things in perspective for sure.

[tintin]

Doesn't bode well for ISCs aim to get it back on ITV1...



It would take Colin McRae in a works Citroen for the season to even tempt them.

[RS]

Anyone know the ITV4 figures for Sweden and Norway?

[tintin]

Anyone know the ITV4 figures for Sweden and Norway?

168,000 for Sweden
214,000 for Norway

This is an interesting pattern, because usually Monte Carlo gets the highest ratings of the year, and the ratings drop away severely for Sweden (by about 50%) and beyond (the audience at the end of the season, excluding Wales which is a special case, is generally only a quarter of that for Monte).

This year, it is actually static or rising - which suggests that people just didn't know where to look for the WRC for Monte Carlo.

I wouldn't be surprised to see 300,000 on ITV4 later in the season, which is what it was getting on ITV1 at times last year.

[RS]

Thanks Tintin,

Interesting indeed. I thought the figures might improve as people found it's new home.

Also interesting it was only pulling 300,000 on ITV1 at times, and not the 1.3 million DR boasts about.

[tintin]

The only rally that has recently got 1.3 million* is Monte Carlo - which had 1.3m in 2004 and 2005, and 1.6 in 2006.

(obviously when there were successful British drivers like Burns and McRae there were more people watching, and it sometimes got as high as 2 million in Burns' championship year)