A GRAND PRIX that started two hours earlier plus zero footy competition ensured big numbers for the Russian Grand Prix on Aussie TV on Sunday night.

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Renault Sport Media

A 9:00PM EASTERN start time for the Russian Grand Prix has seen Fox Sports draw their highest Formula One numbers in twelve months on Sunday night.

144,000 tuned in to watch Lewis Hamiton get penalised and Valterri Bottas win the race in Sochi, that also saw a stirring drive from Daniel Ricciardo to fifth place.

It’s the highest audience since the 2019 Russian Grand Prix – held at about the same time of year – and the fifth most-watched Grand Prix in Australia since September 2018.

The earlier timeslot, as MotoGP has experienced all season, is a boon for motorsport as it captures the end of the highly-vaunted ‘Prime Time’ TV viewing audience before they shuffle off to bed.

That also translated to Saturday night as 101,000 watched Qualifying: the largest Saturday audience of the year so far and also larger than four of the ten races held so far this season.

F1 heads to Germany next and back to a more regular 11:00pm Eastern time starting slot.

OTR THE BEND SUPERSPRINT

THE OTR SUPER SPRINT rounded off six Supercars rounds in eight weeks with solid numbers from The Bend Motorsport Park.

120,000 watched Race 28 on Saturday while 134,000 tuned in to 506 to watch both of Sunday’s events and Scott McLaughlin ultimately seal the championship.

It was a solid result, if failing to match the heights of last weekend’s event, which was the most viewed Fox Sports-covered round since the Adelaide 500.

For a fun fact, the ratings juggernaut that is Hyundai Excel racing continued: the 79,000 watching their final race of the weekend more than anything viewed on Sky News on Sunday. This is a good thing.

We were always interested if Fox could build momentum across the last two months of nearly non-stop Supercars racing and it looks as if it has worked.

The first event of the six saw an average audience across the three races of 114,000 watching on Fox Sports 506.

By the end of the 18 race, six-event swing the average audience had grown to 126,000 – a steady increase across the journey.

FOX SPORTS AVERAGE AUDIENCE – SIX EVENT SWING

This will be a positive outcome for Fox Sports as they build towards what is one of their biggest days of the entire year – the Bathurst 1000.

Last year the Great Race was provided Foxtel (not just Fox Sports) with their most watched day in their entire history, so it’s an important one.

The network will continue their pre-Bathurst push with the launch of their dedicated Bathurst channel in early October.

All in all, Supercars’ eight-week odyssey saw a total cumulative audience of over 4.2 million people tune in across the journey on Channel 10 and Fox Sports.

MOTO GP CATALUNYA

WHEREAS the earlier start-time for Formula One worked for Aussie audiences, a later start-time worked against MotoGP.

The Spanish Grand Prix at Catalunya scraped into the top-20 shows on Foxtel on Sunday with 49,000 viewers: the lowest of the year.

It also hurt the much more casual audience watching on 10Bold, the race failing to crack the top-20 shows on free-to-air multichannels on Sunday night, meaning less than 110,000 watched.

Ratings Watch Archive – Click Here

SOURCES: TV Tonight, Mediaweek, TV Black Box.

(NOTE: Numbers are overnight metro (5 capital city) and Foxtel ratings supplied by ratings agency OzTam to media outlets. They do not include any additional reporting, including time shifted content, regional ratings or broader reach, unless released and freely available. They also do not include streaming numbers on Kayo or SuperView, etc).