TV News: Weekend USA TV Ratings (2nd Update)

ESPN Press Release about the Canadian GP viewership on ABC has been added below the Total Viewers Table.

While the F1 numbers were stout, IndyCar tanked terribly on the USA Network.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

‘The Grandstand’ alt. cast Canadian GP debut hosted by Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett drew 114K avg. viewers on ESPN2 in the same time slot as the race itself on ABC.

Total weekend viewership was 3.219 million.

Total F1 viewers for the Canadian GP weekend

–ESPN Press Release–

ABC’s live telecast of Sunday’s Formula 1 Pirelli Canadian Grand Prix attracted an average audience of 1.76 million viewers for the race telecast window, the fourth-largest live audience ever for a Formula 1 race on U.S. television.

Three of the four largest live U.S. F1 television audiences in history have occurred in 2023. In addition to Canada, the Miami Grand Prix averaged 1.96 million viewers and the Monaco Grand Prix averaged 1.79 million. The inaugural Miami Grand Prix in 2022 averaged 2.6 million viewers, the largest live audience ever for an F1 race on U.S. television.

The race, which ran from 2-4 p.m. ET, also was the largest audience on record for the Canadian Grand Prix. The full telecast, which started at 12:30 p.m. with the Grand Prix Sunday pre-race show, averaged 1.39 million viewers.

Viewership peaked at 1.924 million average viewers in the quarter-hour starting at 3:15 p.m. ET.

The top 10 local market ratings:

Through nine races, F1 events are averaging 1.28 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, up from last year’s record-setting season average of 1.21 million.

Also on Sunday, the debut of ESPN’s new alternate telecast The Grandstand with Daniel Ricciardo and Will Arnett on ESPN2 attracted an average audience of 114,000, with half of the audience in the Persons ages 18-49 demographic. The Grandstand will return for the two remaining U.S. rounds of the F1 schedule this year.

The next race on the F1 calendar is the Rolex Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday, July 2, airing on ESPN and ESPN+ at 8:55 a.m. ET.

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–by Mark Cipolloni–

TV Rating Analysis

Formula 1

Race Only: ABC averaged 1.760 million viewers for the Canadian GP F1 race in Montreal, up 3.53% over last year’s 1.70 million, also on ABC. It was the fourth-largest live F1 audience ever (second and third were Miami and Monaco this year – so now three of the four largest live F1 audiences ever – have occurred this year)

Pre-Race Plus Race: ABC averaged 1.394 million viewers for the Pre-Race plus Race Canadian GP in Montreal, up 1% from last year’s 1.380 million viewers.

Qualifying: ESPN2 averaged 555,000 viewers for F1 qualifying in the rain in Montreal Saturday. 44% of those tuned in were in the all-important 18-49 age group. More race fans watched F1 qualifying than watched the IndyCar race from Road America

IndyCar

USA Network averaged 385,000 viewers for the IndyCar race from Road America on Sunday, down 64.58% from the 1.087 viewers on NBC last year. Only 84,000 (22%) tuned in were in the all-important 18-49 age group, down 59.62% from last year on NBC.

The fact that F1 qualifying on Saturday had 44% more viewers than the IndyCar race has to send shivers down the spine of the suits at 16th and Georgetown.   It appears the hard core IndyCar fanbase is about 385,000 total fans or less, as only the hardcore fans would bother to use the USA channel. Unlike NBC, where channel surfers (non-fans) more than double the number of viewers, the USA number would be the hardcore fans only.

TV Rating Data