Whilst this site traditionally focusses on the United Kingdom viewing figures picture, yesterday’s Indianapolis 500 unsurprisingly made a significant splash in Spain.
According to FormulaTV, live coverage of the Indianapolis 500 in Spain averaged 443k (3.6%) from 17:59 to 22:06 on #0 and Movistar Sports. #0 is Movistar+’s main subscription channel in Spain, hence why the Indianapolis 500 was featured on there.
As a result, the IndyCar action beat the Monaco Grand Prix, which averaged 212k (2.0%) on Movistar’s dedicated Formula 1 channel from 14:03 to 15:48. Last year’s action from Monaco averaged 302k (2.8%), so F1 lost just under a third of the viewers year-on-year. In Spain, Formula 1 used to air on the free-to-air station Antena 3, a deal which ended in 2015, with viewing figures in their millions.
Whilst IndyCar ratings are unknown in Germany and Italy, the Monaco Grand Prix performed well in both markets, thanks to Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari in strong form. In Germany, the race aired live on free-to-air station RTL, to an audience of 5.23m (34.5%) according to Quotenmeter.
In Italy, an audience of 5.80m (35.5%) watched Vettel’s victory on free-to-air channel Rai 1, figures compiled by TVBlog show. Both Germany and Italy’s figures appear to exclude Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia respectively, which will increase their respective audiences slightly.
Meanwhile in America, live coverage of the Indianapolis 500 averaged 5.46 million viewers on ABC, a drop on last year’s audience of 6.01 million viewers. This shouldn’t be considered surprising though as last year’s race had the local ABC blackout lifted to commemorate with the 100th running.
The Monaco Grand Prix aired over on NBC and averaged a strong 1.44 million viewers, up slightly on last year’s number of 1.32 million viewers. It’s a good number and, according to NBC themselves, the most watched live F1 race on record.
Motorsport Broadcasting 
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