TV News: Canadian GP F1 race sets U.S. & Canada TV records

Sunday’s action-packed Formula 1 AWS Canadian GP, airing live on ABC, earned its largest live TV Audience on record as an average of 1.8 million viewers watched the race-only portion of the telecast from 2-4 p.m. ET.

These numbers do NOT include the online streaming numbers, which certainly put total viewership in the USA over 2 million. It also does not include the fact that the race was tape delayed in the large NY City and Philadelphia markets.

The Canadian GP TV Audience peaked at 1.97 million viewers between 3-3:15 p.m. as fans were excited to see Max Verstappen take Lando Norris, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton to school in the wet to dry race. The TV Audience was up two percent from last year’s race, which at the time had also set an event TV Audience record of 1.76 million.

TV Audience records have now been set in three of the last four F1 races this season and all three races that have aired on ABC have set records for the events. The Miami Grand Prix in early May set the all-time F1 record for a live telecast with 3.1 million average viewers.

The full ABC telecast, which started at 12:30 p.m. with the Grand Prix Sunday pre-race show, averaged 1.3 million viewers.

The next race on the F1 calendar is the Formula 1 Aramco Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, June 23. The race will air live on ESPN starting at 8:55 a.m. ET.

Canadian GP gets big number in Canada too

Sunday’s Canadian GP on TSN / RDS / CTV sets a NEW record for most watched F1 race ever!

1.4 million tuned in to watch Verstappen take the win. It’s a 5% increase over last year’s record.

“Overall, a total of 3.5 million Canadian viewers watched some or all of Max Verstappen’s F1 Canadian GP win on Bell Media platforms”

We will have more TV rating news later.

Also: The F1 race was televised head-to-head against the IndyCar race from Road America on NBC. The F1 viewership buried the IndyCar viewership.