IndyCar: 100 Days to Indy Next to last Episode Rating

—by Mark Cipolloni—

Episode 5 of IndyCar’s 100 Days to Indy on CW last Thursday, June 1st drew 226,000 viewers, and only 30,000 of the viewers (13.27%) were in the all important 18-49 year old age group.

This up from 220,000 viewers for Episode 4 the week prior, but the number of viewers in the all-important 18-49 age group dropped from 50,000 to 30,000, a devastating loss of 40%.

As reference, each episode of F1’s Drive to Survive on Netflix gets between 5 and 6 million viewers.

All 5 Episodes of 100 Days to Indy had viewership in the same general range and obviously this docuseries, unlike Drive to Survive, won’t move the needle for IndyCar.

IndyCar was hoping to copy the success F1 achieved, and continues to achieve, with Drive To Survive, but unfortunately, it did not work.

One cannot compare the global reach of Netflix and that of CW.  In addition, F1 has many more intriguing stories to tell and exotic places they visit.

The politics and strategy behind F1 is intriguing, and it’s a hit with women.

Why? A woman journalist put it best:

Amid the super-cute bromances, violent crashes, and incredible skill, the thing that really makes women love Drive to Survive, and now F1, is the pettiness. There are many shows on TV based on women’s pettiness. For women, Drive to Survive is a refreshing, life-altering joy of seeing a TV show dedicated to the bitchiness of grown men, who are leaders in the sport.

Men love to paint women as competitive, insecure mammals, who view every other female person as a potential adversary.  The Netflix producers turn the table and enable women to see men captured on camera as the catty ones for once. And oh my, does it make great entertainment.