Yahoo Autos TV ratings: Indy 500, Monaco
With rain diluting the competition from NASCAR last Sunday, the Indianapolis 500 easily topped the motorsports TV world on Memorial Day weekend. The signature race of the NTT IndyCar Series averaged a 2.65 Nielsen rating and 4.716 million viewers on NBC per numbers from ShowBuzzDaily.com, following on yesterday’s news of a Total Audience Delivery (counting streaming on Peacock and NBC Sports’ digital platforms) of 4.92m. Last year’s race had a 2.69 rating and 4.618m, with a TAD of 4.84m.
The Indy 500 pre-race show on NBC averaged 1.28/2.144, up from 1.22/1.882m last year.
Formula 1 returned to ABC for the Monaco Grand Prix and averaged an 0.89 rating and 1.518m viewers for the live telecast, including the pre-race show. An average of 1.79m watched the race itself, making it the most-viewed live Monaco GP telecast on-record and third-largest F1 live audience ever in the U.S. ABC also aired a replay later in the delay that averaged 0.30/564,000. Last year Monaco aired live on ESPN and subsequently replayed on ABC, with the live telecast averaging 0.76/1.396m.
F1 qualifying from Monaco on ESPN Saturday morning averaged 0.46/818K.
Coverage of the rain delay of the NASCAR Cup Series race from Charlotte before the race was postponed averaged 0.70/1.178m on FOX. Numbers for Monday’s delayed Cup and Xfinity Series races will be available next week. Last year, the Coca-Cola 600 averaged 2.20/3.869m on FOX.
The Craftsman Truck Series race from Charlotte ran as scheduled on Friday night and averaged 0.33/548,000 on FS1. That was down from 0.35/590K last year. ACRA Menards Racing Series faction from Charlotte preceding the Trucks on FS1 averaged 0.18/288,000, compared to last year’s 0.16/263K.
In the 18-49 age demo (network only, no streaming), the Indy 500 led with an average of 734,000, followed by Monaco (435K live, plus 134K for the replay) and 293K for the Charlotte rainout coverage.
Updated to correct Indy 500 pre-race numbers
