TV viewing figures

[Mattrhino]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

Attendances are a major barometer. Again you can easily say that participation is being driven by TV coverage and I have certainly seen evidence of this at my local Football club which had barely any women's teams until recently. TV has fuelled participation. If the argument is all about participation then there should be wall to wall swimming on the BBC? There isn't.

I agree. I'd assume the participation levels of competive motor racing is pretty low comparatively. But F1 routinely gets weekend attendances of 250k which drives the billion £  TV deals

[Tommygilf]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

Attendances are a major barometer. Again you can easily say that participation is being driven by TV coverage and I have certainly seen evidence of this at my local Football club which had barely any women's teams until recently. TV has fuelled participation. If the argument is all about participation then there should be wall to wall swimming on the BBC? There isn't.

Pardon the pun!

[Tommygilf]

5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

How often is a live Super League game on Sky Sports Mix?

I honestly don't know or think it matters it comes across as invisible to me. I wouldn't even know how to find it as it doesn't seem to be in the sports section or in the top entertainment channels>

[gingerjon]

31 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I honestly don't know or think it matters it comes across as invisible to me. I wouldn't even know how to find it as it doesn't seem to be in the sports section or in the top entertainment channels>

Aye, it was more something I was thinking about as I can’t really work out what the point of that channel is.

[Scubby]

5 hours ago, Moove said:

What are the participation levels of Women's football in this country compared to RL? Attendances are not the only barometer of interest.

It has gone through the roof honestly. I have quite a few links with secondary education in the UK, and the number of schools which now have multiple girls' football teams is amazing. It is also seen as a more suitable alternative to tradition girls school sports like hockey - particularly at primary school. 

The professional game is only a minor part of it. It fully deserves the coverage it gets on the BBC. Our jobs is get people talking about RL in every corner of the UK, not moaning because we think we deserve this or that. England will play no fixtures for 2 years. What the hell does that deserve?

[GUBRATS]

Attendances drive TV , quite simply once a stadium is full the only way then to watch is TV , have too much on TV and attendances drop 

[Toby Chopra]

42 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Attendances drive TV , quite simply once a stadium is full the only way then to watch is TV , have too much on TV and attendances drop 

In fact it's the other way round. The vast majority of people who watch the world's major sports leagues - Prem, NRL, IPL, NFL etc - never attend a game. When you have attendances in the thousands and TV audiences in the 10s of millions its self evident. 

It's all about the product, the brand and the presentation, which drives TV, and then that encourages a small but worth while percentage of the TV audience to try it out in person. 

That's why Prem football attendances are the highest ever even though each contract adds more live games. I suspect they'll hit the saturation point soon, but RL is way off that. 

In fact, the only way to drive RL attendances higher is to have MORE competitive, well presented and produced matches on TV. The more games like last night we can get on TV, the more people who don't normally go to games can be encouraged to go - but only as long as the experience matches what they see on TV. We don't offer that constantly across the board as much as some other sports do. 

[Dave T]

12 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

In fact, the only way to drive RL attendances higher is to have MORE competitive, well presented and produced matches on TV.

Whilst I found your post interesting, and agreed with parts of, I'm not sure I can agree with that statement at all.

[Toby Chopra]

7 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Whilst I found your post interesting, and agreed with parts of, I'm not sure I can agree with that statement at all.

What I mean is, some of the Sky games come across brilliantly on TV, high skill, hell for leather battles from the off, in front of passionate crowds in atmospheric stadiums. Usually it's the big derbies or the top of table clashes like last night's that do it. It presents a product that people will want to experience in person, and be part of the story. 

Other games shown come across as lacking and don't encourage anyone to attend, not from the immediate locality, let alone from further afield. 

First, we need to make sure more of the games we already show meet the best standard, and then we should be showing at least one more game a weekend, as ultimately inventory is what will drive broadcaster interest. 3.5 games out of 6 per weekend would be fine, if the quality was consistent. 

Consider it another way. Next year, cricket will return to terrestrial TV for the first time in years when The Hundred starts. Effectively that's a load more televised games for the many millions who don't have Sky. Do the cricket authorities fear this will have a negative affect on atrendances? On the contrary, they are doing it to drive spectator interest in their new tournament, which they are pouring millions into to design and market effectively. 

Get the product design, brand and story narrivtives right, and TV can drive any sport to new heights. Sometimes we do this well, other times we still expect the 80 minutes of play to carry it all. 

I actually think the BBC does a pretty good job at that sort of thing for us, it just doesn't have anywhere near enough RL inventory to get properly stuck in. No annual home internationals are a massive missing, and the CC is too erratic a competition to really work things, although they did fantistic stuff for Catalans in the final last year. 

What would be a game changer would be for that third weekly televised SL game that I want to add to be on terrestrial. A SL game a week on BBC or Itv on Saturday afternoon would be transformative and would drive attendances IF it was of consistent quality and the broadcaster did the sort of background 'narrative' work that BBC do for our internationals on a weekly basis. 

As we all know, there's a potential huge financial issue with Sky losing exclusivity, and I don't have an answer to that, we aren't rich enough as a sport to take the risk. But if we had 12 David Argyles who could make up the shortfall for a couple of years, I believe it could really have a positive financial benefit for TV and crowds in the long run. 

[GUBRATS]

" in front of passionate crowds in atmospheric stadiums " , ie , full stadiums ?

[Denton Rovers RLFC]

21 hours ago, Toby Chopra said:

http://www.rlwc2013.com/rugby-league-world-news/article/1487/review-reveals-extent-of-rugby

The peak viewing figure of the 2013 world cup was 2.8 million for the climax of the England - NZ semi final. 

This game was the fifth Saturday afternoon in a row that England were shown live on BBC 1. I'm not sure we could have asked for much more build up. 

Without getting into the merits of women's football, I think we've got to knock on the head the idea that the BBC go out of their way to underplay rugby league. Politically, it's the complete opposite. They'd love to be able to get good audiences of viewers in the North because it helps them defend accusations of London bias etc. They show all the football they can afford, have dozens of full time staff in the north, hell they run BBC Sport out of Salford. The sad truth is we just don't deliver the audiences to justify huge investment and its not their job to build us from scratch. 

We have to put together a product that slowly draws more people in from beyond the existing RL viewers, then broadcasters will give us a second look. 

I have to say, although there's obviously a big financial risk to it, we need to find a way to get Superleague games like tonight onto terrestrial TV, it came across brilliantly and thats the best we can offer. 

Just showing the games is not enough, how much actual media interest was there, was the BBC FB page and many other sporting media outlets online saturated with RLWC posts for comment/discussion, nope, it is for the women's soccer WC. Were there radio programmes daily at prime slots, nope, were the papers leading with the RL on the back or even front pages, nope

Promoting the women's RL WC and giving it prime slots and media attention would help the men's game enormously IMHO. I've no idea what platforms the ladies will get, certainly it'll be a lot less than the soccer.

If ur sport is given an even amount of promotion and prime slots then it will get bigger viewing figures

[Toby Chopra]

22 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

" in front of passionate crowds in atmospheric stadiums " , ie , full stadiums ?

Yes, but it doesn't matter if those grounds hold 8,000 or 18,000, it's the effect of the crowd on TV that matters.

Even if 20,000 are locked out, that makes no discernable impact on TV viewing figures, they're completely different categories. 

So where I disagree with you is your point that TV audiences are pushed up by people not being able to get a ticket. Such marginal differences are irrelevant to broadcasters. 

I'd agree with you if you could show that showing games on TV was causing grounds to be empty and soulless, but that's *mostly* always caused by lack of interest in the product itself, not the fact that it's on TV. Yes, there comes a point where RL would hit diminishing returns on that, but we're not there yet.

It's not a zero sum game. Done right, you can get broadcasters paying more money for more games AND raise attendances. There are plenty of sports teams around the world whose games are shown live on TV every week and still sell out. It can be done, and I want RL to be ambitious and aim for that scenario, not end up in managed decline which will only end up in one place. 

[GUBRATS]

25 minutes ago, Toby Chopra said:

Yes, but it doesn't matter if those grounds hold 8,000 or 18,000, it's the effect of the crowd on TV that matters.

Even if 20,000 are locked out, that makes no discernable impact on TV viewing figures, they're completely different categories. 

So where I disagree with you is your point that TV audiences are pushed up by people not being able to get a ticket. Such marginal differences are irrelevant to broadcasters. 

I'd agree with you if you could show that showing games on TV was causing grounds to be empty and soulless, but that's *mostly* always caused by lack of interest in the product itself, not the fact that it's on TV. Yes, there comes a point where RL would hit diminishing returns on that, but we're not there yet.

It's not a zero sum game. Done right, you can get broadcasters paying more money for more games AND raise attendances. There are plenty of sports teams around the world whose games are shown live on TV every week and still sell out. It can be done, and I want RL to be ambitious and aim for that scenario, not end up in managed decline which will only end up in one place. 

But we still don't sell out those 8 or 18 thousand , none of us do , in your previous post you stated " hell for leather battles from the off " , we don't see that in football , never have , but in the premier League we do see essentially full stadia , much if it is perception 

[Mr Wind Up]

I don't fully believing viewing figures for the women's world cup in the same way that I don't believe any TV figures for anything. At the end of the day, however much people want to say it's accurate, TV ratings are determined using sampling of a few thousand people to extrapolate data for 60+ million. That may be the best we can do for now, and it may be good enough for advertisers, but at the end of the day it doesn't tell us how many people watched something. It's guesswork. 

In defense of the women's world cup, TV ratings alone aren't a measure of reach and interest. If you look at the comments section on the BBC or Guardian for women's world cup, there's a pretty healthy amount of interaction. As of this moment, the Guardian has 822 comments for England's last game, while the BBC has 1,646 comments. That's on par with marquee Premier League matches. So clearly it's having some impact, even if many comments are moaners like me who didn't watch a second of the game.

I'm thankful that streaming and video on demand is becoming mainstream. That data is irrefutable. Not only do you know how many watched, you know for how long, and you know their gender and age (so you can better target advertising). Once streaming and VOD is fully entrenched and terrestrial and cable goes by the wayside (we'll be waiting many decades I fear), I think we'll begin to see media values of sporting products better reflect reality/demand. 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

21 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

A bit like this you mean?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_and_statistics_of_the_Rugby_World_Cup

No I was thinking it’s looking more like this, rather than the more recent successful tournaments. We should be keeping sides like Jamaica, who will likely have amateur players, away from Tier One Nations.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Rugby_League_World_Cup

[deluded pom?]

20 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

No I was thinking it’s looking more like this, rather than the more recent successful tournaments. We should be keeping sides like Jamaica, who will likely have amateur players, away from Tier One Nations.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Rugby_League_World_Cup

Jamaica will be full of pro and semi pros. The RUWC weren’t afraid of a few hidings and neither should we. The recent RUWCS are where they are because they have already gone through this process.

[Cowardly Fan]

1 hour ago, Mr Wind Up said:

I don't fully believing viewing figures for the women's world cup in the same way that I don't believe any TV figures for anything. At the end of the day, however much people want to say it's accurate, TV ratings are determined using sampling of a few thousand people to extrapolate data for 60+ million. That may be the best we can do for now, and it may be good enough for advertisers, but at the end of the day it doesn't tell us how many people watched something. It's guesswork. 

It's not guesswork at all. TV viewing figures will be accurate with 1% maximum. It's a common misconception that the population size (60m) should have a big impact on the required sample size. BARB is about 10k households from memory, which is a very large sample size, whether the population is 1m or 60m is largely irrelevant for accuracy of the statistics.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

3 hours ago, deluded pom? said:

Jamaica will be full of pro and semi pros. The RUWC weren’t afraid of a few hidings and neither should we. The recent RUWCS are where they are because they have already gone through this process.

We are not the RUWC. They will sell out Stadiums for a World Cup regardless of who is playing.

We should do what works for us, which is having one or two Supergroups, as Rugby League fans want to see competitive games and we don’t attract non RL fans as other sports do.

The last two World Cups we have hosted we’re 2000 (263,921) and 2013 (458,483)

Take Hull for example, in 2000 they hosted Australia v Russia attendance 3000

In 2013 Hull hosted PNG v France attendance 7500

Its crazy to go back to the 2000 World Cup format.

 

[Gerrumonside ref]

The Super League Grand Final is now the pinnacle of the sport in the UK and not the Challenge Cup Final.

If we want to attract new fans to the sport then I believe the Super League Grand Final has to be made live and available for a major FTA broadcaster.

In terms of promoting it then I would also make the playoffs live and available to a major FTA broadcaster.

 

[GUBRATS]

It's credible international opponents , simple as 

[southwalesrabbitoh]

Get rid of the GF. Have the CC Final on the first Saturday in October at Wembley. You qualify for the C Cup, by being in the top 8 of the league. Use the McIntyre system they used to have in the NRL, first week 1 v 8, 2 v 7 etc. Have licensing, okay 12 not 10 teams, home and away plus one nines event, points available for the semi-finalists in the nines. 3 league points for the winners, 2 points for the other semi-finalists. Start season in March. Have a mid season break for an England get together.    

[deluded pom?]

58 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

We are not the RUWC. They will sell out Stadiums for a World Cup regardless of who is playing.

Of course they do. Look at these massive attendances. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Rugby_World_Cup

Australia v England in front of less than 18,000 in Australia.

[Dave T]

56 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

We are not the RUWC. They will sell out Stadiums for a World Cup regardless of who is playing.

We should do what works for us, which is having one or two Supergroups, as Rugby League fans want to see competitive games and we don’t attract non RL fans as other sports do.

The last two World Cups we have hosted we’re 2000 (263,921) and 2013 (458,483)

Take Hull for example, in 2000 they hosted Australia v Russia attendance 3000

In 2013 Hull hosted PNG v France attendance 7500

Its crazy to go back to the 2000 World Cup format.

 

In 2000 we got 16k for Eng v NZ semi at Bolton. We got 67k at Wembley 13yrs later.

We have demonstrated we can put on bigger events, and we have seen that there are large markets for international sporting events in the UK.

That said, I agree with your premise that we need to be careful, but we also shouldn't be held back by RL thinking.

Walkovers are not a massive issue to people if you are putting on a genuine quality entertainment event.

England should take care of itself. The Kangaroos should be our own All Blacks and tickets should be at a premium if done right. The nations with their war dances are loved and these should be played on. Jamaica have a romantic story, and so on - we should really be focusing on the stuff that isnt the result - that is what people get caught up in. The stories, the people, the histories, the culture. 

That is where RL has failed time and again.

[deluded pom?]

4 minutes ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

Get rid of the GF. Have the CC Final on the first Saturday in October at Wembley. You qualify for the C Cup, by being in the top 8 of the league. Use the McIntyre system they used to have in the NRL, first week 1 v 8, 2 v 7 etc. Have licensing, okay 12 not 10 teams, home and away plus one nines event, points available for the semi-finalists in the nines. 3 league points for the winners, 2 points for the other semi-finalists. Start season in March. Have a mid season break for an England get together.    

Hello Walter Mitty.

[Scubby]

4 minutes ago, southwalesrabbitoh said:

Get rid of the GF. Have the CC Final on the first Saturday in October at Wembley. You qualify for the C Cup, by being in the top 8 of the league. Use the McIntyre system they used to have in the NRL, first week 1 v 8, 2 v 7 etc. Have licensing, okay 12 not 10 teams, home and away plus one nines event, points available for the semi-finalists in the nines. 3 league points for the winners, 2 points for the other semi-finalists. Start season in March. Have a mid season break for an England get together.    

Scrap GF

Have top 8 qualify for play-offs, play off, then have a final (that's not the GF)  

This is awesome!