RLWC - TV viewing figures

[Toby Chopra]

7 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Fact is they still got well over 30m viewers compared to 2013 having 13m, I think, and whatever Premier Sports added.

Sure, and there's value in that, to show we can deliver audiences across multiple games and events on FTA. If only we had a content package to follow up with. 

But as we debated on another thread, there doesn't seem to be much evidence of substantial new audiences being attracted, the numbers suggest it's mostly existing RL watchers filling their boots for free. (I know I did).

Nothing wrong with that, I'd still say the World Cup has given the UK game a shot in the arm, but mostly through engaging current and lapsed fans.

Hopefully that will show up in season ticket sales in next few months. 

[Mojo]

27 minutes ago, Damien said:

Another moving of the goalposts that has sweet fa to do with if England fans supported Samoa v Australia. 

You ignoring the other posts that agree with me too? it's ok bro you win

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

Maybe learn the lessons of history and don't jumble together out of nowhere a tour to take place in under twelve months time.

Tbh, we've never been a big draw in NZ really. Just a few random test matches was never going to do that. A credible Nations tournament is imho the only way of making any kind of success of travelling without playing in Oz. 

Hopefully we can start to monetise our TV deals, because in reality, a TV deal should pretty much fund a tour on its own. 

NZ crowds are odd. They are very up and down but they are absolutely up when it comes to a credible tournament. 

Crowd wise 2019 wasn't actually horrendous when you look at NZ as a whole, so I do think there is something for us to work with, but it absolutely has to be right. 

[Futtocks]

37 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

It was up against the annual Children in Need charity extravaganza on BBC1. That always draws a lot of viewers away from other programming.

Okay, this explanation for the Wheelchair final's low rating  didn't gain any traction on this thread.

How about this, then?

[HawkMan]

23 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Fact is they still got well over 30m viewers compared to 2013 having 13m, I think, and whatever Premier Sports added.

30m is a bit misleading , it's an aggregate figure, not 30m different pairs of eyeballs. 31 games,  30m views,  so about 1m per match, in other words, a solid figure, but not a " breakthrough " number. It shows RL provides a steady dependable audience for Sky and the Beeb , but neither will be having a rethink on their RL broadcasting strategy in all likelihood.

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, HawkMan said:

30m is a bit misleading , it's an aggregate figure, not 30m different pairs of eyeballs. 31 games,  30m views,  so about 1m per match, in other words, a solid figure, but not a " breakthrough " number. It shows RL provides a steady dependable audience for Sky and the Beeb , but neither will be having a rethink on their RL broadcasting strategy in all likelihood.

It should be remembered that the 30m is across the 61 games that RLWC staged. 

When we talk about the 14m from 2013, we should remember that tournament had 28 games. So broadly 500k per game average, which appears to be the same as this year, despite the bulk of the tournament being on Premier. 

[Futtocks]

Edit: Unnecessary post, because someone else made the point.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Futtocks

[Dave T]

Just now, Futtocks said:

So the 30m was calculated differently from the 13m?

No. 

[Futtocks]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

No. 

Is there a way of getting an average per tournament then? Men's, Women's and Wheelchair, separated out?

I'd certainly like to see how the Wheelchair figures at the start of the World Cup compared to those for the latter stages.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Futtocks

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Is there a way of getting an average per tournament then? Men's, Women's and Wheelchair, separated out?

I'd certainly like to see how the Wheelchair figures at the start of the World Cup compared to those for the latter stages.

It's all a bit sporadic tbh, I think only a subscriber would have the info, so not sure if a journo would try and provide the details. 

[Dave T]

I would add on the numbers, I expect the 14m and 30m numbers to be based on averages. A lot of the great numbers that have been quoted have been peaks - I expect the peak for the Wheelchair final could easily have been approaching the 2m, which is the number that was mentioned on the BBC. 

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Tbh, we've never been a big draw in NZ really. Just a few random test matches was never going to do that. A credible Nations tournament is imho the only way of making any kind of success of travelling without playing in Oz. 

Hopefully we can start to monetise our TV deals, because in reality, a TV deal should pretty much fund a tour on its own. 

NZ crowds are odd. They are very up and down but they are absolutely up when it comes to a credible tournament. 

Crowd wise 2019 wasn't actually horrendous when you look at NZ as a whole, so I do think there is something for us to work with, but it absolutely has to be right. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Great_Britain_Lions_tour

We did get 25500 in Auckland and as I posted earlier, the last 3 Tonga games there did the same figures. 

The issue on that tour was non "heartland" in Hamilton and Christchurch.

Clearly they need to play in Auckland. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Dave T said:

It's all a bit sporadic tbh, I think only a subscriber would have the info, so not sure if a journo would try and provide the details. 

Barb figures might have it. But I'm not volunteering for that job. 

[Dave T]

Just now, Leonard said:

Barb figures might have it. But I'm not volunteering for that job. 

Barb reports have changed, meaning you can't get as much as you previously could, certainly not numbers for red button on a Thursday afternoon. 

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, Leonard said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Great_Britain_Lions_tour

We did get 25500 in Auckland and as I posted earlier, the last 3 Tonga games there did the same figures. 

The issue on that tour was non "heartland" in Hamilton and Christchurch.

Clearly they need to play in Auckland. 

It's important to note that that game was a double header with Tonga v Aus too. 

The other test match for NZ v GB got 8.8k. The double header for that one was Fiji v PNG. 

I think back in 2010 we got 20k in Wellington and then 15k in 2014 in Dunedin

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, Leonard said:

 

The issue on that tour was non "heartland" in Hamilton and Christchurch.

Clearly they need to play in Auckland. 

Hamilton delivered a couple of big crowds in the 2017 WC, it was obviously felt a good choice for the GB game, yet bombed. 

Similarly the other NZ v GB game got 8.8k.

The only decent crowd had all of the top four playibg a double header. 

I think it shows the challenge we have in NZ. 

I do agree that we should be doing it, but we just need to make smart scheduling choices and stage the events well. 

[Futtocks]

22 minutes ago, Dave T said:

It's all a bit sporadic tbh, I think only a subscriber would have the info, so not sure if a journo would try and provide the details. 

Yes, I suppose that level of detail might be paywalled. But the massive media response to the wheelchair game might show a steep line on a graph. After all, there were plenty of people on this Rugby League-specific forum* who'd never watched it before, let alone the "civilians" who stumbled upon it at random.

*and the TRL membership is mostly made up of people who like RL. I think.

[Archie Gordon]

The TV figures for the finals are underwhelming but mainly because the expectations around the women's and wheelchair events had grown in the past weeks.

The big question is what next? We know that we have an ENG-FRA (friendly?!) DH but do we know if it will be on TV? It's all a bit predictable so far - gain some traction then quickly revert to the tried-and-failed. How big a say do IMG have in this? Surely they can't be happy with what's being served up next year?

 

[Damien]

Some impressive figures. Its particularly encouraging to see so many viewers from outsidetheheartlands:

The Wheelchair final between England and France, was watched by a combined peak audience of 1.3 million people, with a world record crowd of more than 4,500 people also filling Manchester Central to watch the two best teams in the world go head-to-head. 

Elsewhere, the biggest television audience across all 61 games was for England v Samoa in the men’s semi-finals with a combined peak audience of 2.8 million and a 23% audience share.

England women’s semi-final defeat to New Zealand saw a combined peak of 1.4 million watching on the BBC. A further two matches in the women’s tournament were watched by more than a million people. 

In terms of demographics, 40% of the TV audience share was female, while 37% of the overall viewers were under the age 55.

Encouragingly 46% of the viewership was based south of the Midlands, outside of the traditional rugby league heartlands with a further 43% based in the north and the remaining share from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  

The women’s final between Australia and New Zealand was watched by nearly a million viewers in the UK, while nearly two million tuned in to watch Australia overcome Samoa to win their 12th title.

https://www.intrl.sport/news/rlwc2021-smashes-attendance-and-broadcast-records/

[Damien]

This is also impressive too:

Fans of rugby league also flocked online to stay in touch with the tournament with over a million visits to RLWC2021’s website during the tournament alone.  

The Siva Tau v Sipi Tau performed in unison by the Tongan and Samoa players before their quarter final was unsurprisingly the top performing piece of content on social media, with the spine tingling performance attracting nearly 10 million views on TikTok alone.

There were 194 million impressions across all platforms and 58 million video views. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Damien

[Futtocks]

16 minutes ago, Damien said:

The Wheelchair final between England and France, was watched by a combined peak audience of 1.3 million people

It was up against the charity behemoth Children in Need on BBC1, let us not forget.

So it certainly would have got even more viewers otherwise.