Shute Shield television ratings crashed 67 per cent over the five years Club Rugby TV and Seven held the broadcast rights to rugby's heartland club competition, the Herald can reveal. On the same day Rugby Australia's $3.7 million deal to buy back Sydney's club rugby rights was hailed as a "game changer" by club figures, it emerged how poorly the competition was rating on Seven's digital channel 7TWO, its home since the ABC dropped it in 2014.
Last season attracted an average audience of 13,000 people on the free-to-air network's digital channel, down from 40,000 in the final year of the ABC's long-running broadcast. According to figures given to the Herald and sourced from OzTAM, the competition's television audience dropped year on year over its five years on Seven, apart from a small spike in 2016 - the year Northern Suburbs broke a 41-year hoodoo to claim the title. It dropped to an average of 28,000 viewers in 2015, rose to 29,000 the next year, fell to 19,000 in 2017, 16,000 in 2018 and dropped to 13,000 last season. For the past two seasons, Foxtel has broadcast a replay of the match of the round.