"Queensland Reds Now Most Watched Union Team on TV"

[Ruggo]

also, the Reds play a different game plan, one that is more suited to the fans. The Tahs gameplan requires a certain level of understanding, patience and intelligence that Queenslanders simply dont posses.

You forgot comradarie. Oh! of course that's because they don't have any. Watch the interaction between the players, especially straight after a game. It would be easy to believe they don't really even like each other. Certainly missing Phil Waugh - without him they loose a lot of spunk.
Ruggosmum

 

[jay-c]

cant argue with this on any level> reds deserve everything they are getting at the moment
well done

 

[Scotty]

Pretty harsh comment there gnostic - one that is very close to trolling imho.

WJ makes a good point - there will generally be a smaller audience for a 5:30 match than a 7:30 match. Which part do you disagree with?

Personally, I disagreed with the part that they were at work!

 

[Ruggo]

The sad thing amongst this is that it is constrained by only a pay TV audience. Imagine the possibilities if they had a free to air audience. They rugby is the only reason I keep my subscription as pay TV is rubbish.

 

[RedsHappy]

The sad thing amongst this is that it is constrained by only a pay TV audience. Imagine the possibilities if they had a free to air audience. They rugby is the only reason I keep my subscription as pay TV is rubbish.

Ruggo, understood. But the core business fact here is this: rugby viewership effectively declined to a level where the free TV boys simply couldn't make it pay, namely the cost of producing it live would not be sufficiently exceeded by the likely income from advertisers given the declining rugby-on-TV audience sizes - advertisers pay for different quantities and classes of eyeballs, there has to be enough of them to merit a commitment to spend marketing $s. Pay TV is just that, materially less advertising is needed as we individual customers are willing to pay to watch what is on that pay TV. Hence, Pay TV can often make 'niche' audiences work financially (partly as they bulk them up into larger channel packages), in a manner that free TV often cannot.

One of my many reasons for posting this intriguing and highly (commercially) significant article was the fantastic news that an Aus rugby audience (in this case for the Reds) was starting to compete in viewership numbers with top League and AFL games. Essentially, that is the type of viewership level which, if sustained and broadened, could potentially reignite free TV bidding interest in rugby in the medium-term.

 

[Victorian Reds Fan]

The sad thing amongst this is that it is constrained by only a pay TV audience. Imagine the possibilities if they had a free to air audience. They rugby is the only reason I keep my subscription as pay TV is rubbish.

I think it would suck on free to air. All the ad breaks completely destroy the continuity of the match. Also there would be a chance that Gordon Bray may try to get in on the action, and no one wants that.

 

[Jets]

The tahs game was on at 530, was it on the same night as the reds game they compared it to, cos then it's a poor example as viewer numbers would have picked up with the after workers etc.

Still theredsdeserve the numbers, but it's not the best comparison they could have picked for the story

I think I must be coming down with something because what WJ is saying makes complete sense to me. Sure most people aren't coming home from work on Saturday night but the 5:30 time slot still isn't great. I struggle to watch games then on a Saturday as I have kids to deal with and a lot of people that play rugby on the weekend or watch club rugby might not be home to watch the game. If the Reds are playing at 5:30 and the Tah's at 7:30 I am more of a chance of watching the Tah's as the time suits me better. It would have been better to compare the viewership of the teams in the same time slot.

 

[RedsHappy]

I think I must be coming down with something because what WJ is saying makes complete sense to me. Sure most people aren't coming home from work on Saturday night but the 5:30 time slot still isn't great. I struggle to watch games then on a Saturday as I have kids to deal with and a lot of people that play rugby on the weekend or watch club rugby might not be home to watch the game. If the Reds are playing at 5:30 and the Tah's at 7:30 I am more of a chance of watching the Tah's as the time suits me better. It would have been better to compare the viewership of the teams in the same time slot.

Jets: IMO, this point would take some specialist TV sports scheduling analyst to really figure out. However, it would seem to me that the possible smaller natural NSW rugby-watching group at 5:30pm Saturday (smaller vs a 7:30pm NSW group) would be fully cross-compensated for by the fact there are, on paper, far more NSW watchers you would imagine for a Tahs match than for a Reds match. And NSW/Sydney has a far larger base population than Bris/QLD (thus the ARU's love of annual Sydney ANZ Bleds, right?, vs once every 4 yrs in Bris), so that makes the same point another way, and adds to it. So, on the most conservative basis, if this intrinsic-popularity-of-2011S15-team point as per this article was not valid, you would assess that the NSW S15 viewers at 5:30pm would, at the very least, be the numerical equal of QLD S15 viewers at the (maybe) more popular 7:30pm slot. But, according to this article, they weren't equal at all, they were materially lower. Thus, as a non expert in all this, I think the article's conclusion re the Reds taking major 'rugby TV viewer share' from the Tahs/NSW is probably still valid.

But I was more attracted to this (more strategically significant) part of the article highlighting an S15 rugby match catching up v close to prime League and AFL matches:

Sunday's hard-fought victory over the Crusaders attracted an average viewing audience of 202,000, making it the second highest rating Super Rugby clash of the season behind the first game of the new Rebels franchise against the Waratahs, which attracted 231,000. The match was the third highest rating television program on Fox on Sunday behind the Storm-Sharks NRL match (233,000) and the Western Bulldogs-Hawthorn AFL game (214,000) but comfortably ahead of the Brisbane Lions-Adelaide game, which attracted 134,000.

 

[waratahjesus]

I'm not sure why gnostic was so angry about, and Scotty, sorry it was a Saturday night nota Friday but there is still work issues and first grade rugby doesn't finish till after five so the core audience is still affected by the 530 time slot. My question was, did people in new tune in soley for the reds game or did the tahs audience climb then everyone stuck around.

I say this cos over the two hours of a rugby broadcast the audience number can change, they take a sample of the audience size every 10 minutes or so and average it, I don't get a pay tv ratings breakdown anymore but will try to find one. I asked this question cos it would say a lot more to know if a large sum of tahs fans tuned in just for the reds than what is written in the article.

That said, and as I have already sad, the reds have been mostly great to watch and deserve the success they are having

 

[TOCC]

I've been tracking the figures most weeks, and it's been a pretty common trend for the Reds to rate higher then NSW in 2011.. Definitely not isolated to just last weekend

 

[waratahjesus]

I've been tracking the figures most weeks, and it's been a pretty common trend for the Reds to rate higher then NSW in 2011.. Definitely not isolated to just last weekend

hope not a sunday arvo v a 1am kickoff should be a homerun no matter whos playing.

 

[TOCC]

WJ, why don't you do a bit of research and come up with some actual figures rather then criticizing everyone else's opinion... It's becoming dreary

 

[waratahjesus]

WJ, why don't you do a bit of research and come up with some actual figures rather then criticizing everyone else's opinion... It's becoming dreary

ditto

 

[spectator]

Settle down girls......

 

[Scotty]

I'm not sure why gnostic was so angry about, and Scotty, sorry it was a Saturday night nota Friday but there is still work issues and first grade rugby doesn't finish till after five so the core audience is still affected by the 530 time slot. My question was, did people in new tune in soley for the reds game or did the tahs audience climb then everyone stuck around.

I say this cos over the two hours of a rugby broadcast the audience number can change, they take a sample of the audience size every 10 minutes or so and average it, I don't get a pay tv ratings breakdown anymore but will try to find one. I asked this question cos it would say a lot more to know if a large sum of tahs fans tuned in just for the reds than what is written in the article.

That said, and as I have already sad, the reds have been mostly great to watch and deserve the success they are having

Good point, it might have climbed during the Tahs game and led to increases in the Reds game. However it is showing that the Reds are popular enough for non Reds supporters to watch them. If it were the Brumbies playing in that 7:30 slot I wonder if we would have had the same stats?

Just a question though. Are the tv ratings in someway able to take in the people that use IQ to watch the game later?

 

[RedsHappy]

Good point, it might have climbed during the Tahs game and led to increases in the Reds game. However it is showing that the Reds are popular enough for non Reds supporters to watch them. If it were the Brumbies playing in that 7:30 slot I wonder if we would have had the same stats? Just a question though. Are the tv ratings in someway able to take in the people that use IQ to watch the game later?

Overall, it's hardly surprising that there will be some correlation between crowd figures and TV figures for the same game, and probably for the same team if they win consistently and well, and that these outcomes will bleed through between States over time.

For me, as I have noted, by far the most important variable for rugby on TV is total numbers (anywhere) that watch a game on TV or, over a period as averaged, a team, as this is where sponsorship attractiveness per audience size and ultimately payments for rugby TV rights (free or pay) to the ARU comes in big time. If we can start to get viewership numbers - even for one team - that compete consistently with the other major codes, that will begin to regrow gross code $ income in Aus and create more real competition for rugby TV rights.

 

[waratahjesus]

Good point, it might have climbed during the Tahs game and led to increases in the Reds game. However it is showing that the Reds are popular enough for non Reds supporters to watch them. If it were the Brumbies playing in that 7:30 slot I wonder if we would have had the same stats?

Just a question though. Are the tv ratings in someway able to take in the people that use IQ to watch the game later?

Agree totally,
I've sent an email off to get the full ratings breakdown, if they come good on it I can post a graph to show how the audience change throughout matches.
I rang fox sports today and talked to them about it, there sceduling team said that the new south wales watches on a Saturday night tend to drift a lot with the league game always on opposite the 730 match. Apparently it's not about which team is winning, it actually has to do with the contest and as soon as a rugby games no longer in the balance it will leak viewers.
Thought that was interesting.

 

[Jnor]

Thanks WJ, seeing that graph would be interesting if you can get a hold of it. I guess it's pretty logical what the fox people told you really. As much as some of us might forget it (me included) there are a lot of cross-code fans who would be switching to the mungo (and vice versa) if one game was boring and the other interesting etc.

 

[Scarfman]

The only problem with the Reds is that the fans are a bit quiet.

[video=youtube;--htl_ymn9M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--htl_ymn9M[/video]

 

[TOCC]

Im sure the ARU will release some statistics at the end of the final series, but interesting to note that the SF between Blues and Reds did break some barriers in terms of ratings, i dont know past finals ratings so i cant compare, but pretty impressive figures nonetheless.

I then had a look back a bit further, and the last game between the Reds v Crusaders match was actually the highest rating match for 2011(regular season), 15% higher then the first round match between the Rebels and Waratahs and over double the season average.