Rugby TV ratings 2015

[TOCC]

From Twitter:

@brettgosper: 25 million Japan TV viewers for Samoa v Japan. A world record for domestic rugby anywhere, smashing TF1 France record of 2007.#RWC2015

Should break that again when they play the USA on Sunday..

 

[aeneas]

From Twitter:

@brettgosper: 25 million Japan TV viewers for Samoa v Japan. A world record for domestic rugby anywhere, smashing TF1 France record of 2007.#RWC2015

Should break that again when they play the USA on Sunday..

Unlikely to break it. The game was on at an excellent time for evening watching apparently whereas the next game is on at around 4am.

Additionally 25 million is about 20% of the entire population of Japan (127m in 2013) so I suspect thats BS.

 

[rugbyskier]

The ratings for Fox Sports for the England v Australia game were 225,000 watching live and 78,000 for the replay later on the day. So the combined viewing numbers were 490,000 (without the regional FTA numbers).

 

[Omar Comin']

Does that include people that record it and watch it later in their own time (and not the scheduled replay)?

 

[Strewthcobber]

The ratings for Fox Sports for the England v Australia game were 225,000 watching live and 78,000 for the replay later on the day. So the combined viewing numbers were 490,000 (without the regional FTA numbers).

Think Fox would be really quite pleased with the numbers they've been doing this world cup.

Nine/Gem on the other hand, have been pretty terrible. Whether they haven't been marketing/advertising because they didn't want to invest any effort because they knew the numbers would be low, or the numbers are low becuase of no marketing/advertising is a pretty moot point for us looking for FTA presence long term.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Does that include people that record it and watch it later in their own time (and not the scheduled replay)?

In theory, all of these ratings include all timeshifting watched before 2am on the same day

 

[Omar Comin']

Think Fox would be really quite pleased with the numbers they've been doing this world cup.

Nine/Gem on the other hand, have been pretty terrible. Whether they haven't been marketing/advertising because they didn't want to invest any effort because they knew the numbers would be low, or the numbers are low becuase of no marketing/advertising is a pretty moot point for us looking for FTA presence long term.

If it was on Channel 9 rather than GEM the ratings would be a lot higher.

But stuff the FTA networks. They're all screwed in the next 10 years anyway.

 

[Antony]

The ratings for Fox Sports for the England v Australia game were 225,000 watching live and 78,000 for the replay later on the day. So the combined viewing numbers were 490,000 (without the regional FTA numbers).

Over 400,000 (not including regional FTA) watching live at 6am (body-clock 5am) is pretty decent. Going off the 70% attrition rate guesstimated above, that's equivalent to a favourable time audience of ~1.3 million, which is solid.

 

[Strewthcobber]

If it was on Channel 9 rather than GEM the ratings would be a lot higher.

But stuff the FTA networks. They're all screwed in the next 10 years anyway.

Certainly agree in the long term. Issue is 250,000 viewers is a long way short of what the ARU would be hoping for

Would be really interesting to see the Foxtel Go numbers. It's how I'm watching and there must be thousands like me.

The streaming "pay per view" per game or tournament is undoubtedly coming and its going to disrupt a lot of business models.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Omar Comin']

In a few years everyone will have an apple tv or similar device and we'll be watching rugby games (and everything else) through some app or another.

I think these recently announced big AFL and NRL deals with FTA networks may be the last of their kind. You don't see much sport on FTA in places like America and the UK and I can't imagine it'll stay that way here. The FTA networks don't make any money from these deals, they're just desperately trying to maintain relevance. They won't be able to afford it soon.

 

[boyo]

In a few years everyone will have an apple tv or similar device and we'll be watching rugby games (and everything else) through some app or another.

I think these recently announced big AFL and NRL deals with FTA networks may be the last of their kind. You don't see much sport on FTA in places like America and the UK and I can't imagine it'll stay that way here. The FTA networks don't make any money from these deals, they're just desperately trying to maintain relevance. They won't be able to afford it soon.

On Malcolm Turnbull's mess (the Mtm/fraudband)?

You're having a laugh.

 

[RunnerGunner]

Think Fox would be really quite pleased with the numbers they've been doing this world cup.

Nine/Gem on the other hand, have been pretty terrible. Whether they haven't been marketing/advertising because they didn't want to invest any effort because they knew the numbers would be low, or the numbers are low becuase of no marketing/advertising is a pretty moot point for us looking for FTA presence long term.

They're only terrible if they paid a good bit for the rights which I doubt they did given the timezones and them sharing with a subscription channel.

 

[RunnerGunner]

In a few years everyone will have an apple tv or similar device and we'll be watching rugby games (and everything else) through some app or another.

I think these recently announced big AFL and NRL deals with FTA networks may be the last of their kind. You don't see much sport on FTA in places like America and the UK and I can't imagine it'll stay that way here. The FTA networks don't make any money from these deals, they're just desperately trying to maintain relevance. They won't be able to afford it soon.

Not at all.

The NFL is on FTA in local markets i.e. if you're in New York all New York based team games are live on FTA as long as the game is sold out (which it always is in NY)

Apart from that Fox (FTA) and CBS (FTA) have 3 live national games between them on Sunday afternoons. NBC (FTA) has the live Sunday night game. CBS also have some Thursday night games. The only "premium" broadcast is Monday Night Football on ESPN and until last year every playoff game was on FTA, ESPN get one game out of 11 now. ESPN isn't even that premium like a Fox Sports Australia, it's on basic cable and available to most. "Premium" NFL broadcasting is Direct TV season ticket which is just access to all games but you would be a very hardcore supporter (or someone transplanted from your local team who want to watch every game) to need that. The NFL is mostly about selling advertising, not subscriptions.


The NBA has their Finals on ABC and live weekly games on Sundays.

The MLB also has live national games weekly on Fox with the playoffs and World Series also there. Apart from that again it's on basic cable. The NHL has FTA agreements with NBC. With golf all the Majors are on FTA with many other events FTA. College football wise if you flick on FTA channels on a Saturday you'll see games across all the FTA networks.

ESPN do have more and more events like the US Open (Tennis), College Football playoffs and a few more that they've taken off FTA but FTA still has most of the big stuff and a huge amount of live FTA content.

The UK is definitely dwindling but the UK has always been a bit different. As the BBC had such a big hold there sport didn't commercialise as it has in Australia and the US on FTA, that allowed Sky to step in. With the BBC under funding threats FTA sport has gone down but there is still a lot of it.

In places like Australia and the US I can only see the form changing. Apple TV will just stream these live events and these channels will pick up the ad $s.

 

[Omar Comin']

In places like Australia and the US I can only see the form changing. Apple TV will just stream these live events and these channels will pick up the ad $s.

I was clearly misinformed about the US then. I was going by what I'd heard. In the UK, if you're a sports fan and you want to see more than just the national teams play (and a trickling of other stuff like FA Cup) you need Sky.
But I don't think the current FTA channels have much hope in Australia. They're all losing money, their share prices are declining, their audiences are declining and getting older (and less attractive to advertisers). Their future competitors are massive global businesses like Netflix, Google, Apple etc, and probably new entrants that will have different business models and no legacy costs. Or the sporting bodies could take charge of their own broadcasts.

 

[Braveheart81]

The FTA channels in Australia have the benefit of the infrastructure etc. behind them.

They are already increasingly getting into online broadcasting and you'd imagine that will only continue.

The biggest gap the creators of sporting content have right now is that they don't have the production ability that the various networks and Foxsports have.

You'd imagine that the FTA broadcasters will start adapting to the changing landscape more as time passes. Certainly sport is the biggest asset of FTA/Pay TV in Australia because it is the only thing that is almost essential to be viewed live.

 

[RunnerGunner]

I was clearly misinformed about the US then. I was going by what I'd heard. In the UK, if you're a sports fan and you want to see more than just the national teams play (and a trickling of other stuff like FA Cup) you need Sky.
But I don't think the current FTA channels have much hope in Australia. They're all losing money, their share prices are declining, their audiences are declining and getting older (and less attractive to advertisers). Their future competitors are massive global businesses like Netflix, Google, Apple etc, and probably new entrants that will have different business models and no legacy costs. Or the sporting bodies could take charge of their own broadcasts.

Their audience is decline - except for sports

As long as the advertisers are there (and they are more keen than ever for live events given their nature) then there will be people to move in there

I agree with the above on incumbents advantages. You name Apple - Apple don't really deal in advertising and collecting info about their users to sell in ads. They actually use it as a strategy credit, they dump a lot of valuable info on users they have as it isn't in their core earning model and they get credit from users for doing so. Netflix don't deal in ads. Google are the most likely but they have yet to make a true splash on sports. The guys with all the local knowledge and infrastructure are the current networks. That's not to say they won't be disrupted in this area but they have a good bit more time to adjust then they did with conventional drama.

 

[Omar Comin']

But they're all struggling, their audiences are flat or falling and yet they're paying more money for rights. Something's going to give at some point.

The advantage they had is a lack of competition. You can't just go and start a new FTA channel to compete with 9 or 7. But once IPTV really takes over and 'tv channels' are simply apps what sort of advantage will they have? Expertise, sure, but they'll also have huge legacy costs to deal with that their competitors won't. And that expertise can be bought.

 

[RunnerGunner]

It's true I think that a tipping point will be reached with the increase in rights value. Certainly a good bit of rights value comes from being able to promote other shows through your live events but at the end of the day there still will be a huge market for advertisement heavy mass audience sport. That's the way the market is in Australia and the US. The UK market is different as I said.

The advantage that they still will have in Australia is anti siphoning laws. Netflix won't be getting into FTA content, it's a mile from their business model. The only ones I see are Yahoo and Google. I can't see how these guys are much better the current guys anyway even if you do think they will collapse/be bought out. It will still be a few corporates imo controlling these rights.

 

[Omar Comin']

I'm not so sure about that. Their current business model doesn't make money. It's useless having this advertisement heavy sports model if it keeps costing you more with declining benefit. The anti-siphoning laws will come under continuing pressure and keep getting chipped away bit by bit.

I think the subscription model will take over. Like with many different apps you'll be able to get a certain amount for free (but with a lot of ads), or you can pay to get more (or everything) with no ads or not so many.

 

[Braveheart81]

Does the live sport have declining benefit for the FTA networks though?

Also, the broadcasters are still making money. Seven West Media and Nine Entertainment Co both made profits in 2014. The profits are less than they historically were for all the reasons mentioned but they are still profitable businesses. The share prices have just adjusted to a new normal which is why there is so much negative media about them. Essentially investors have taken a write down because the businesses are no longer worth what they used to be.

Clearly FTA television is going to change over time, but at this point it would appear that live sport is the one thing that holds up in the face of the new competition because it's much harder to compete with.