2017 TV ratings and crowd figures

[wamberal]

What did the Force game get in ratings?


Gee, that was a game that only a rugby tragic could love. I loved it, but I cannot imagine any accidental viewers staying around for too long. Pedantic refereeing, to put it mildly.

 

[half]

Do you have access to the SS on 7Two

Dave

All the ratings I find come from two main resources.

https://twitter.com/MediaweekAUS

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/

The tvtonight click on rating and scroll to the bottom for Fox top 20 ratings.

 

[Strewthcobber]

What did the Force game get in ratings?


Gee, that was a game that only a rugby tragic could love. I loved it, but I cannot imagine any accidental viewers staying around for too long. Pedantic refereeing, to put it mildly.

Didn't make top 20 Wambers

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[wamberal]

Not all that surprising, I guess.

 

[Strewthcobber]

@MediaweekAUS: Sat STV #SuperRugby #FoxSports
HURvCHE 45k
FORvHIG 32k

Force crowd 9184

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[The_Wookie]

 

[The_Wookie]

Super Rugby Round 13

Just one match this week featuring Australian teams made the ratings - Saturdays Force v Highlanders match rated 32,000.

Super Rugby's Australian teams rate an average of 53,000 in 2017, down 12% from 59,000 in 2016.

Overall Super Rugby ratings are averaging 49,000 for the season, down 15% from 59,000 in 2016.

 

[half]

Super Rugby Round 13

Just one match this week featuring Australian teams made the ratings - Saturdays Force v Highlanders match rated 32,000.

Super Rugby's Australian teams rate an average of 53,000 in 2017, down 12% from 59,000 in 2016.

Overall Super Rugby ratings are averaging 49,000 for the season, down 15% from 59,000 in 2016.

Wookie

I guess the ratings not published are lower than those published. Meaning the actual Australian ratings would be under 50k and non Australian ratings under 45K.

Is this logic correct.

I just checked your site and you said considerable data missing.

Could it be possible Australia ratings are actually under 45K. If so it shows how much this cut a team is hurting.

 

[The_Wookie]

Wookie

I guess the ratings not published are lower than those published. Meaning the actual Australian ratings would be under 50k and non Australian ratings under 45K.

Is this logic correct.

I just checked your site and you said considerable data missing.

Could it be possible Australia ratings are actually under 45K. If so it shows how much this cut a team is hurting.

Could mean a range of things, which is why i dont offer an opinion on it. Mediaweek dont always publish the lower ones - especially Sunday ratings, and V8s, F1 and Cricket can sometimes raise the threashold for cutting off the top reports, but yes its possible that the ratings are actually lower than what i project off the existing overnight data, its possible that consolidated data might add to that, particularly timeshifted data, but theres no public reports on that.

 

[kiap]

Force attendances [1]
------------------
CHI: 14,089
HIG: 9,418
KIN: 8,474
LIO: 7,351
RED: 7,008

Rebels attendances [2] - except indicated
------------------
BLU: 10,265
BRU: 7,574 [Roar]
CHI: ~
LIO: under 6,000 [Oz]
RED: 6,931
WAR: 8,142

 

[wamberal]

Could it be possible Australia ratings are actually under 45K. If so it shows how much this cut a team is hurting.

Maybe it is the other way around, old chap. The ratings have been declining for a fair while now, as have the crowds. So maybe drastic action is called for?


Do you really believe that viewers decide not to watch games because of off-field issues?

Both the NRL and AFL have had far worse off-field issues than ours. Their ratings and attendances seem to be have held up reasonably well through doping scandals, domestic violence atrocities, recreational drug bans, you name it, they have had it.

 

[Strewthcobber]

It's worth mentioning that the average is down because Qld is down slightly and Brumbies and NSW ratings are plummeting.

Rebels are about the same as last year, and Force up a little.

Make of that what you will

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[RedsHappy]

Maybe it is the other way around, old chap. The ratings have been declining for a fair while now, as have the crowds. So maybe drastic action is called for?


Do you really believe that viewers decide not to watch games because of off-field issues?

Both the NRL and AFL have had far worse off-field issues than ours. Their ratings and attendances seem to be have held up reasonably well through doping scandals, domestic violence atrocities, recreational drug bans, you name it, they have had it.

Good observations.

 

[Brumby Runner]

Maybe it is the other way around, old chap. The ratings have been declining for a fair while now, as have the crowds. So maybe drastic action is called for?


Do you really believe that viewers decide not to watch games because of off-field issues?

Both the NRL and AFL have had far worse off-field issues than ours. Their ratings and attendances seem to be have held up reasonably well through doping scandals, domestic violence atrocities, recreational drug bans, you name it, they have had it.

The NRL off-field issues mentioned all, or mostly, only involve individuals or maybe a small group of two or three at a time. The issue presently with rugby is one that involves or affects the whole of the rugby community in Australia. Big difference in my eyes.

 

[RedsHappy]

Force attendances [1]
------------------
CHI: 14,089
HIG: 9,418
KIN: 8,474
LIO: 7,351
RED: 7,008

Rebels attendances [2] - except indicated
------------------
BLU: 10,265
BRU: 7,574 [Roar]
CHI: ~
LIO: under 6,000 [Oz]
RED: 6,931
WAR: 8,142

Kiap - thanks for this.

I think one of the deeper elements in all the Aus Super viewing trends (and likely crowds too) - and I cannot prove this! - is that Aus v Kiwi matches here are being further propped up (in relative terms) by the strident love that our large body of Kiwi residents in Australia has for their rugby and their teams and which as we know shows no sign of diminution especially as these teams and the ABs become more successful, not less.

I know that at Reds and Wallabies games at Suncorp vs Kiwi teams the Kiwi crowd element is very obvious and a significant % of the total.

If my theory is true it would unfortunately mean that Aus rugby fans (casual and otherwise) are deserting the code at a more rapid rate than first appears prima facie in that the the Kiwi fractional absolute numerical content of viewership and crowd levels is likely holding firm or probably growing (in the latter case as more than the Crusaders are now winning Super titles for Kiwi Super teams so these teams' fans are more excited and motivated than they may have been in the Crusaders-always-dominate-Super-Rugby years).

Thoughts?

 

[wamberal]

Yep.

 

[RedsHappy]

Maybe it is the other way around, old chap. The ratings have been declining for a fair while now, as have the crowds. So maybe drastic action is called for?


Do you really believe that viewers decide not to watch games because of off-field issues?

Both the NRL and AFL have had far worse off-field issues than ours. Their ratings and attendances seem to be have held up reasonably well through doping scandals, domestic violence atrocities, recreational drug bans, you name it, they have had it.

100% Wamberal.

The negative trends are very marked and continuing more or less across the board.

(I just checked on Ticketek and (a) about 40% of the Suncorp seats for its June Wallaby Test are not even being offered (how far have we fallen!!) and (b) there are vast quantities of seats still for sale 1 month out. It will be 'interesting' at the end of 2017 to see 2017's comparative crowd levels for all Wallaby home Tests; I suspect that data will also show a further downwards trend in that key source of ARU/code $ income here.)

The trends are unsustainable in code-health terms, financially and otherwise.

Thinking that culling one Super team somehow addresses the core problems is like a structural engineer noting that a building has serious issues in core integrity and recommending a solution of taking the windows out to lessen the load.

 

[kiap]

Kiap - thanks for this.

I think one of the deeper elements in all the Aus Super viewing trends (and likely crowds too) - and I cannot prove this! - is that Aus v Kiwi matches here are being further propped up (in relative terms) by the strident love that our large body of Kiwi residents in Australia has for their rugby

You're welcome. And you're right.

I won't try to push more electrons onto screens about this one for the moment, being out of time, but it is a real factor.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

by the strident love that our large body of Kiwi residents in Australia has for their rugby and their teams and which as we know shows no sign of diminution especially as these teams and the ABs become more successful, not less.

Its not just ex-pats.
Friday the Crusaders v Chiefs game was one of the best games of rugby at any level I've ever seen: I was moved to suggest to others that if league viewers stumbled across that game and knew nothing of rugby they could have been converted instantly.
As few dropped passes etc as you would see in league, clear contests for possession and no real problems with the "dark arts" of scrummaging and breakdown play.
Its a pity when your weekend peaks at 7:20pm on Friday.

 

[RedsHappy]

Its not just ex-pats.
Friday the Crusaders v Chiefs game was one of the best games of rugby at any level I've ever seen: I was moved to suggest to others that if league viewers stumbled across that game and knew nothing of rugby they could have been converted instantly.
As few dropped passes etc as you would see in league, clear contests for possession and no real problems with the "dark arts" of scrummaging and breakdown play.
Its a pity when your weekend peaks at 7:20pm on Friday.

I completely agree. I have said before that if the 'product quality' of our Super teams was at or close to that of NZ's our problems would be dramatically fewer than they are.

That's why I become frustrated with discussions here that often to tend to heavily focus on what one might term 'macro' or 'structural' factors like: just less teams, change which States, new domestic competitions, and such like.

Absolutely, these factors all play their role but IMO the central problem we have is that the quality of our Super teams' rugby is, at best, uplifted a la recently the Reds and Tahs in 2011 and 2014, maybe just once every decade, and at worst is what we see today in all our Super teams: poor standards, few wins, and generally uninspiring teams as teams.

Whilst NZ's ever-increasing excellence is making these issues of our base quality appear even worse.

Essentially, our rugby product quality has deteriorated to a kind of tipping point and, mostly, the many intrinsic positive attributes of Union played well are being buried beneath a mountain of ordinariness.

Thinking that just 'play more levels, play more often' will fix the core quality and skills problem (kind of the NRC idea) at pro level is IMO understandably comforting but it's illusory and there's little hard evidence to support that notion.

Australian pro rugby in the last decade has only ever broken through to success when seasoned new and superior HCs have aligned with the right player base at the right time. And then these HCs have quickly departed and their respective teams soon fell back to the mean, or worse. Coaching excellence has been the key though.

In my view, and given very scarce rugby financial and skill development resources in this country, the only way to fix this problem will be to somehow shrink back to a platform of teams and players that is small and tight enough so that a high density of curative coaching and skills development resources (of a superior kind) can be brought to bear quickly enough (to avert a full pro rugby code collapse) so's to produce a superior pro rugby product in at least a carefully selected number of core markets.

My point being that we simply don't have the quantity and depth enough for a high enough level of essential curative resources in relation to the total quantity of teams and players we have today.

We cannot afford this relative gap any longer. And we likely cannot financially afford a fast enough, large enough expansion of the curative resources all over the place to match up with the volume of teams and on paper pro players we have today. So the essential curative resources and the size of what they are charged to fix must be radically re-balanced or alternatively we will die a code death driven by 'too much quantity and far too little quality to match it' which is actually what is occurring today.