RUGBY LEAGUE is pay television's bread and butter but the sport has been knocked off its pedestal by … Oman.

In a powerful signal of what kind of television audience the round ball game can pull, the Socceroos - in their first Asian Cup match - limped to a lame draw with the unfancied football flyweights, but the game still attracted the highest-ever average subscription TV audience for a sporting event.

Now that most Australian soccer matches are no longer screened on SBS, fans have apparently rushed to sign up to Fox Sports to see the likes of Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill in action, and the result is a boon for Fox.

An average of 345,000 people tuned in to watch Cahill nab a late equaliser against Oman on Sunday night, not including the estimated tens of thousands who watched in 3600 bars and clubs across Australia.

Rugby league normally attracts a peak of about 245,000 viewers for its Saturday night broadcasts.

The average TV audience for Monday night rugby league - such as last night's Eels/Knights clash, is 158,000. The sport produced 73 of the 100 of the top-rating programs on pay TV in Australia last year.

But league's dominance is now being challenged by a surge of interest in Australian rules football on pay TV, and the emergence of soccer.

A one-day cricket match between Australia and New Zealand this year attracted an audience of just over 400,000 at its peak, but Sunday's football game attracted the highest overall number of viewers throughout its broadcast.

The number of pay TV viewers has risen by about 14 per cent this year, while free-to-air ratings slid by about 1.9 per cent, according to the chief executive of Foxtel, Kim Williams.

Premier Media Group, the owner of Fox Sports, called the Socceroos ratings very encouraging, and Football Australia said it was delighted.

The record is likely to be broken again if Australia gets over its Oman stumble and does well in the tournament, said the FA's head of commercial operations, John O'Sullivan. "Our research since 2004 is that it's meaningful fixtures that drive people's interest - that coupled with the fact that they had the World Cup team on the park."

The organisation had no qualms about selling the broadcast rights to pay TV in a deal last year that is said to have netted the cash-strapped FA up to $120 million.

The seven-year agreement between the FA and Fox Sports means that football fans have to pay a $600 subscription to watch most World Cup qualifiers, Asian Cup matches and friendly games - or go to the pub. Should Australia qualify for the 2010 World Cup, only finals matches will be broadcast on free-to-air TV.

"The decision [to sign over broadcast rights to Fox] was made with a clear conscience," Mr O'Sullivan said. "We needed to invest in and grow the sport, so there are no regrets."

But the decision has been criticised by the Labor Party, which unsuccessfully urged the Federal Government to include all games on its anti-siphoning list of sporting events that are of sufficient public interest to be broadcast free.

Football's international governing body, FIFA, has also said it would have preferred the FA not to have sold the rights, so more people could have watched the national team play.

Australia meets Iraq on Friday and Thailand on Monday in their remaining group matches in the Asian Cup.

My 2 cents is that a regular NRL game will only rate well in it's strongholds which is N.S.W. and Queensland,while Soccer does have an advantage with being popular all over Australia.

I'd like to see the figures for some major RL games if they were exclusively on Fox.

The better TV news I read all week was how Ch 7 was leading the ratings all week until Saturday night when the RU was trounced in the ratings by a Harry Potter movie on Ch 9. It gave Ch 9 a win for the week!

I'm with Jeff. You can't really make apples and apples comparisons for those pay tv ratings so there's not a lot of point in trying. That said in looking at the absolute/raw numbers Fox and the FFA would be pleased that the ratings are nice and plump by pay tv standards.

According to 7, the bledisloe average 800,000 viewers across the country. Down from an average audience of 1.2m in 2004...

Origin 3 drew 1.896 million viewers Australia-wide (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=276943) and 726,000 in Brisbane alone (http://blogs.smh.com.au/sit/archives/20 ... _week.html)

that looks to be SoO's peak audience. Bledisloe's peak national audience was 954,000 odd

http://www.sevencorporate.com.au/_uploa ... -july2.pdf

the one for Brisbane could quite well be the peak audience, im not too sure. either way, interstate league beats international union hands down.

Im guessing FA and FIFA didnt get a say in the matter





Im not sure how much $$$ tv raises, but surely the benefits of pay tvs audience and that which sbs would have reached should have been considered. SBS would have had a far greater audience across australia

The Roos next game is against Iraq on Friday night. It won't be setting a pay tv record while it's directly up against the NRL and AFL. The monday game against Thailand is a better prospect and then hopefully the 1/4s, semis and the final will rate strongly.

The SOO and Sea Patrol really won it for Nein, Harry was just the icing on the cake, although it doesn't hide the fact the Union flopped and Seven would be a little nervous with the games it has left.

No thats not peak, that is average. SOO3 was no.1 program in Australia.



While it would appear that way as SBS is on FTA, each week SBS only accounts for about 3% of the total TV audience including Pay TV and 4% if not including Pay TV. Pay TV accounts for something like 20% of Total TV audience, so the decision with extra money coming in was clear that Pay TV was the better option.

^

They did sign the deal with foxtel because of the money but SBS would still give them more market penetration (90+% homes get access to SBS and 30% [or whatever] have access to foxtel.

total audience share is not the right figure to be looking at if you want as many people as possible to watch your games.

David Gallop's responded with his biased perspective.

NRL crowds break two million

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - 3:27 PM

NRL Chief Executive David Gallop has praised the commitment of fans as the attendance mark for the Telstra Premiership smashed through the two million mark last night despite another downpour.

The clash between Parramatta and Newcastle took the total crowd number for the 2007 Telstra Premiership to 2,000,527, with the average crowd figures up 2.06 per cent on last year as fans and clubs brace for the run to the finals.

The increase in attendances comes despite figures from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology revealing the month of June was one of the wettest on the east coast in decades.

“Our fans should be congratulated,” Mr Gallop said.

“They have been braving torrential rain to come out and support their teams, the number of them out there in ponchos and rain jackets has been a sight to see, and I think that’s a great reflection of the excitement our competition is generating.

“Now that the representative season is over the focus is solely on the Telstra Premiership and we expect those numbers to grow even further.

“There are just eight rounds left and every match is going to have an impact on the make-up of the top eight. This Sunday is a great example with all three matches having a significant bearing on the finals race.”

Fans and viewers are responding in growing numbers to what is one of the closest competitions in history.

The average attendance for Telstra Premiership matches this season is 15,629, up 2.06 per cent on 2006 (15,313).

Rugby League continues to be a ratings winner on free to air television with Channel Nine, highlighted by a 24 per cent rise in the average audience in the Brisbane market and the code remaining the dominant force in the Sydney market.

On subscription television, Fox Sports’ live matches across the round have an average audience of 247,000 in 2007, up 11 per cent from the same time last year.

NRL matches have been the highest rating shows on subscription television every Saturday and Monday this season, while 10 matches have had an average audience in excess of 300,000 this season. Last year there were six for the season.

The final eight rounds will only add to the intrigue with a succession of marquee match-ups and season-defining clashes.

South Sydney are one club that know all about the close nature of the competition, having lost six games by seven points or less this season to be one win outside the top eight.

“There are so many teams in contention for the eight, it’s got to be exciting for the fans,” coach Jason Taylor said.

“We’re right in the mix along with a lot of other teams. What happens over the next five or six weeks is absolutely vital.”

It is a view shared by Sharks coach Ricky Stuart, whose club has lost seven games by four points or less this season to also sit one win outside the top eight.

“We’re disappointed not to have won some of those close games but playing matches like that, under a lot of pressure, will definitely be good preparation for finals football if we can get there,” Stuart said.

“But if we want to be in the finals, we need to start winning, starting with this week.”
Source: NRL

Views: 755

http://www.nrl.com/News/Latest/NewsArticle/tabid/76/NewsId/6087/Default.aspx

I'm not surprised the socceroos are setting the mark on pay tv ratings - it's the only football code that is universally popular across foxtel's entire subscriber base.

I think Soccer or real Football will become the number one game and i think both codes of Rugby will be behind AFL.
SAD.

It is a matter of what order you view it in. Chronologically, 9 were still behind after Sea Patrol and SOO.

It was their big win on Saturday night that got them over the line.



Very good point. Also, the Sunday night timeslot was favourable to home viewers who get counted on the ratings as opposed to pub viewers.

I'm glad to see the code doing well. It should look good for a good TV deal next time.