2018 AFL Crowds & Ratings thread

[precarious]

Well at night just as likely to be eating out at a restaurant or hitting a show or seeing live music! These sorts of distractions are less intrusive during the day.

For Saturday, a 5 to 5:30 start is probably the sweet spot ratings wise. Late enough that people can be home in time to watch. Early enough that people can still head out afterwards. The limited evidence to date supports this.

There are obviously pros and cons to whatever is decided. It will basically come down to whether the AFL is okay with losing bragging rights most years when it comes to who has the highest rating program(s) of the year.

 

[Gigantor]

For Saturday, a 5 to 5:30 start is probably the sweet spot ratings wise. Late enough that people can be home in time to watch. Early enough that people can still head out afterwards. The limited evidence to date supports this.

There are obviously pros and cons to whatever is decided. It will basically come down to whether the AFL is okay with losing bragging rights most years when it comes to who has the highest rating program(s) of the year.

I guess it's big enough and ugly enough not too worry about losing the occasional ratings battle, and ultimately, broadcasters, advertisers and sponsors understand the commercial reality and the dollars flow as a consequence.

 

[kaypee]

For Saturday, a 5 to 5:30 start is probably the sweet spot ratings wise. Late enough that people can be home in time to watch. Early enough that people can still head out afterwards. The limited evidence to date supports this.

There are obviously pros and cons to whatever is decided. It will basically come down to whether the AFL is okay with losing bragging rights most years when it comes to who has the highest rating program(s) of the year.

SEven would be delighted with getting 3 million to watch an afternoon time slot that usually rates close to zero. They still get whatever they usually charge for the Saturday night movie plus squillions for the grand final

 

[Rabman]

Lets be honest Saturday 2:30 in today's society is black hole for ratings, you'd get better ratings putting a program on 11:00pm Monday night than Saturday afternoon. Remember as well the game started 2:00pm in Adelaide and 12:30pm in Perth. if the game started 5:00pm in the eastern seaboard that's 4:30 in Adelaide and 3:00 in Perth, would get a lot more viewers.

 

[Rouel_14]

What this year has done has set us up for what will probably be the most anticipated seasons in living memory.

Collingwood, Richmond, Essendon, hawthorn and Melbourne supporters all have hope to be top 4 teams next year.

You’d expect Adelaide and Port to bounce back in contention, and as we saw this year, it isn’t very often the eagles aren’t around the mark.

Looking at just Richmond, they are probably likely to smash their home attendance record next season having both Anzac eve Dreamtime and most probably a double match up with he pies.

Add all this to what the AFL hope to achieve at Marvel Stadium.

Footy is back, bigger than ever, going to the game has never been more popular.
Power house clubs are back to their strength and what a time to be alive!


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Defabs]

Another thing overlooked is the news ratings for both Sat and Sun evenings.

Ch 7 had 720k more tuning into news on Sat night than Ch 9.

Ch 9 only had 40k more on Sun night than Ch 7.

Execs would no doubt analysing these numbers. That is a massive win for Ch 7.

 

[NoobPie]

As often as its bought up by this board, its a factor that I have never seen Seven or the AFL mention when defending its broadcast ratings.

Fair enough that you're not aware of it been explicitly highlighted by channel 7 or the AFL. You'd think at least the latter would have an incentive to do so

Beyond that though everything else seems to support what is ultimately pretty basic logic - that the averages for AFL games are sustained over the longer length of those games. For instance peaks and reach figures always seem to be higher in ratio to the average in AFL compared to NRL games. The peak audience for the AFL GF was 27% higher than the average....this compares to just 13.5% for the NRL. The NRL peak may have been dragged down by the blow out margin but my experience is the AFL peak and reach always seem higher in ratio than the average compared to the NRL, as you would expect if the average was based over a longer time frame.

Perhaps you have seen Oztam or somebody explicitly setting out how they adjust the AFL average to compensate for longer time frame?

 

[The_Wookie]

Perhaps you have seen Oztam or somebody explicitly setting out how they adjust the AFL average to compensate for longer time frame?

Ive never seen anyone do it outside of fans on forums.

 

[jatz14]

Interesting. Seems it would have to factor in to rights negotiations, but maybe not. For Friday nights, equal average figures for the competing football broadcasts would in itself be enough to give Seven about a 4 percent lead on national audience share.

That it isn't discussed publicly doesn't mean it isn't a factor in negotiations. Negotiations would include lots of stuff not part of public discussion.

I just think networks keep ratings talk simple for the public, trying to add permutations and 'factors' probably confuses things, and opens them up to criticism.

Can you imagine the fallout if 7 came out and said, taking length into account, AFL trounced NRL GF ratings?

Not worth it, much easier to go, here are the ratings, take it or leave it.

Sent from my XT1068 using Tapatalk

 

[NoobPie]

Ive never seen anyone do it outside of fans on forums.

You misunderstand

I mean, given we all know that an AFL game goes for 50% longer than an NRL, there are two possibilities

-the ratings are already adjusted to reflect this fact (this is possible, but I was wondering whether it has been explicitly stated anywhere at anytime)
-the ratings are not like for like

It seems that you are implicitly assuming the first of these and I was wondering whether "no-one has ever said otherwise" was the sole basis for this or whether oztam, or someone else, have validated this assumption

 

[Milang_Panthers]

What local sporting comp fixtures anything on GF day anyway? I've never seen any local sport played on GF day so surely something like that would have very little effect on the ratings.

 

[mxett]

You misunderstand

I mean, given we all know that an AFL game goes for 50% longer than an NRL, there are two possibilities

-the ratings are already adjusted to reflect this fact (this is possible, but I was wondering whether it has been explicitly stated anywhere at anytime)
-the ratings are not like for like

It seems that you are implicitly assuming the first of these and I was wondering whether "no-one has ever said otherwise" was the sole basis for this or whether oztam, or someone else, have validated this assumption

there's no way they are adjusted, they're raw. Therefore an AFL rating of 1m over a 3hr telecast is far more impressive than the NRL rating 1mil over 2hrs. Furthermore, we have 9 games per round, therefore we have a whopping 27 hours of football usually over 3 days each weekend. For us to average anywhere near the NRL in ratings per game simply isn't feasible when they only have 16 hours of telecast per weekend. Watching 16 hours of sport over 4 days (Th, Fr, Sa, Su) is easily possible (4hrs per day). Watching 27 hours of sport over 3 days (Fr, Sa, Su) just isn't feasible, especially when most games overlap.

This is why the NRL win the cumulative ratings over the entire season, these meaningless figures don't take length of telecast or overlapping games into account. The real difference in TV audience comes out during the finals when single games are head to head, with no overlap and more comparable telecast lengths (even though we are still 50% greater). This shows the AFL is by far the most watched of the two, by quite some margin.

 

[mxett]

What local sporting comp fixtures anything on GF day anyway? I've never seen any local sport played on GF day so surely something like that would have very little effect on the ratings.

I assume you're suggesting there's no ratings penalty for a day GF because there's no loss in audience due to competing events? Reality is there's a massive loss in audience for a non-prime time GF compared to prime-time. Put it this way, I watched the NRL GF because it was in a convenient time slot and I was home watching TV. If it had been played during the afternoon there's no way I would have watched it because I had more interesting/important things to do. Multiply that by millions of people around Australia and the difference for prime time v afternoon is huge.

 

[NoobPie]

What local sporting comp fixtures anything on GF day anyway? I've never seen any local sport played on GF day so surely something like that would have very little effect on the ratings.

Many sporting comps north of the barrassi line do at least

 

[NoobPie]

there's no way they are adjusted, they're raw. Therefore an AFL rating of 1m over a 3hr telecast is far more impressive than the NRL rating 1mil over 2hrs. Furthermore, we have 9 games per round, therefore we have a whopping 27 hours of football usually over 3 days each weekend. For us to average anywhere near the NRL in ratings per game simply isn't feasible when they only have 16 hours of telecast per weekend. Watching 16 hours of sport over 4 days (Th, Fr, Sa, Su) is easily possible (4hrs per day). Watching 27 hours of sport over 3 days (Fr, Sa, Su) just isn't feasible, especially when most games overlap.

This is why the NRL win the cumulative ratings over the entire season, these meaningless figures don't take length of telecast or overlapping games into account. The real difference in TV audience comes out during the finals when single games are head to head, with no overlap and more comparable telecast lengths (even though we are still 50% greater). This shows the AFL is by far the most watched of the two, by quite some margin.

Yep, well I certainly agree that is the best assumption short of any other information to the contrary

 

[____]

It might have been two of the highest supported clubs playing but it was also two of the most disliked clubs playing as well. So many people I knew didnt want to watch either team win a flag so weren't really interested in watching at all tbh.

It's a fair point, If Collingwood ever played Port Adelaide in a Grand Final I'd definitely refuse to watch it myself. I didn't watch the 2017 NRL Grand Final as Storm and Cowboys are my two most hated teams in the NRL.

Also for major sporting events there would always be more viewers than the TV ratings would say, people have parties or go to pubs etc. to watch the game. I find it hard to believe only one million people in Queensland would watch State of Origin for example.

 

[Our Game]

What local sporting comp fixtures anything on GF day anyway? I've never seen any local sport played on GF day so surely something like that would have very little effect on the ratings.

So what about the millions of people working and shopping around the nation on Saturdays then? and there is plenty of sport played as well.

 

[Milang_Panthers]

I assume you're suggesting there's no ratings penalty for a day GF because there's no loss in audience due to competing events? Reality is there's a massive loss in audience for a non-prime time GF compared to prime-time. Put it this way, I watched the NRL GF because it was in a convenient time slot and I was home watching TV. If it had been played during the afternoon there's no way I would have watched it because I had more interesting/important things to do. Multiply that by millions of people around Australia and the difference for prime time v afternoon is huge.

Oh yeah i definitely agree that a day grand final hampers ratings and a night GF would way more successful ratings wise because people are more likely to be home at night etc. I was just talking about local sport being scheduled on GF day specifically, I have never seen any local sport of any kind scheduled that day at all. Cricket normally starts the week after but maybe this is different in non-AFL states.
But i agree people are always going to be more likely to be doing something during the day than at night.

 

[Milang_Panthers]

So what about the millions of people working and shopping around the nation on Saturdays then? and there is plenty of sport played as well.

I was just talking about the local sport specifically. Of course i know people work etc on saturdays (I worked GF day this year).

 

[Milang_Panthers]

Many sporting comps north of the barrassi line do at least

Fair point. Having never lived up there I've never experienced any sport at all being played on GF day.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Fair point. Having never lived up there I've never experienced any sport at all being played on GF day.

Sydney Premier Cricket typically plays on GF Saturday, whilst Melbourne's typically starts the week after.

 

[AstroboyUK]

clarification sought: I gathered from this thread that the AFL GF ratings were higher than NRL, but if you google this, then all the media articles say NRL won 'the ratings war' (their words) ..... Did AFL win the metro but lost overall or something?

 

[Our Game]

clarification sought: I gathered from this thread that the AFL GF ratings were higher than NRL, but if you google this, then all the media articles say NRL won 'the ratings war' (their words) ..... Did AFL win the metro but lost overall or something?

No that will be the Sydney centric media trying to spin that the NRL beat the AFL all year which if you read some of the previous posts refute this assumption.

 

[mxett]

clarification sought: I gathered from this thread that the AFL GF ratings were higher than NRL, but if you google this, then all the media articles say NRL won 'the ratings war' (their words) ..... Did AFL win the metro but lost overall or something?

If you add ratings for every game through the year the NRL come out on top, as they basically do every year once their rep games are included. However, this was the first year where they were ahead without rep games. The question is why and is it important or even relevant?

These total ratings do not account for the differences in scheduling for each code. For example the AFL overlap almost all their games to fit 27hrs of telecasts into each weekend. The NRL never overlap games because their games are shorter and they schedule over 4 days each round (except bye rounds). This effectively reduces the number of games each AFL fan can watch by about 60 per year.

So to summarize, our season's total ratings are around 10-20% less than the NRL, but our available games for each viewer to watch is around 30% less per season.

There are other factors too but this is the biggest IMO. But as has been mentioned repeatedly on this forum, when both codes go head to head with single games we win almost every time and often by quite some margin.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

If you add ratings for every game through the year the NRL come out on top, as they basically do every year once their rep games are included. However, this was the first year where they were ahead without rep games. The question is why and is it important or even relevant?

These total ratings do not account for the differences in scheduling for each code. For example the AFL overlap almost all their games to fit 27hrs of telecasts into each weekend. The NRL never overlap games because their games are shorter and they schedule over 4 days each round (except bye rounds). This effectively reduces the number of games each AFL fan can watch by about 60 per year.

So to summarize, our season's total ratings are around 10-20% less than the NRL, but our available games for each viewer to watch is around 30% less per season.

There are other factors too but this is the biggest IMO. But as has been mentioned repeatedly on this forum, when both codes go head to head with single games we win almost every time and often by quite some margin.

I'd argue just as big as a factor is the simple times in which the matches are scheduled. If the AFL played on a Thursday and Monday night for every round of the season, they'd get more viewers.