Re: SKY : Wed Jan 04, 2012 2:04 pm  

JB Down Under wrote:

Need to get FTA interested, until there is competition then News Ltd know they can pay the min needed to own the game. Anybody got 2011 viewing stats for both SL on Sky and the CC on BBC?

2011 SL viewing figures peak at about 320,000, , Sl Grand Final had 319,000 , magic weekend drew 136,000 - 204,000, Boots & All averages 70-80k , however some of the Sat SL viewing figures go as low as 50-60K , average Friday Evening SL can reach about 200,000
average viewing figures beat Cricket & Rugby Union , but are less than Football which gets between 1-2.2 million.
Championship RL on Thursdays gets 50-80K
BBC CC viewing figures average 1 million for rounds which is 10% on 2010, 25% up on 2009 and double for the Cup Final ,
in comparision BBC 's 6- nations 2011 tv audience averages 4.7m but BBC fork out millions for their self proclaimed ' jewel in the crown '

Re: SKY : Wed Jan 04, 2012 2:15 pm  

middleman wrote:

JB Down Under wrote:

Need to get FTA interested, until there is competition then News Ltd know they can pay the min needed to own the game. Anybody got 2011 viewing stats for both SL on Sky and the CC on BBC?

2011 SL viewing figures peak at about 320,000, Leeds V Bradford game in August had 315,000, Sl Grand Final had 319,000 , magic weekend drew 136,000 - 204,000, Boots & All averages 70-80k , however some of the Sat SL viewing figures go as low as 50-60K , average Friday Evening SL is about 200,000
average viewing figures beat Cricket & Rugby Union , but are less than Football which gets between 1-2.2 million.
BBC CC viewing figures average 1 million for rounds which is 10% on 2010, 25% up on 2009 and double for the Cup Final ,
in comparision BBC 's 6- nations 2011 tv audience averages 4.7m but BBC fork out millions for their self proclaimed ' jewel in the crown '

The BBC also do ridulously large amounts of promotion and advertising for the
6Ns which includes RU players constantly appearing on prime time shows year after year. Against that type of exposure RL is never going to gain greater FTA viewing figures, in fact you could argue that the viewing audience we do get is testament to the attractiveness of the game.

Re: SKY : Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:39 pm  

RU is a truly international game and much bigger than Sky - a combined game would require apart from England the participation of France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Italy in the Northern Hemisphere and Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa in the Southern hemisphere in addition to Australia. Also the club game in this country isn't as dependent at the highest level on Sky money as us. The only way Union would agree would be as a means of crushing League - a game in which, despite the paranoid rantings in some quarters here, it has little interest.

Re: SKY : Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:01 am  

The Chronicler of Chiswic wrote:

The only way Union would agree would be as a means of crushing League - a game in which, despite the paranoid rantings in some quarters here, it has little interest.

.....BUT .........I bet if you wrote as much to the editors of every newspaper on the planet they'd publish it as paranoid rantings of small minded pit village dwellers.........as would all the Worlds TV stations (even the ones on Mars) and the radio stations on planets as yet not discovered

Re: SKY : Thu Jan 05, 2012 2:35 pm  

WYSIWYG wrote:

How much longer do people on here believe that SKY will keep airing Rugby League?

I know SKY have signed a 5 year contract to show SL games, but with more people buying Freeview boxes and other broadcasters airing sport plus the recession, it can only be a matter of time before SKY start feeling the pinch.

Do you think SKY will stick with Rugby League or do you think they will pull the plug at some time and stick with Union. I can see a lot of SL clubs going bust if they ever did pull the plug.

Cos they've 4 sports channels to fill 24 hrs a day. That's an awful lot of telly hours to cover. Also, the only reason I and a lot of others have sky is because of their RL coverage. I'd cancel my subscription in a second if they did stop broadcasting.

Re: SKY : Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:23 am  

Ovavoo wrote:

I'd cancel my subscription in a second if they did stop broadcasting.

1. Dishes/Subscriptions are only a small part of the package that RL brings to SKY.
2. It's the audience/eyeballs that are more important...ad revenue is key.
3. I would be stunned SKY lost any more than 10,000 subscribers if they walked away from RL.

Re: SKY : Fri Jan 06, 2012 1:31 am  

gutterfax wrote:

1. Dishes/Subscriptions are only a small part of the package that RL brings to SKY.
2. It's the audience/eyeballs that are more important...ad revenue is key.
3. I would be stunned SKY lost any more than 10,000 subscribers if they walked away from RL.

That would depend on what they put in RL's place.

Re: SKY : Fri Jan 06, 2012 2:44 am  

Odem wrote:

That would depend on what they put in RL's place.

The flip side is if they did drop RL, would the game as a professional entity survive? Seriously, SKY pulling out of RL would do far more damage to RL than SKY....

Re: SKY : Fri Jan 06, 2012 3:15 am  

gutterfax wrote:

The flip side is if they did drop RL, would the game as a professional entity survive? Seriously, SKY pulling out of RL would do far more damage to RL than SKY....

You could ask the same question for a number of professional sports in the UK including darts and football.

Re: SKY : Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:28 pm  

gutterfax wrote:

1. Dishes/Subscriptions are only a small part of the package that RL brings to SKY.
2. It's the audience/eyeballs that are more important...ad revenue is key.
3. I would be stunned SKY lost any more than 10,000 subscribers if they walked away from RL.

You could well be right but 10,000 subscribers paying a full package £80 per month over 10 years is an awful lot of money, £96 million. Just about the amount they pay to the RL for coverage. You only need to try and cancel your account to see how they will turn cartwheels to keep you on.