Saturday 24 September 2022

They lost in 2019 as well after the dead flat game between GWS and Richmond.

Seems like if Nine has sports on the same Saturday as the AFL Grand Final then they have a better chance of winning. I’m sure Seven’s lawyers will be calling the AFL as we speak about last night’s ratings.

“ball fumbles”? How old are you? How big is that shoulder chip? Sure, some people like hyper-dynamic sports like Australian football while others might like the most repetitive professional team sport on the planet…particularly if they’ve grown up with it.

When you include foxtel, there may have been a higher average Sydney audience for the prelim last week. When the game is over by quarter time almost, the ratings are going to tank. Particularly in the city of the losing team.

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You seem about the same age.

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Seven’s media release.

AFL Grand Final: #1 program of survey 2022

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Note that the following outside the survey period:

2022 AUSTRALIAN OPEN D13 -WOMEN’S FINAL -PRESENTATION 2,832,000
2022 AUSTRALIAN OPEN D13 -WOMEN’S FINAL -BARTY V COLLINS 2,581,000

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From the above article:

Cats’ victory dominated its timeslot in the capital cities with a 90.1% share of viewers during the game in total people.

In Melbourne, the Grand Final recorded a 97.7% share of viewers during the game, with Sydney recording an 80.5% share of viewers in its timeslot.

Amazing shares for the daytime. But as we all have said here, it sucks for Seven that none of it really carried into the primetime share. Only the post match segment aired in primetime, and that was shafted onto 7Mate in 4 cities, and thus rated quite low.

(Always curios to see what the other shows that aired against the Grand Final rated, but looking at the shares, then not much at all)

I think most of us would have thought that the game would hover around the similar numbers to the Australian Open numbers above. Wasnt the case this time around.

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It might have if it was a closer contest.

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With a peak of 5.76mill (national) to average of 2.96mill (national) means most people stopped watching because it was a blowout. If it was more of a closer contest then the average might of been higher

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Does having a Victorian team but from outside metro Melbourne have an impact on viewing?

As an exercise, I also checked the Pre- Match entertainment to see how it compares over the years - it potentially gives an idea as to how many people are intending to watch the game regardless of how close the score. Here are the numbers for the last 10 years. The 2 lowest numbers correspond to the the 2 lowest rated games. Of course the 2021 and 2022 were prime time games. Apart from those 2 years the number watching the pore-game show has been about 33% of the ratings for five games, regardless of margin.

2012 1,355,000
2013 1,447,000
2014 1,698,000
2015 1,131,000
2016 1,094,000
2017 1,049,000
2018 927,000
2019 770,000
2020 1,481,000
2021 1,464,000
2022 729,000
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Could that be an illusion? As I would have thought pre-match entertainment ratings will be impacted by who is performing eg Robbie Williams - as there would have been some that tune in for that only that won’t watch the game at all regardless of who is playing?

Reach, not peak, but your point is spot on otherwise.

I switched off a bit after half time which I am sure a lot of people did.

Perhaps if I used “bum sniffers” or “thugby league”…otherwise I was merely making a point about preferences.

Clearly more people like rugby league in Sydney and Australian football in Melbourne…which are primarily historical cultural legacies which in turn shape preferences and thus perpetuating

Your comment about it being the “most repetitive professional sport on the planet” was a clear dig at it, but I agree with your second point on it being related to historical cultural differences in different parts of the country.

Which I think is what makes Australia great, yesterday I felt privileged to be able to watch high quality relevant games from 3 different football codes all on the same day (lopsided results in all notwithstanding) and I thought to myself ‘what other country has this’… in nearly every other country, it’s maybe only 1 or 2 relevant codes that they can watch.

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There are three tiers of Victorian clubs in terms of popularity:

The Big 4: Collingwood, Richmond, Carlton, Essendon
Mid Range: Hawthorn, Geelong, Melbourne
Least Supported: St Kilda, Western Bulldogs, North Melbourne

Having at least one Big 4 club involved definitely boosts ratings for finals.

In terms of non-Victorian clubs, the biggest supported would be West Coast and Adelaide.

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I get the lawyer/suing gag (even though it’s now been well and truly done to death on this forum). However, the timing of the AFL GF isn’t a legal issue since under both the current and 2025 - 2031 broadcast rights agreements that Seven signed, the AFL controls when it’s played. If Seven wants the GF to be a twilight/night game, it’s up to them to lobby hard for it and such efforts should have frankly begun today if that’s the case.

Ed Sheeran was the headline act in 2014 AFL Grand Final prematch entertainment which pulled nearly 1.7 million. Robbie Williams’ prematch performance yesterday only got 729,000. Does it suggest that Ed Sheeran is more popular than Robbie Williams?

Ed Sheeran was at his peak around that time. I can’t remember the last time Robbie had a hit. :man_shrugging:

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The AFL are going to be hard to sway on this - especially now they have a tv deal locked in for so long (and as you say is likely to be something beyond the scope of the deal)

RW probably hasn’t had a “hit” for a while - he even said in the set that he was doing an obligatory recent song.

His performance alone made it - which goes to what I’ve heard from a number of people who say he’s very good live. He mightn’t have been a draw card for audiences, but I’d imagine that he will have sold a few more tickets to his concert in 12 months time (!!!) on the back on yesterday

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Also have to take into account a 4 day long weekend in Victoria. A lot of people also thought they could stream it on 7plus and weren’t able to despite it being advertised as being able on smart TVs… they had an issue with it