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Fox Sports' decision to give Channel Nine $20 million for the right to simulcast three additional matches per round has seen the pay television giants enjoy a 73 per cent increase in total viewers from last season. But was it money well spent?
Channel Nine, for $20 million and eight minutes of advertising a game, allowed Fox Sports to simulcast three matches this season as part of the broadcast negotiations that followed Nine's original deal with the NRL.
It has led to an 11 per cent drop in overall ratings for Channel Nine for the 26 rounds of the NRL regular season compared to the previous year.
In return, Fox Sports has turned a 32 per cent share of the market into a 47.4 per cent share over the course of 12 months, albeit with eight games compared to Nine's three matches.
For those who have access to both Fox Sports and Nine, preference is split around 50 per cent over the course of the year with 72 per cent tuning in via Fox Sports for Sunday's Warriors-Eels game shown on both channels
On the surface it sounds as though Fox Sports has enjoyed gigantic growth as part of their multimillion-dollar investment, but Channel Nine director of sport Tom Malone says the change in the rugby league landscape was as expected when the deal was struck.
Malone insists he is more concerned with the overall growth of the sport (15 per cent increase in viewers from 2015) given that exclusive coverage of this year's State of Origin series yielded the network's largest ratings and $14 million in revenue.
"That's why for Origin this year we saw record numbers in ratings and revenue. We expect it to be the same for the grand final. I think it's fair to say it's been a win-win for Channel Nine and our competitors. The [ratings] figures are largely what we expected, but the revenue has exceeded our expectation."
Channel Nine's decision to end its experiment with the second Friday night game and broadcast live Thursday night football was a success, but ratings took a hit for Sunday afternoon football.
Nine's total viewers decreased from 57.3 million in 2015 to 50.8 million in 2016, while Fox Sports – with the addition of three extra games – enjoyed a jump from 26.6 million to 45.7 million.
Fox Sports head of live sport and news, Steve Crawley, who joined the company from Channel Nine this year, said the network was enjoying a 9 per cent increase in viewers per game shown, which included a 15 per cent spike in its exclusively live matches.
"Twenty million dollars is a lot of money, having said that we are thrilled with how NRL on Fox has gone this year," Crawley said. "We promised our viewers the best coverage ever ... with the best entertainment and commentary. And with our exclusive matches up 15 per cent and 9 per cent across all games, we know fans are loving what we are providing and with our dedicated NRL finals channel launching today, its only going to get better.
"We take nothing for granted. Our focus is to keep serving up the best coverage possible and let the audience be the judge. And next year we are taking it to a whole new level providing our viewers with their own NRL channel."
The battle for the minor premiership between Melbourne and Cronulla on Saturday night was the highest-rating NRL game ever broadcast on Fox Sports.
"I think the numbers reflect that they've gone from five to eight games," Malone said.
"You'd expect that increase if you're putting 66 per cent more games on air. I think it's been an expected increase for Fox. The unexpected benefit for us has been during the Origin series."
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/rug...for-nrl-money-well-spent-20160905-gr9558.html
Channel Nine, for $20 million and eight minutes of advertising a game, allowed Fox Sports to simulcast three matches this season as part of the broadcast negotiations that followed Nine's original deal with the NRL.
It has led to an 11 per cent drop in overall ratings for Channel Nine for the 26 rounds of the NRL regular season compared to the previous year.
In return, Fox Sports has turned a 32 per cent share of the market into a 47.4 per cent share over the course of 12 months, albeit with eight games compared to Nine's three matches.
For those who have access to both Fox Sports and Nine, preference is split around 50 per cent over the course of the year with 72 per cent tuning in via Fox Sports for Sunday's Warriors-Eels game shown on both channels
On the surface it sounds as though Fox Sports has enjoyed gigantic growth as part of their multimillion-dollar investment, but Channel Nine director of sport Tom Malone says the change in the rugby league landscape was as expected when the deal was struck.
Malone insists he is more concerned with the overall growth of the sport (15 per cent increase in viewers from 2015) given that exclusive coverage of this year's State of Origin series yielded the network's largest ratings and $14 million in revenue.
"That's why for Origin this year we saw record numbers in ratings and revenue. We expect it to be the same for the grand final. I think it's fair to say it's been a win-win for Channel Nine and our competitors. The [ratings] figures are largely what we expected, but the revenue has exceeded our expectation."
Channel Nine's decision to end its experiment with the second Friday night game and broadcast live Thursday night football was a success, but ratings took a hit for Sunday afternoon football.
Nine's total viewers decreased from 57.3 million in 2015 to 50.8 million in 2016, while Fox Sports – with the addition of three extra games – enjoyed a jump from 26.6 million to 45.7 million.
Fox Sports head of live sport and news, Steve Crawley, who joined the company from Channel Nine this year, said the network was enjoying a 9 per cent increase in viewers per game shown, which included a 15 per cent spike in its exclusively live matches.
"Twenty million dollars is a lot of money, having said that we are thrilled with how NRL on Fox has gone this year," Crawley said. "We promised our viewers the best coverage ever ... with the best entertainment and commentary. And with our exclusive matches up 15 per cent and 9 per cent across all games, we know fans are loving what we are providing and with our dedicated NRL finals channel launching today, its only going to get better.
"We take nothing for granted. Our focus is to keep serving up the best coverage possible and let the audience be the judge. And next year we are taking it to a whole new level providing our viewers with their own NRL channel."
The battle for the minor premiership between Melbourne and Cronulla on Saturday night was the highest-rating NRL game ever broadcast on Fox Sports.
"I think the numbers reflect that they've gone from five to eight games," Malone said.
"You'd expect that increase if you're putting 66 per cent more games on air. I think it's been an expected increase for Fox. The unexpected benefit for us has been during the Origin series."
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/rug...for-nrl-money-well-spent-20160905-gr9558.html
