Just as the AFL and the Ten Network are puzzling over the drop in viewers for the first round of this year's finals, the National Rugby League and the Nine Network aren't too keen to talk about a little secret of theirs.
A drop in the audiences for the Friday Night Football and Sunday Afternoon Football telecasts in Sydney and Brisbane this year compared to 2003.
The fall off in viewing will add to the feeling amongst advertisers that the week in week out broadcasting of sport has stopped growing. And even the finals matches and the State of Origin show pieces (NRL) seem to have plateaued.
But in the present strong advertising market, that's not a concern. Time has to be bought and its scarce.
But when advertising slows and the pressure lifts on time slots and 'avails' become more a problem for the networks, then those softer audiences become a concern and will have to be explained away.
For Nine and the NRL worry is the regular season broadcasts. They are a gold mine for Nine. The Network (and Kerry Packer driving the deal) only paid around $13 million a year for the pleasure of broadcasting the game. That's chickenfeed and works out to less than $100,000 a game. The Foxtel deal is separate, but Nine has the whip hand and can pick and choose which games it covers each weekend. naturally it picks what it thinks will be the most attractive (even with the five week ahead gap).
That leaves Foxtel with some good games, but most of the also run matches. Naturally, production costs each week drive the figure higher. But Nine is an expert at reducing or controlling Outside Broadcast costs and sharing them with Foxtel helps.
Oztam figures show that in the season just finished, an average 413,500 people watched the Friday Night Football in Sydney, compared to almost 441,000 in 2003. That's a fall of 6%. Not nasty, but still an ouch!
In Brisbane, the other major market for Rugby League, the fall was 10%, from 247,600 average in 2003 to 223,100 in 2004.That was the largest fall. With the Brisbane Broncos still doing well in the competition, its a bit of a blow to the NRL and Nine. Perhaps its the better success of the Brisbane Lions AFL team that's hurting league?
For the Sunday games the fall isn't as large, but it is an easy nevertheless. Sydney Sunday Afternoon League games were watched by an average 284,900 people in 2004 regular season, down 5% on last year's average of 300,900.
In Brisbane, a similar story. The 2004 average figure was 205,100 compared to 211,700 last year. That was a fall of 3%, the lowest of all. The NRL finals start this week and viewing figures will be of considerable interest given the drop in the season just passed.
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