Hi Richard

Didn't soccer grow crowds again last season to nrl levels?

I have no idea what the viewing figures are for the highlights of the 2 leagues.
But for the live games SL gets roughly 30% higher viewing figures than the AP.

, s
That may or may not be true, my point was that the Aviva rugby is seen by many more people each week on TV than Superleague is. If you're trying to sell your product, surely you want as many people as possible to see your product?

I know you're a troll so I shouldn't respond, but you have the viewing figures for the SL Show vs the RU highlights package I assume? Even though it is ghettoised in most of the country, the SL show still gets very reasonable figures in the north of England so there is little reason to think the RU equivalent, shown at similar time slots, would be significantly more popular.

How do you know that the AP is seen by many more people each week on TV if you don't know what the viewing figures are?

If you do know what the viewing figures are then why are you pretending you don't know them?

The only broadcaster in the UK for whom audience figures carry little weight is the BBC. It has a certain "guaranteed" income plus anything extra it gets via programme sales and merchendising etc.
All the rest rely on advertising and/or subscription charges.
To that end the rate card and socio-economic groups come to the fore allied to viewing figures.
If you look at the advertising during programmes you will see who the advertisers are aiming at. Although not an exact science it is pretty well on the mark regarding interest and returns.
If you look at the adverts say in Skys coverage of RU and SL I would suggest the mix maybe somewhat different ,although Sky seem to believe that RU interests most RL followers and vice versa. The rate cards will be different even if the same advert is shown. Take for example a Range Rover, it might be of interest to some followers of RL but outside the financial range of most , but probably within the range of most who would follow Union. The advertising rate would be dictated by potential returns so even if the audience for League exceeds union by double, the actual return could be less for the advertiser but the rate paid less than for advertising for a bigger market share for them in the Union slot.
Also note that Premier Sports shuts down on Saturday afternoons whilst Mo & Ron Balls game is on. They know they will not get an audience at all so no advertiser will pay either.
So whilst audience figures matter, they are only a part of the story. Just think that the NFL can fill Wembley and Sky promote the game to the hilt along with C4 but what is the advertising rate and who actually advertises? IMO it's a rubbish game to watch in its current form but then a sport that has to tell the audience what is happening each time is hitting it's socio-economic groups quite well I would suggest.

I still think we should try to get ITV or channel 4 to show some games after Sky have had their pick you never know it might work

Blah Blah Blah

Is Leaguefan still pushing the "league is only watched by poor people" argument?

[uRugby Union TV rights/exposure[/u
BBC - Six Nations (live), Wales autumn internationals (live), England Autumn internationals (highlights), Scotland Autumn internationals (live)
BBC Wales - Guinness Pro12 (live)
BBC Scotland - Guinness Pro12 (live)
BBC Northern Ireland - Guinness Pro12 (All Ulster matches not covered by Sky Sports live)
BBC ALBA - Guinness Pro12 (live)
ITV - IRB Rugby World Cup 2015 (live + highlights)
ITV4 - Aviva Premiership (highlights), Anglo-Welsh Cup (highlights)
S4C - Wales internationals (live), European Rugby Champions Cup (highlights), Guinness Pro12 (live), Anglo-Welsh Cup (live), French Top 14 (highlights), Principality Premiership (live)
Sky Sports - IRB World Sevens, IRB Junior World Championships, Women's Rugby World Cup, British & Irish Lions Tours, England Autumn internationals (live), Ireland Autumn internationals (live), France Autumn internationals (live), Italy Autumn internationals (live), The Rugby Championship and SANZAR Tests (including tours to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa by England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and France), European Rugby Champions Cup (live), European Rugby Challenge Cup (live), Guinness Pro12 (live), European Rugby Challenge Cup (live), Anglo-Welsh Cup (live), RFU Championship (live), French Top 14 (55 matches live), Live Super Rugby (Aus, NZ, SA), Currie Cup (live), ITM Cup (live)
BT Sport - European Rugby Champions Cup (live), European Rugby Challenge Cup (live), Aviva Premiership (live), Premiership Rugby Sevens Series (live)

[uRugby League "ghettoised" TV rights/exposure after 2017[/u
Sky Sports - Super League (live), Challenge Cup from 2018 (live - assuming they can be d), Afterthought Internationals from 2018.
BBC North - Regional weekly highlights with Tanya Arnold and a selection panel of limited intelligence monotone northern accents broadcast around midnight or even later.
Premier Sports - NRL, Origin (live, or rather 10 seconds behind a live internet feed on Bet365) and in less than standard definition on a par with the 1969 moon landing coverage in terms of picture quality. Only until 2017.

All it took was the offer of an immediate sweetener payment of £300k to each SL club (apart from Koukash's club) for them to all roll over to have their bellies tickled. TV deal done and dusted until 2021



Good luck to the increasingly marginalised sport of Rugby League as it retreats into the ghetto of Sky Sports coverage on a Thursday night and whatever other irrelevant time slot or red buttoned obscurity Sky may deem appropriate.

No.

All I have tried to explain is the system of how it is currently. How you interpret the information is down to you alone.

All sports are watched by a cross section of people, everyone's interests are different ,but if by utilising a simple statistical technique like Pareto analysis, and advertising rate fixers and social economists do, you find certain "truths" then those who control things will react accordingly.

Sometimes ......

Well considering we don't have any top Welsh, Scottish or Irish teams then they'd be no interest in BBC Wales/Scotland/NI/Alba or S4C in wanting any RL which would leave us with the BBC main two channels. Even they can't get the live Autumn internationals of England RU even and for all the talk of Sky's scheduling of RL it pales compares to the shifting around of the CC to suit the BBC's wishes (something you've bemoaned about many times btw). The only reason football and International RU are on the main BBC channels and ITV is because those events have to be. If Sky were allowed to have those then the football and RU would gladly take their events to Sky or BT and leave no exposure to FTA channels.

ITV has very little interest in having sport on their main channel apart from the ones on the 'Crown Jewels' list. We might (if they were even interested which I doubt) get a midnight slot for a highlights programme much like the current BBC One......is that really worth it or great exposure?

You like to mention the Darts/Thursday night thing quite often. There's a sport which can be found on BBC and ITV4.....yet in reality they've done little for it exposure since the PDC and Sky blew it up big time. Another sport and one you're a fan of, cricket. It's dominated by Sky yet does absolutely fine.

That leaves BT Sport, well more people have Sky so people can't really argue exposure and then say we should go to BT.

Has anyone seen the newest Sky Sports advert for 2015 featuring all the sports they show including RU, American Football, boxing, golf etc and closing with the tagline "more of the sport that matters"? The only notable absentee was RL.

I blame the editor of the daily express

For your own mental wellbeing, please find another hobby. I have never seen a post from you that is not utterly negative. It cannot be healthy to dislike everything about your main interest. You must have hated the Four Nations.

There is one positive, I guess: only a few weeks until you get to cast your eye over the opening week attendances.

The irony is, I guess, is that someone did buy Salford, and is discovering that it's dying!

Bring back Winter Rugby, Scrumdown highlights show on ITV & delayed "live" broadcasts of the 2nd half of CC games.

Those were the days!

There is one reason for this, Jon Wilkin went around it a few weeks ago, the British weather, the elite talk about these things obviously, RL needs good weather, you only have to see most of the matches in Aus, only the very very best can play good football in poor conditions, like the Manly v Melbourne match in march 2014. But as Bill Harrigan says, "Each week you'll have one very good match, one very poor match but most will be somewhere in the middle.

As has bn said b4, RL suits indoor artificial pitches more than any other sport, and we need more of them down, why don't we contact David Rockefeller and ask him to pay for an 80,000 capacity (NOT all-seater) indoor stadium with a 4g pitch in Sheffield for us, to play the SL GF there and all internationals?

In fact it actually said "More of the sports that matter", after listing Premier League, Champions League, Football League, Capitol One Cup, Formula 1, The Ashes, International Tests and ODIs, ICC World Cup, US Masters, Boxing, NFL and 'European Rugby'. This honestly seems like a deliberate snub and an intentional slap in the face to RL.

The level of paranoia on here is quite alarming

You could well be right!!!

People see/read/hear things and pass them on or comment.

What's that all about?



As another piece of conspiricy, and to keep the Daily Wail types happy, have you noticed that RL ALWAYS follows Union on the Sky ticker at the bottom of the screen and that when RL gets to the front or nearly they go to an ad break.

They seem to do things in alphabetical order but U before L!!!!

Right.

Because RL is clearly more important than the US Masters. Or Formula 1. Or the Ashes.

Seriously, take your tinfoil hat off and give your head a shake. The SL regular season is not an event in the same way that these are. The only one I might query is European Rugby, given that some of these games will be the likes of Glasgow vs some obscure French side in front of 6,000 people. But even then, the Heineken (or whatever it is these days) Cup final is every bit as big an event as say the SL Grand Final for example.

I havent watched SSN for a few years now,does that still happen?