Week ending 4 April

Sky Sports 1

Live Super League: 307,000 (Friday 14:46)
Live Super League: 189,000 (Thursday 19:56)




Fri 19.30 Guinness premiership SS2 59,000
Sat 17.00Guinness Premiership SS3 80,000

and they still get more money!?????

Mind you didn't the BBC used to get a couple of million for CC games and they paid a pittance for them?

How could union get more if RL kills it on every corner.

Because Sky don't care about viewing figures, just subscriptions. Despite the stats in a Marketing world RU is seen as more effective to get people to sign up for a subscription. Therefore they pay more for it.

How is that calculated ?

not true either

the advertising rates during RL are more than union reflecting the greater viewing figures. so less money, more advertising = more profits.

when sky is looking to cut funds, it will not be rl it picks on

very cheap and 2nd most popular football code behind soccer

You have to factor in the social element of these decisions. The people in senior positions at the BBC/ITV/SKY will all be on 6 figure salaries and will not be the kind of person (Sweeping generalisation I acknowledge) that would appreciate RL. Rugby Union enjoys a large degree of corporate protection as there will always be people in senior positions who will fork out for 'ruggers'.

I remember one of the recent Rugby Union TV deal negotiations. There was only one broadcaster who were in for the rights.(The BBC I remember, as ITV were suffering financially/restructuring at the time). Despite this the Beeb paid a record fee for the rights and they spend millions advertising and promoting it.

Even if League attracted 1 million viewers on Sky and Union 5,000 they would still pay more for Union.

Another interesting point is how much more appealing the Saints-Goons derby is than the Airport game.

The reason they pay more is for those lovely bore fests involving England at home in October.

end of the day you cant polish a t**t

eventually marketforces have to come into play

as long as RL deliver double / tripple the number of viewers then it will get a tv deal that dwarfs union

social bias doesnt make money, especially with such awful viewing figures

I agree entirely, but just watch the outcome of the next round of negotiations in both sports.

Not in the uk it wont

So the SL game was a kick off just after lunch whilst the Vichyball was prime time?

people said the nrl wouldnt match or beat the AFLs deal and its going to happen

i dont know about next time but as long as SL delivers such large numbers of viewers it has a healthy future

one day someone at sky will realize union is a waste of time and offer them peanuts. then their clubs are stuffed

indeed if SL can keep growing viewers it will be even better

when 2 GP games get as many viewers as the least watched SL game then union is in lots of trouble with its bargaining position re TV.

why bother with such a sport which delivers such poor tv ratings?

Seems strange that Hull KR v Hull FC didn't rate more than 181,000 yet 307,000 tuned in for Saints v Wigan. You'd assume the majority would watch both?

Saints v Wigan is a sporting glamour tie that draws in the neutral and casual RL watcher.

Hull KR v Hull is only of interest to the die hard RL fan and those wihtin spitting distance of Humberside.

Yes but it was the Hull derby!

Exactly.

Apologies if I've missed it, but where are the ratings for the Hull derby?

Thats the point I've just made. It didn't even rate in the top 10 and they only release the top ten for each channel.

Not necessarily..........I had work committments which prevented me from watching the Hull derby, whereas I was at home for the Saints game.

Because it's not just about the GP........... Sky also show lots of other RU, and I suspect that it's all part of the "deal".

Because, as Saddened pointed out, you've got to take into account the social aspect. RL is viewed as a minority sport anywhere south of the M62 thanks (in part) to the fact that the people in charge of things (media etc) usually are southern, and have usually gone to public school (see bottom of my sig) where RL isn't exactly high profile.

For example take the Wigan v Leeds game a few weeks ago. It was the biggest sporting event in the country that night and there was no mention of it on the BBC news at 10, or even on that sportsday programme on the BBC News Channel despite finding time for a piece on disabled curling.

We usually don't help ourselves, but this is the kind of thing we're up against.

different time slots?