Sky viewing figures are down

therecklessone

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,6903,1340127,00.html

As yet unpublished data obtained by Observer Sport show viewing figures for Premiership matches aired live on Sky this season are down dramatically on last season and are at their lowest for 10 years.
Viewers for the 25 live games screened before this weekend averaged 1.048 million, 22.7 per cent down on last season's average of 1.356m, 16.2 per cent below the 1.251m average for the same period a year ago and the smallest since 1994-95, when Sky had millions fewer subscribers than today's 7.5m and the average number of viewers was 973,000. Is over-supply causing over-familiarity among fans?

Well, is it?

I've watched two full matches this season, and I've only watched one of the highlights programmes on Sky on a Saturday night. TBH, the Premiership is starting to bore me silly. There's too much crap like the Battle of Old Trafford II, Moaninho at Chelski bemoaning defensive tactics (last two games aside its the pot/kettle/blackar*e combination), awful refereeing, highly paid primadonnas executing Olympic standard dives and all the rest.

Yes there's been a few illuminating moments like Andy Johnson banging them in for Palace and Everton amanaging to get halfway towards avoiding the drop in their first 11 games!!! but those moments are increasingly drowned out by the histrionics from the rest of the league.

Anyone agree?

KdjaCL

There is no such thing as a good league with great games every week , in every country its the same couple of decent games a season with mostly crap football in between. Just Sky got lucky and showed some cracking games and then hyped up the rest of the league.

This seaosn i seen bugger all PL and lots of Spanish 9al them i think ) due to work and its hasnt been great really. Think football overdose is the problem , luckily i still have pats to see how bad it could get on tv.

kdjac

A Dub in Glasgo

Are those Sky subscriber figures the ones for Sky Digital with Sky sports? I would have imagined a lot of people can't be bothered to pay the increasing package cost to get the Sports. I selected Sky Sports just for the Champions League games and I will revert back to the family package after Christmas. I have watched 2 live EP games, curiously enough I have watched 3 live La Liga games since I took the Sports package in September.

Roar

To be honest i got sky in for the football, but I don't watch much, mainly because i work every weekend. i mean, more often than not the games on monday are always rubbish, so i don't watch them. I watch spanish football, although only when real play, and the champions league coverage during the week is excellent.

but as for the premiership, I don;t really watch it. The only prem game i've watched in full was Chelsea/Liverpool, and that was only because i was sick from work.

maybe it's because the premiership just doesn;t interest me as much as i thought it would?

and anyway, it's better to watch games live and in person, instead of on the couch/barstool

A Dub in Glasgo

Roar wrote:

and anyway, it's better to watch games live and in person, instead of on the couch/barstool

Totally agree with that although you do see more of the incidents watching it on the TV

por

I wonder are the 25 games mentioned on Sky 1, 2 or 3 only or on Sky and Prem. Plus. ?
Prem Plus have a lot more games this year, many of them at 12.30pm and\or 5.30pm on Saturday. Last season these games were on Sky 1, 2, or 3 and they were the games I watched most. Last year I bought the 40 game Prem plus season ticket for €50ish, however this year it's €70 ish (for more games) but I did not bother getting it.

Boro

Then again, its possible that loads more people are watching the games in pubs where the number of viewers wouldnt be counted.

Is it possible that skys own 'match of the day'-a-like (forget the name) is just too good? Maybe people prefer to wait for the highlights later on?

therecklessone

por wrote:

I wonder are the 25 games mentioned on Sky 1, 2 or 3 only or on Sky and Prem. Plus. ?

I think its for all the matches shown.

Roar wrote:

and anyway, it's better to watch games live and in person, instead of on the couch/barstool

Average attendances are down as well. Sky claim this is due to the reduction in average capacity (three relegated clubs have higher capacity than the three promoted), but there's evidence to suggest that English footy fans are finally sick of being ripped off. 6000 Everton season tickets not taken up as a result of a price increase?

on the pitch Everton are doing better than last year. Yet they sold just 22,000 season tickets in the summer - 6,000 down year on year - and that was when Wayne Rooney was still a Blue.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1334980,00.html

Jaysus, I paid £46 for a ticket for Spurs vs. Charlton next Saturady (bringing the uncle for his 60th)...that's €70+ for one match, and hardly a glamour tie...

therecklessone

Boro wrote:

Is it possible that skys own 'match of the day'-a-like (forget the name) is just too good? Maybe people prefer to wait for the highlights later on?

Having an affect on the Beeb anyway. MOTD is down 8% on last season's ITV offering.

Roar

Boro wrote:

s it possible that skys own 'match of the day'-a-like (forget the name) is just too good? Maybe people prefer to wait for the highlights later on?

football first isn't it? to be fair it's excellent

thejollyrodger

No matter what the english say the Premiership is NOT the best league in Europe. It still relies on pace and physical attributes rather than skill or technial ability.

Look at Bolton for example, loads of long balls and long throws !!

Put a few Eircom League sides in stadia like the ones in England, have the same numbers in attendences and you wouldnt know the difference


Personally I think the best league to watch has to be La Liga and the Champions League if thats allowed.

Sky is a bit expensive though for what your getting.

Jivin Turkey

As regards the people in pubs point. I know lads that go to the pub for the day now every saturday. For the last few weeks there has been a match at 1245, 300, and then 515. And why not?

£46 for a Spurs Charlton ticket is taking the piss.

Boro

Jivin Turkey wrote:

As regards the people in pubs point. I know lads that go to the pub for the day now every saturday. For the last few weeks there has been a match at 1245, 300, and then 515. And why not?

£46 for a Spurs Charlton ticket is taking the piss.

Done that the odd time - and you forgot the premiership @ 7pm just to make a day of it

Jivin Turkey

Boro wrote:

Done that the odd time - and you forgot the premiership @ 7pm just to make a day of it

I did indeed. I play football so I usually only get down for the late game and the premiership, and my liver is still calling out for mercy. I dont know how the lads make a day of it!

uberwolf

I remain in hope that the fall of the Murdoch empire is nigh, I've often been tempted but have never relented. Pay-per-view is a terrible abuse and rip off, you pay to connect, you pay the subs, you pay extra subs for sky sports and then you pay per view as well?!? AND then you have to watch ads - WTF!!!! delighted with these figures.

therecklessone

Also be advised that last Sunday's Battle of Old Trafford II was the 2nd highest viewing figure Sky Sports has got, 3.5 million or thereabouts.

ButcherOfNog

Skys 'Football First' is great, means i see almost full coverage of all Liverpools games, then i can catch the highlights of the rest of the games on MOTD.

impr0v

I'm working from home at the moment so I got sports in and have watched every pl game they've shown live (don't have xtra/prem plus) about three la liga games, most cl games, some carling cup, one championship game, all prem games rte have shown live, and missed motd once i think. Without my contribution their viewing figures would be a total disaster.

byte

The technology used to guesstimate the viewing figures is crap anyway, IMHO.

The Muppet

uberwolf wrote:

I remain in hope that the fall of the Murdoch empire is nigh, I've often been tempted but have never relented. Pay-per-view is a terrible abuse and rip off, you pay to connect, you pay the subs, you pay extra subs for sky sports and then you pay per view as well?!? AND then you have to watch ads - WTF!!!! delighted with these figures.

Got to agree with that. I always took prem plus but this year they upped the price for it and I think the figures show that has backfired as uberwolf says Sky are trying to charge us twice if not three times for the same thing, .

eirebhoy

90% of the matches I watch are to see how the Irish are getting on. I watched Man City - Norwich last night for the sole reason of seeing Willo Flood. If he wasn't playing I wouldn't have watched it. I know Dunne was playing but a centre half is not going to keep me watching for 90 minutes. Flood got man of the match and scored a cracking volley BTW.

I don't think I've watched a full match this season without an Irish player on the pitch. I've seen all live Carling Cup games as there's been at least one Irish player playing.

sikes

therecklessone wrote:

Jaysus, I paid £46 for a ticket for Spurs vs. Charlton next Saturady (bringing the uncle for his 60th)...that's €70+ for one match, and hardly a glamour tie...

well i will see ya there!! i will be in the south stand row one with the an irish flag!!

therecklessone

Nice one!

We got West Lower over in the corner with the North Stand.

Gangway 16, row 8 (sans flag...)

Ardent

Found this article on Football365 and I feel the latter part of it is quite indicative of where football is at. I've been at a few Premiership games where the atmosphere was dead and there have been plenty of empty seats in the ground. It doesn't suurprise me that TV figures are down either, football is on TV all day most days. Saturation point was reached a long time ago. As the writer of the article suggests, people switching off may not be a bad thing - players are overpaid anyway and football needs to return to grass roots.

http://www.football365.com/opinion/john_nicholson/story_132356.shtml

'You Can't Blame Viewers For Switching Off'

The figures are in.

Just as football crowds appear to have peaked and are now showing a decline at many clubs, so the viewing figures for football on the telly have also dropped.

For the first time in over a decade of growth and expansion, the popularity of the game appears to be waning. Whether this is a long-term decline or just a blip we'll have to wait and see but unless there are major changes, I suspect the former.

Firstly MOTD. It's got nine per cent less viewers than ITV's lame The Premiership last season - a programme almost universally derided. Lineker and co have lost 339,000 viewers. So much for football 'being back where it belongs' - a typically smug, self-satisfied BBC attitude.

Currently they're telling us 'the football is not over until we say so'. No. The football is over when we, the fans say so, not you the BBC. Stop telling me what to think Nanny! The lavishly-funded BBC has smug pomposity at its woolly liberal middle-class core, which is not surprising when you have the state to enforce us to pay their income.

All of which would still be unfair but more acceptable if what they decided we wanted to watch was any good on a regular basis. But it isn't. And frankly, if they can't put a football show together that is more popular than ITV's awful efforts, then it is a vivid illustration of the nadir they have sunk to.

MOTD is a flaccid affair. Lacking passion, insight and wit. Hansen may be their only true talent but the BBC's corporation complacency has turned him into a robot that turns up, says "woeful" and goes home. Lawro is a self parody and offers little perception and zero wit.

Lineker just makes me cringe. He's more like a kids TV presenter these days. If the purpose of employing ex-footballers is because they have a special insider's views then this should immediately exclude Lineker and his litany of lame puns and other wet fartery.

So there you have it, enough reasons for people to think: "No, I'll watch some porno instead," at 10.30pm. MOTD2, despite its appalling and expensive trailers, is a better affair because it employs Adrian Chiles, who is the BBC's ubiquitous member of the working class deployed on every and any show they think a working-class type should get down with the grubby people's lives. But he does have a passion which Lineker just hasn't got in his soul. He's also wonderfully ugly. And temporarily at least they have Strach, who is always good value.

But the BBC isn't the one only losing viewers, Sky has had some of its lowest ever viewed matches this season, just 409,000 watched Bolton v Birmingham. While Sky, by expanding the matches it shows substantially, is bound to spread the viewing jam a little thinner, at least it can rightly claim to do football properly most of the time.

Except for Richard Keys. I never quite understood Sky's addiction to Mr Hairy. Never a warm or engaging character and often caught looking blankly at a guest or the camera, Keys reached an all-time low with his pathetic response to the England players' media boycott. Looking like a boy whose lolly had been licked by a dog, he was unable to think on his feet and deal with the situation. Instead he just whined.

After the Man U v Arse game he looked like someone had died. This may have been because Steven Gerrard was for no apparent reason asked in as a guest. Why does he turn up? Why do they ask him? His whole demeanour is of a schoolboy who is in the headmaster's office for getting caught smoking. Staring at the floor, nervously. He can barely string a sentence together let alone make it insightful. He appears to be the victim of a recent full-frontal lobotomy. I'm sure in real life he is charming and loquacious but on TV he sends me fleeing behind the sofa for protection.

Perhaps TV people haven't grasped the notion that the quality of the guests they ask influences the quality of the show and hence the amount of viewers who will stick with it.

ITV at least have a woman presenting programmes. Women for no good reason at all are almost wholly absent from football coverage on TV apart from Gabby and Claire on Sky. Gabby's okay, Coisty seems pissed a lot of the time to me and Andy Towshend sounds more like Bruce Forsyth every time I hear him. It's all acceptable but not exciting. It's just a pity I have to pay the BBC for the privilege of watching them on ITV. Now that is weird.

So viewership of football is down partly because of the quality of the football programmes but more important is the quality of the football itself. You can argue whether football is better, worse or the same as in yesteryear but one thing is certain - it's sold to us as "the most exciting league in the world", it's highly charged and pumped up by endless advertising and crass knuckle-dragging programme like ITV's 'Footie, bling and babes'. Shut up you feckers!

So its not surprising that the game fails to live up to its billing. And perhaps some fans think this is a bit of a cheat? As I said last week, crowds are really quiet at a lot of grounds until something happens. This is the new orthodoxy. "Come on then, entertain me you over-paid f***ers," seems to be the maxim.

And by extension the separation of the working people from the footballers' lives, makes people feel less loyal and more personally insulted if a game is poor quality.

But perversely, I don't mind if football does become less popular. It could be for the greater long-term good. I'd welcome a shift away from these days of big money and over-hyped glamour. Our national game could only benefit from a more roots-up approach, more in touch with its local communities and teams of locally-reared players would give heart and soul back to the game that has been leeched out of it since the early days of the Premiership.

So do football a favour, turn off your telly and go and do something more useful instead!

por

Ardent wrote:

Found this article on Football365 and I feel the latter part of it is quite indicative of where football is at. I've been at a few Premiership games where the atmosphere was dead and there have been plenty of empty seats in the ground. It doesn't suurprise me that TV figures are down either, football is on TV all day most days. Saturation point was reached a long time ago. As the writer of the article suggests, people switching off may not be a bad thing - players are overpaid anyway and football needs to return to grass roots.

http://www.football365.com/opinion/john_nicholson/story_132356.shtml

I still reckon the resaon Sky's figures are down is because of the increased nuumber of PPV games they are showing, people just don't want to pay the money anymore, and if the figures stay down for the whole year it will be interesting to see how many games go PPV next season, less I hope.

I think MODT2 is a great show, good discussion and all the goals from the weekend.

cournioni

por wrote:

I think MODT2 is a great show, good discussion and all the goals from the weekend.

Although they are very biased towards certain clubs.

por

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Although they are very biased towards certain clubs.

I don't support any particular club so it makes no differnce to me, so I never noticed any sort of bias.

therecklessone

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Although they are very biased towards certain clubs.

Please tell me they're not as biased as RTE are towards Man U, Arsenal and Chelsea? I haven't seen MOTD2 yet.

kilkennycat2004

This week's PPV offering on Prem plus is on special at Euro 4-50. Says it all.

Ah well Blues v St Pats tonight at the RSC & if you live in Dublin F****N Roddy deserves a b****king for bringing the EL into even more disrepute.