A bit too early to worry too much about ratings. Worry if it is like this in 2 months

Those are just normal ratings compared to the last time the NBL was on Fox, and it's currently on a channel with virtually no lead-in audience, compared to a main channel Fox Sports channel back then.

I would say 28K going up against Bathurst was about what Nine was expecting. No one makes judgements on one game, particularly given rating figures generally need a much larger sample to be considered accurate.

It's almost as if the poster thinks that's exactly how many people were watching! Perhaps we could rename this the worst thread in NBL history?

Where did these ratings come from? seems really low. There was a fair bit of social media activity etc. regarding the broadcasts (mainly their errors), would have thought they would have been a lot higher.

The CEO wouldn't be drawing any conclusions on one round, because he knows those figures will be irrelevant come years end.

The figures aren't great, but they will surely improve when given a proper channel. The product is good, people will come back

www.wildcatsviews.com

Production needs improvements and I think it will improve if Jeremy loeliger reply to my tweet is accurate

As I've said earlier, the rounds on Fox Sports News are basically a pre-season run for the coverage. Start taking notice of the ratings in a couple of months time, then they'll start having an impact on next year's coverage.

As for FTA, given the minimal promotion of the coverage has been for Nine or Gem, 28K first up on Go is a respectable figure. Not what they'll want long term on Gem, but an OK start.

If it's like that at the end of the season I'd be concerned but early days yet.

Does that include the people who watched the Live stream for free on the app? Perhaps more will tune into Fox/Nine once they have to pay for the stream.

Im telling you right now, no one even looks at channel 500, if they are channel surfing for sport they are most likely going to click 501 and search up from there.

I do not believe for a second that only a couple thousand people out of over around 6 or so million fox subscribers watched.

What is it with this 'proper channel' stuff? It keeps popping up, as though the new channels are in some way secondary. It's not about the channel, it's about the promotion. And the [viewing] pattern - i.e., people knowing when to look where.

I knew yesterday's game was on but it wasn't in the printed program I was using and so went looking for it - albeit at 3 p.m., not 2.30, when it started.

But Ch93 is as much a 'real channel as Ch9, Ch24 is as much a 'real channel' as Ch2, and so on, even if Ch7 hasn't quite worked out that, with three channels, they can actually run three different programs.

Get over it and find out [& watch] the game where and when it's on.

This forum would be better on Reddit, then a post with actual links and facts would be higher up and not lost in the discussion.

Link to sources or GTFO.

The concern for me isn't that they're low, it's that they're trending down. If you've watched one NBL game, you know where to find the other NBL games. And people aren't coming back. That's not a good sign at all.

On the other hand...most TV guides didn't bother to list the NBL game on Go!, Bathurst was on, and they still managed 28,000. That's impressive.

"What is it with this 'proper channel' stuff?"

It's simple POP, they're currently being shown on a channel that doesn't usually show live sport and which has an extremely low viewership, so there is a very low chance of anyone coming across it who wasn't actively looking for it.

As for trending, remember that these ratings are an estimate, the viewing habits of a couple of thousand households extrapolated across the entire metro population, so on a sample of seven there can't really be a trend.

BTW POP I'm referring to Fox Sport News above, as others have, with the proper channels being one of Fox Sports live sport channels.

Am I the only one who goes to the TV guide and presses 5 when looking for sport to watch?

And that argument doesn't really fly when game one rated so well.

How do you know they only had 4000 viewers?

What does that have to do with anything?

Koberulz, I also go to 5 but I never theme click on FSN unless I'm specifically looking for scores to a particular game played that day/night. Shows on low-rating channels usually rate low, especially when they're a product like the NBL which has a small following.

Previous post was directed at the Anon asking about marketing for the game on Go!

paul, if you're looking at the sports section of the TV guide FSN is right there at the top. People are going to see what's listed there.

And again, game one rated well. So people are obviously aware of the NBL being on that channel, and haven't tuned back in for other games.

We don't know the real ratings, but they are low, as expected when the deal was struck so late it had to be put on Fox Sports News, a channel which has been known to rate zero.

If they are this low at the end of the season it will up likely up the price the NBL will have to pay to keep all games live significantly. If they improve to, say, 20-30K per game maybe it becomes closer to cost neutral? If it improves out of sight maybe the NBL can ask for some rights money?

Moral of the story is what happens later in the year will matter, not in the first month of a new deal.

Those low numbers are so hard to believe, i did my part and watched every single game. Crowd at United game was huge!

It's not really that surprising, because no one is watching the channel beforehand, the only viewers are NBL fans with Foxtel who hunt the game out, and not many of them are going to watch all seven games in a week. It possibly didnt help that the first game, which is always one of the highest rating games of the NBL season, was really poor.

"Television is a business not a charity."

Which is why the NBL is paying for coverage, something that won't change without better ratings once the coverage flicks onto the live sport channels.

Does Foxtel have ratings boxes? They're all connected to the Internet/phone line/whatever anyway, so I wouldn't think they'd need to?

Will the games be shown on foxsports1-5 at all?

Have we actually established that the NBL *is* paying for coverage?

Yes, I believe their ratings come through the same or similar system as the FTA channels.

Give what up man?

Koberulz, my understanding is production costs are being shared, so yes, the NBL has to fork out. I imagine the point of the review after year one of the five year deal is to assess if that distribution of costs is fair, whichever way, and adjust coverage and/or costs accordingly.

I doubt that review will even discuss these early ratings though, there'll be far more relevant data at hand from later in the season.

If those people don't have ratings boxes they don't count. The ratings extrapolate from around 2000 households to give national figures.

I wish I knew! Had a call two years ago to see if I was willing to have one. I said yes but never heard from them again. My household probably would have doubled the weekend's ratings!

Here are the facts.

* One week in
* On an obscure channel few watch
* First season back on Fox
* A league which is still fighting for respect
* Each game (other than Townsville) had decent crowds - further cutting into Foxtel viewership.

Are you really surprised that ratings haven't been that great?

I would say 28 K on GO when up against Bathurst and there being NO promotion is actually encouraging.

The Go! number is fantastic, yes. But the Fox numbers after the first game have been low, which is a concern given the first game rating so high.

If the trend was up, or if it was just low overall, you could say people just aren't aware yet and it'll build. But that's not what's happening.

There is no trend yet. Let's wait and see.

There is no trend yet. Let's wait and see.

As I've said earlier, the ratings at the moment are purely showing people who tick all three necessary boxes:

1 an existing interest in the NBL
2 a Foxtel subsription
3 a ratings box

We all know that number is low. The max was probably the maybe 10-12 viewers with boxes it took to produce the 18K figure on Weds (my maths, apologies if wrong).

The test comes when you move to the 501-505 channels and expose it to a wider audience.

At the moment that will be a struggle as interest in the NBL is small, hence why the production needs to be slick, constantly showcasing highlights and personalities to draw in new viewers.

"Either way, the "people don't know it exists" argument doesn't hold much water, and it's not a good sign."

My post above addresses this. It's not like masses were watching on Weds, more like a dozen people with boxes if my maths is correct, probably dropping down to 0-4 for subsequent games. Someone may know specifics of numbers.

No, Fox Sports News is one of the lowest rating channels, sometimes rating a zero. The ratings on 501-505 are much higher, hence why that will be the test.

It has started on this channel because the deal was done late and the spots on the main channels booked up.

I would like someone to find the numbers for Fox after the A league was immediately taken over and run correctly. I am sure it took a season or two to gather momentum.

Just re Fox Sports News ratings, if you look at the weekly reports they have a consistent primetime audience share of 0.1, which means 0.05 to 0.14.

The other Fox Sports channels are consistently between 0.2 and 0.6, but go as high as 1.0. In terms of actual people, A-League broadcasts can get over 100,000, but are usually in the 30-60K range.

So the main Fox Sports channels have from 2-10 times the viewer numbers of Fox Sports News. That's why it's best to wait until the NBL heads onto 501-505 before drawing any conclusions.

But that's because there's nothing interesting on. It's not an inherent problem of Fox News. And the rating for the first game demonstrates that people know it's on.

Not saying that low ratings aren't a concern, but I do agree that we should wait for the season to settle in, and to get to the proper sports channels before hitting the panic button.
I know when I'm just doing some channel surfing for sport, I press 501 and then head upward from there.

There'll be no point with excuses, just realities, if it rates poorly it will drive up costs for the NBL and probably drive down revenue from sponsorship.

"And the rating for the first game demonstrates that people know it's on."

Koberulz, the first game was probably watched by 10-12 people with ratings boxes, there is nothing to suggest a lot of people know it's on.

You take a supporter base that's relatively small.
You put it on a subscription television station so that it further condenses the field.
Then you put it on a News station (not a station that you would generally think would show actual games), so that even if someone was inclined to watch it, they likely wouldn't think to look on that station to see if it was on.
I don't know what the advertising for the games were, but you'd have to assume they weren't great.
Those numbers are clearly appalling, but you have to look at the reasons for those numbers.
It was given a set of circumstances that were just completely unlikely to have a positive result.

Just not an exciting enough product at the moment.. now if we had 2 James Ennises on each team, that might change.

The Melbourne game was also on during a fairly critical period in the Bathurst race. I'm a massive NBL fan and I was finding it difficult to tune away from Bathurst to watch it.

Spot on Hendo. Now we should all cross our fingers and hope things improve in a few weeks when it goes onto the channels which sports fans actually watch, because if it doesn't improve by the end of the season we may be back to the 2-3 games per week we're used to next year.

On the whole, the foxtel coverage deal is good.
I don't have foxtel, and I'm not about to subscribe for what it would cost just to watch AWAY games, but that's my choice.
At least somebody who does is guaranteed EVERY GAME LIVE which is awesome.

Someone up there said it is not exciting enough a product. It pains me to say, that so far, it hasn't been.

I love the league; I love the game. But most of the games this round I have had to labour through to watch til the end. I think the refereeing needs to be changed to allow a more free-flowing game. I also think that what we think to be a 'wealth of talent' doesn't weigh up to be as great as we think in the scheme of things.

Out of the Aussies in the Melbourne U and Illarawarra game, who is exciting? Goulding? Yes. Blanchfield? Maybe. Outside of that, there is skill but there is not exciting.

The NBL is a league filled with role players. There are a few imports and a handful of aussies who are better than that, but most NBL players (90 percent I dare say), are solid, but unspectacular.

While this topic is, as some have said, way too early considering lots of things, Paul's comments on Fox News vs 501-503 are spot on IMO.

It will be really interesting, considering what the previous poster said about clever scheduling, to see what happens when the NBL is head to head with Big Bash.

"Maybe in the Wednesday there are more people flicking around to the news channel because there's no live sport on. This is what LK was targeting with his clever scheduling"

This is exactly what the previous head of the NBL (name escapes me now, sorry) was saying with his idea of games during the week. I know that he also wanted to play those games in smaller venues, but that also could've worked.

Of course there were a LOT of NBL fans freaking out about that idea. I thought it would've been worth a try. This league needs to think outside of normal Australian sport traditions, because it can't compete head to head it seems.

On the standard of the league, I watched the 2nd half of the MEL v ILL game, and to be truthful, I was pretty bored even though the game was close-ish. I was basically sticking with it purely to see Warrick play (that was barely worth it either).

I'm not pessimistic about the future of the league, but I don't think it will ever be a BIG sport again down here. I think aiming for an "alternative" sport (for want of a better word) is what they should be gunning for. If that means games on Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs to get rid of viewing competition, and boutique venues occasionally, then so be it.

On ratings boxes, we had them in our house when I was younger. One with every TV in the house. They were very annoying, and after a few months, easily forgotten about. Not sure if the tech has changed since then, but I often forgot to input the fact that I was in the room watching whatever I was watching.

http://www.botinagy.com/blog/keep-calm-ratings-arent-what-you-think/

Boti's take on the so called ratings.

The sentiment is spot on, but in terms of how ratings are collected its not quite correct. The ratings we see for Fox come from the same OzTAM monitoring system as the FTA ratings.

This page explains the basics: http://www.oztam.com.au/OzTAMServices.aspx

FTA ratings come from 3500 households divided between the capital cities and Pay TV ratings come from 1413 homes nationally.

I don't think I can ever take ratingss serious after knowing how small the sample rate is. Honestly how the hell can 3500 homes give an accurate indication of what 20million people are watching on TV.

suckd in basketball in aus is crap..even football beats it and you stupid skips media always bag football..face it aus is shite at everysport alive and hell even afl would class in that category...overweight fatasses from NBA that are 40 yr old arnt guna bring viewers,..i hope foxtel makes a massive loss on nbl its more pathetic than cricket crap but yet australia media will force us to listen and watch that garb 24/7 like they do with AFL aus f@ggot league

LOL! This is what happens when some dude gets his sister pregnant.

I will try to decipher what I believe our poster Jacks is trying to say, here goes:

'You have all been hoodwinked into believing basketball is rated more highly in Australia that football, yet the foolish Australian basketball media always seems to criticise football.'

'I am flabbergasted at how poorly Australia plays sport, even the AFL is a poorly played sport on the world stage in my opinion.'

'Why is it that retired NBA players are seen as the answer to viewer ratings in the NBL, I am not unsure this is the answer, however I am totally unqualified to suggest an alternative?'

'It is obvious that the Australian media loves its cricket, however I don't like it and in fact I don’t like any Australian content on the TV, especially Foxtel because I cannot afford it due to the overbearing cost of cigarettes and beer!'

'I have a headache because I watch too much sport, oh and by the way the AFL is really my secret happy place.'

Regards to everyone, love Jacks

...than football...

bugger!