SKY VIEWING FIGURES... - *source barb.co.uk (Weekly Top 10s)

2014 viewing figures updated to week ending Sep 07, 2014

Regular Season
2008<----- down by over 12%

Play-Offs
2008

Grand Final
2008

World Club Challenge

Championship
2008: -565k/11 = 51k
2009: -985k/21 = 47k
2010: -764k/14 = 55k
2011: 1,309k/20= 65k
2012: n/a
2013: n/a
2014: n/a

There's a downward trend.

Cool.

So shall we give the RFL some credit for mixing it up next season to arrest the downturn, or moan about the lost opportunities to capitalise from the 2013 RLWC ?

This being RL, moan.

Nothing to see hear upon closer inspection except that adding Catalans home matches to the Sky schedule will decimate your average.

An example, Round 11 Leeds vs Wigan post an impressive 245,000 on the Friday, Catalans vs Salford gets us 66,000.

A reoccurring theme of SL Saturday games (which were the Catalans ones) making the top tens for that week but being comfortably below 100,000 nearly every time.

We shall give the RFL no credit for keeping RL club participation restricted to northern English clubs (with one exception) for 2015 on. We shall give the RFL no credit for failing to fulfill a past promise to bring in more interesting foreign club teams like Toulouse and Avignon, and for allowing the crucial non-northern English team London to fail.

That is why viewing figures in the UK are so small. Rugby league is a game mostly played by northern pit villages and mill towns. That is why British sports journalists look down on rugby league: the game is a parochial joke, not a serious international business like football and rugby union.

Beat me to it. Can I have the 15 mins back I just spent looking, please! lol

But isn't that because Catalans Saturday games were on early, and were rarely on Sky Sports 1 or 2, but instead on Sky Sports 3 or 4 or the Red Button?

Found 8 Catalans home games, average viewing figure for them.....82,250

What? You don't mean the facts have been spun by a certain poster so as to try and make it seem like there is a significant decrease in viewers in order to create a negative story?

But that doesn't sound like the OP, or RL fans in general to be so miserable and negative.

You'll be telling me next that someone has spent the last 6 years recording the attendances to prove that adding 2 clubs with lower than average attendances to the league has brought down the average.

The 'extra' Catalan home games on Saturdays must have dragged this year's figure down quite considerably? What is the figure if you don't count them

Yeah I know, it's all quite shocking isn't it.

As you'll know, the Barb/tv figures are quite a flawed thing to look at anyways as you can only record the games that made the top 10.

Saints vs Leeds at Langtree Park earlier this year took place on a busy week of football and didn't even make the Top 10, which was rounded off by a figure of 226k for the 10th most watched programme that week on SS1. So whilst it didn't make top 10 it would've still made quite a strong number, high 100's, possibly over 200k.

In July Wakey vs Widnes not only made the top 10 for that particular week, it finished as the 3rd most watched yet only attracted 87k.

I know the same issues will have faced the other seasons but you can't be sure to what extent, it just shows the whole pointlessness of using the agenda he's trying to do.

SKY will still be happy with that figure as the Catalan games are costing them barely anything to cover, as the pictures are from French TV with some graphics and commentary shoved on top.

In before ap comes back with more twisted stats to back up his argument.