The Championships in France finally have drawn to a close, with Portugal the unlikely champions, and we now have time to reflect on the media impact of a tournament that never really came to life.
France 2016 is the first tournament since 2002 which hasn’t featured the Dutch, and while this European Championship has not gone unnoticed in the Netherlands, the interest in the games on TV has been significantly less than in the previous two major tournaments, even for games where the Dutch weren’t playing. If we compare the highest rated fixtures from the last 2 tournaments only 2 games from France ’16 feature in the top 15, with the Germany v Argentina final seeing 13.8 more adult ratings then the lacklustre Portugal v France which was the most watched game of the campaign.
Looking at the overall channel share and average ratings for NPO1 over the period of the last 3 tournaments for all programing it becomes evident just how uninterested the Dutch public were. There was a 10% channel share difference for NPO1 from Brazil ‘14 and France ’16 and a 2% drop from Euro 2012, a tournament they perhaps wish they hadn’t qualified for after 3 losses and an early exit from the tournament.
To put these numbers in perspective in 2015 a year with no major sporting events NPO1 had an average market share of 20% so while this does represent an increase it is clear that this hasn’t been as high as hoped and inventory has become very tight.
Ster will be hoping that the last week of the Tour De France, starting next week, along with the Olympics in August will bring in the bumper figures to put them back on track.
All Response Media Viewpoint
With a large number of advertisers looking to take advantage of the tournament, the low ratings have forced Ster to deliver a proportion of their budgets elsewhere forcing out those smaller DR advertisers who are often deemed to be less important. This has resulting in availability in the months of June and July being small to none.
With the Olympics set to start in August, although this won’t be as large as Euro 2016, it is possible that problems could continue.
The only positive to take from this is the strength of the competitors, RTL offer a near comparable size in their channel portfolio and rarely struggle with availability. While Brand Deli and SBS offer a more niche audience, better for reaching specific targets. The options are out there for a strong media campaign with or without Ster.