• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • 020 3330 7010
  • marketing@allresponsemedia.com
  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
ARM logo

All Response Media

  • Home
  • About ARM
    • About ARM
    • Meet the Team
  • Our Services
    • TV
    • Digital
      • PPC
      • SEO
      • CRO
      • Social Media
      • Programmatic
    • Offline Media
      • TV
      • TV Execution
      • Press
      • Radio
      • Inserts
      • Door to Door
      • Outdoor
      • DRTV
    • Analytics
    • ARMalytics®
  • Success Stories
    • Client Success Stories
    • TV Star Competition UK
    • TV Star Competition NL
    • Our Work With Startups
  • Content Hub
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / TV / Ratings ready to burst football TV bubble?

Ratings ready to burst football TV bubble?

17th August 2017 by Sean Sweeney

With the football season kicking off and following the outrageous transfer of a certain diminutive Brazilian, a lot of the focus is again off the field and on the financial aspect.

Broadcasters are continuing to compete for TV rights, with Sky Sports and BT having paid £5bn to show live football for three years, beginning in 2016. These figures represent an 83% and 18% hike for Sky and BT respectively, compared to what they paid three years prior – but is this inflation backed up by the TV ratings?

The increased expenditure from these two giants has to be financed from somewhere, and inevitably it is the consumer who coughs up. Furthermore, to access a full catalogue of football for the season, they will have to splash out on two subscriptions, thus leaving a disillusioned viewer finding other means to enjoy live sport; potentially illegally.

This brings into question the validity of the exponential spend of the broadcasters, and if the value exists. Looking at the ratings, and beginning with Sky, BARB report that live Premier League matches were down 14% year-on-year (YoY), a 7 year low. This is compared with a 6% decline in total viewing figures over the same period. BT Sport with its fresher appeal didn’t suffer as drastic a fate as Sky, but ratings still dropped by 2%.

Using BARB to look specifically at Sky’s Super Sunday figures in September over the last 4 years, average TVRs saw a dramatic fall in 2016, with the decrease most prevalent in ABC1 Men (down 39%). Interestingly following BT Sport’s introduction of live games in 2013, Sky ratings actually increased – but from that point they have continued to fall.

Sky remain defiant, and point to the shortcomings of BARB, whilst emphasising a 31% increase in viewing through their streaming services; which aren’t measured by BARB and may in part contribute to the falling ratings. However, the complete revamp of the Sky Sports platform would suggest a reactionary response, as they look to retain and acquire subscriptions.

Looking further ahead, despite the falling ratings, the TV rights inflation is unlikely to stop, especially with the traditional broadcasters facing further potential competition from digital giants like Amazon and Facebook. Amazon have signed up the Tennis ATP tour and are likely to be eyeing larger ventures in the near future, especially following (Premier League chief) Richard Scudamore’s ‘come and get me plea’ that football is “technology neutral”. Although, switching away from linear TV to a solus digital platform at this stage would still represent a risk to the Premier League and is highly unlikely.

All Response Media Viewpoint

The trend in reduced ratings and increasing overheads across live sport will transfer to the TV buying process. As a young-upmarket male audience becomes less accessible, the reduced supply will drive a higher cost per thousand (CPT), which will be delivered to other male programming.

As males fragment away from traditional sports programming and pay-TV packages, new targeting tools must be considered, either through advertisers shifting to higher impacting Freeview stations (rather than the lower impacting, speciality stations), or looking at other media opportunities outside of linear TV, via traditional or digital channels

Subscribe For More

Newsletter Signup

Primary Sidebar

Connect With Us

Newsletter Signup
  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

  • ARMalytics®
  • ARMLife
  • Branding
  • Data
  • Development
  • Digital
  • Door To Door
  • Gaming
  • GDPR
  • International Expansion
  • Mobile
  • Outdoor
  • Podcasts
  • Portfolio
  • Press & Inserts
  • Radio
  • SEO
  • Social Media
  • Strategy
  • TV
  • TV Campaigns Analysed
  • Uncategorized

Footer

ARM logo

The Leading Performance Media Agency

Building businesses and brands by providing clients with an Unfair Competitive Advantage.
ARMalytics®

Get In Touch

London: Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, EC1V 7EN
Phone: +44 (0) 20 3330 7000

Leeds: Marshalls Mill, Marshall Street, LS11 9YJ
Phone: +44 (0) 20 3330 8050

Amsterdam: Koivistokade 3, 1013 AC
Phone: +31 20 240 2726

marketing@allresponsemedia.com

Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Modern Slavery Policy

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Newsletter

Subscribe to receive exclusive media insights straight to your inbox. We respect your privacy.

Newsletter Signup

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

ARM logo
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our website and to enable you to use certain features of our website.

If you disable this cookie, we cannot provide you certain services on our website and we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Analytical and Performance Cookies

These cookies are used to collect information to analyse the traffic to our website and how visitors are using our website.

For example, these cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the website or the pages you visit which helps us to understand how we can improve our website for you.

The information collected through these tracking and performance cookies do not identify any individual visitor.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Advertising and Targeting Cookies

These cookies are used to show advertising that is likely to be of interest to you based on your browsing habits.

These cookies, as served by our content and/or advertising providers, may combine information they collected from our website with other information they have independently collected relating to your web browser's activities across their network of websites.

If you choose to remove or disable these targeting or advertising cookies, you will still see adverts but they may not be relevant to you.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

More information about our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy