Why do people keep commenting and keeping these threads alive? Just ignore them. It's just boring.

Ironic as I am myself commenting I know...

I'd be interested to know how many people subscribed to Sky Sports in 2008, compared to now.

Let's be honest, Billy could have quite easily made all this up. What right minded person could be bothered getting their abacus out and checking the sums? Even if I wanted to I wouldn't have the time! Have you considered night school?

Is that what I'm being charged with?

Is this a witch hunt?

ThePrinter is still investigating the numbers on the BARB website to see if there's a case to answer.

He'll report his findings in due course.

Let's hope his investigation is a damn sight quicker than a RFL one, eh?

Nope just had a look at the Catalans ones really as those were the ones that sprung to mind upon seeing the seasons total. The general looking at this years numbers but not putting them into a copy and paste speed sheet like yourself is that the middle part of the season was slightly disappointing when the Premiership football was on. Just looking at the fixture list alone, the season has ended with quite a few big matches between the top sides and we had quite a few early on. The number of big clashes on Sky during the 'summer' months could've been much stronger but the fixture planners seem to have preferred to load up the end of the season to either A, take some attention away from the CC....B, go into the playoffs on the back of some big exciting clashes to whet the appetite.

We've also seen some of ridiculous choices with regards to games picked, Leeds and Saints both at home to. London rings a bell.

If you say so. I'm confident your agenda for checking out the viewing figures on the BARB website were entirely honourable




The middle part of the SL season is during the Premiership soccer off-season! However, you are correct in pointing out that Sky viewing figures during the summer months (or middle of the season) appear disappointing. This is a trend which is replicated every season I've looked at from 2007 onwards though it appears more pronounced in 2014 for some reason. For instance, Friday night SL games which produce the highest SL viewing figures compared to any other timeslot recorded 87k, 86k and a 96k in June this year. July was 110k, 97k, 119k and 120k.

The viewing trend is -----> highest viewing figures at the beginning of a new season (just like attendances) during Feb/March which then tail off in April/May as early season enthusiasm wears off. They then plummet even lower during the summer months. It isn't rocket science to work out why that's the case as folk embark on summer holidays and indulge in summer activities. SL attendances are also lower during the summer months for the same reasons.


Fixture scheduling will have some detrimental effect on viewing figures for sure, just not as much detrimental effect as the summer months do.

It is to be hoped the current "double whammy" downward trend is turned around next season as the increase in the number of big matches throughout a more relevantly structured regular season is replicated by an accompanying increase in aggregate attendances and higher viewing figures.

I don't know the stats for sure but this is a guess from recollection slightly but we do seem to have more and more games played on the Friday night. For example when Cas played Saints at home early on in the season, it was a great game that Saints won at the death.....we also had 4 other matches taking place that Friday night. Some big guns as well, Wigan, Leeds, Wire and Bradford all at home so straight away you're lobbing off the roughly 40k who attended those matches instead of being able to watch the TV game.

Sometimes they get it right. Leeds vs Wigan the only game on a Friday night back in May (245k), Wigan vs Saints in June likewise (202k)......you start adding 2/3/4 fixtures to the same night then you start lobbing off a few thousand each extra match hosted.

I know clubs have preferred game days but as we know Sky get their way. I find it strange they don't ask for the Friday schedule to be pretty much a single game night to maximise the potential RL fan audience actually watching.

Double-edged sword. For me, it should be one Thurs, one Fri and rest of the non-TV games played Sunday.

However, clubs will argue that their commercial income will be reduced by moving games (although it could be argued they'd get more families and fans on Sunday games) and so the RFL wouldn't want to implement anything which may damage the income coming to clubs and the financial strength of the game, understandably.

That said, I do think it is disappointing as I do believe more fans would travel to Sunday games compared to Fri night trips down the 62. And TV games would generate more viewers too, which can only be good from a branding perspective to clubs and Super League itself.

All the big clubs... Leeds, Wigan, Saints, Warrington and Hull... are all committed to Friday night home schedules when they are not on TV.

Most of the other teams prefer Sunday afternoon home games.

I assume they've all done their market research into the optimum timeslot for maximising their home attendances?



It's not an issue I'd considered but one would assume that both attendances and Sky viewing figures would benefit without the distraction of other SL fixtures taking place at the same time.

Don't know where you have got your information from William but Warringtons home games are usually Sunday afternoons when not on TV.

Saints play on Fridays to maximise hospitality income.

I am not too concerned with figures for two reasons.

1. There was about 6 weeks where i think there was only one top 4 v top 4 match, which would have dented the figures (top 4 in tv terms: wigan, wire, saints, leeds)

2. Football world cup would have taken some viewers/ if people watching a lot of football, less time for rugby.

However you spin it there is still a downward trend from 2012

Not sure why I said Warrington played Friday nights when not on TV. I think probably because my perception is shaped by seeing them on TV quite often playing in that particular timeslot, hence the error.

Same number of fixtures between those top 4 teams are televised by Sky every season since 2009. When those top 4 fixtures are scheduled makes little to no difference whatsoever to the overall season viewing figures.


There was a soccer World Cup in 2010 when England actually made it through to the knockout stages, yet Sky viewing figures for SL were higher back then.

To all you stattos with more knowledge than me on the subject:

Has the change to Thursday nights affected figures in any way? How do viewing figures compare to the Saturday 6pm games over the years?

Comparative viewing figures I have for Thursday and Saturday viewing figures are as follows...

[uSuper League fixtures on Sky (2008-2014)[/u
Saturday SL fixtures: 13,888k/108 = 128k average
Thursday SL fixtures: 3,243k/23 = 141k average

SL attendances appear to be affected more by Thursday night timeslots. 22 SL fixtures played on a Thursday this season saw a 10.6% fall in comparison to the same fixtures last year. That figure of 10.6% also compares unfavourably with an overall fall of 4.9% in SL attendances in 2014.

Total attendance for 22 Thursday night fixtures in 2014 = 193,901
Total attendance for same fixtures played in 2013 = 216,988
% decrease = [u-10.64%[/u

[uLargest comparative attendance losses relating to the above figures were...[/u
Wigan V Warrington - 20050 to 15656
Wakefield V Bradford - 8084 to 4049
Warrington V Wigan - 14028 to 11550
Wakefield V Widnes - 7543 to 3932
Leeds V Huddersfield - 15013 to 13104
St Helens V Warrington - 14715 to 12854

[uCurrent Viewing figures for 2014 are...[/u
Friday: 3179k/20 = 159k
Thursday: 1886k/15 = 126k
Saturday: 1373k/13 = 106k (mostly Catalan)
Sunday: 316k/2 = 158k
TOTAL: [u6754k/50 = 135k[/u

Erm... could it also be that some households can no longer afford Sky Sports packages etc....

My household is one of these, and I know many others who no longer subscribe - there are many reasons why attendance/viewing figures are down, we all have different lives/lifestyles

According to more recent reports, Sky's subscriber base has reached it's upper limit of 10.5 million (5 million HD customers) and any future increased profitability needs to be based upon a strategy of flogging extra services to existing customers like HD packages, phone line and broadband.

Sky do not divulge information with regard to how many of those 10.5 million current customers subscribe to Sky Sports packages but it's a reasonable guess that if their subscriber base has reached it's upper limit, it's unlikely that Sky Sports subscription packages have nosedived in the opposite direction. My guess is that it's movies which tend to get dropped first when people are feeling the pinch (after all, sport is the new opium of the people these days), which may explain the bombardment of offers available for Movie packages.

Has Premier Sports had any effect on these figures - showing 8 NRL games per week?

I would imagine subscriber numbers are relatively low but I cancelled Sky Sports in favour of Premier a couple of years ago and know quite a few other that did the same.

I guess people get fed up of paying their subscription fees to essentially fund football and an extra euro football channel

I also cancelled Sky in favour of Premier Sports. Is William Eve a RL fan? I only ask, because he seems to enjoy ragging the game.

To be fair there is plenty of choice

Do we even know how the viewing figures are collected and collated? By that I mean is there a difference between you or I sitting at home watching any game just because we are RL fans, there's nowt else on and we are in charge of the remote and someone gathering a group of friends and saying let's not bother with the M62 on a work night, I don't fancy watching on my jack let's all go down to the pub/social club to watch a big draw game?

Sky's viewing figures are down right across the board, not just RL. So it's something they need to look at themselves.

Can you provide evidence to back up that across-the-board assertion of yours?

I'd be genuinely interested to see data which provides proof of that.

The sad fact is, you actually would be interested!

I was wondering, do you have stats on how the percentage of one-legged Serbo-Croats called Ivan that own a ginger cat and work as a car park attendant, who view Boots n'All while eating a kebab has varied over the last decade?

www.barb.co.uk/resources/tv-fact ... 98-09?_s=4 Knock yerself out! Though I should have thought with the massive proloferation of channels, it would be obvious that each individual channel will get a smaller percentage of the total without someone demanding proof, lmao! bSkyb themselves have gone from what 4 or 5 channels to over a dozen.

www.barb.co.uk/resources/tv-fact ... 98-09?_s=4 Knock yerself out! Though I should have thought with the massive proloferation of channels, it would be obvious that each individual channel will get a smaller percentage of the total without someone demanding proof, lmao! bSkyb themselves have gone from what 4 or 5 channels to over a dozen.