Footy: it's a dying fad
Posted September 15th, 2009 by debritz
I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's a myth that Australian are sports-mad. The latest evidence comes in the TV ratings that show 330,000 south-east Queenslanders watched Channel Seven's coverage of the Riverfire fireworks on Saturday night -- and that's on top of the estimated 650,000 who actually went to the event. In comparison, just 284,000 people watched TV coverage of the apparently crucial Broncos v Titans "local derby" NRL game and only 64,000 watched the AFL. In other words, give people something else to do and they'll drop the footy like a hot can of Fourex. All of which also adds ammunition to my call to bring back Warana so we can have even more free community events that don't involve boofy blokes behaving badly. The stats should also tell our politicians that they shouldn't be pumping so much money into football stadiums and sports sponsorships and instead put some of their millions into things the rest of us want (like a restored Regent theatre).
Brett, I guess accurate statistics, are also a dying fad in the "old media". Even I know comparing Riverfire (which is half a hour long) to a 80 minute football game, is like comparing a 101 year old giant, with a ten year old ant.
Perhaps, the reason 650,000 turned up, because they were scared Seven would chop the broadcast to bits.
In fact, listening to Triple M, provides one with better coverage, than Seven, where you hear it from a import from down south. I'd much rather the Riverfire coverage been a tribute to the station's fiftieth, with Boris and Mike Higgins on hand, rather than a glorified promotion for Sunrise.
As for the stats, Brett, which makes it a level playing field, with the Broncos-Titans final...
Seven's figures for the NRL finals slot:
Riverfire Pre-Show Seven 244,000
QBE Riverfire Seven 333,000 (up 89,000 from Preshow)
The Great Outdoors Seven 110,000 (down 223,000 from Riverfire)
Average of that slot, 229,000.
Fire up your scientific calculators!