https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/a-league-ratings-down-but-20181030-p50czl.html

A-League executives are reserving judgment on declining television ratings until streaming figures are available and a clearer picture emerges of just how much the viewing habits of football fans have changed in a shifting technological landscape.

Two rounds into the new campaign, ratings on Fox Sports are down by approximately 31 per cent on last season. It's a concerning fall, particularly given there was also a sharp 24 per cent decrease last season, but there are several mitigating circumstances.

For one, crowds are up in both the A-League and W-League, which indicates wider interest levels in the game haven't simply nosedived. Foxtel subscriptions have been on the slide as audiences flock to services like Netflix and Stan, while Optus' recent purchase of the English Premier League rights has impacted on how fans of the round ball game spend their money.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests there has been a significant take-up of the new My Football Live app launched by Football Federation Australia this season, which offers Telstra customers free streams of all A-League, W-League and FFA Cup matches.

Greg O'Rourke, the head of the A-League, said FFA would not receive data on how many times matches have been viewed through the app for another week or two, as collection methods are not as sophisticated as they are for TV ratings. The numbers may not be released publicly if Telstra deems them to be commercial in confidence, but O'Rourke is hoping they will neatly explain the shortfall.

"It's a bit of a wait and see," O'Rourke said. "Every streaming view is obviously going to close that gap. We have to wait three or four weeks to see if it's doing as we had forecast or whether or not we've got more work to do in that area."

Foxtel is poised to unveil their own response to the streaming revolution. The pay TV giants are expected to roll out a platform which CEO Patrick Delany has described as the "Netflix of sport" in the coming weeks. It could allow punters to access competitions like the A-League at a much lower price point than through a traditional cable connection.

Meanwhile, the governing body is considering a few tweaks to the FFA Cup which could take shape next season. O'Rourke confirmed the FFA was contemplating whether to hold the final before the start of the A-League, rather than two rounds in as is the case this year.

FFA is also trying to work out how the allocation of Cup berths will be affected by A-League expansion. All 10 teams from the top tier currently enter the tournament in the round of 32 but with two new clubs due to join the A-League in either 2019-20 or the season after, it's not clear how they can be accommodated without diminishing opportunities for NPL clubs. Some state federations, including South Australia, are petitioning for greater representation in the FFA Cup, so any reduction would be met with fierce resistance.

"Foxtel is poised to unveil their own response to the streaming revolution. The pay TV giants are expected to roll out a platform which CEO Patrick Delany has described as the "Netflix of sport" in the coming weeks. It could allow punters to access competitions like the A-League at a much lower price point than through a traditional cable connection."

This is good news, I am happy to pay Foxtel a reasonable price for the quality football service they provide, what I am not prepared to do is pay overs to pay for their beefed up AFL/NRL and Cricket deals.


If I can access the A-league on fox for under about $20-30 a month then I will.

Doesnt make sense

Ratings are done on a sample of ~2200 households. Thats it. Nobody else has an impact on ratings

This article suggests households selected to be part of the sample are ... what?
Turning off Foxtel and watching the game through an app instead?

Ridiculous

I was under the impression that Foxtel are able to track metrics directly via their boxes - it's only FTA which is the averaged number across households.

So exactly 47,000 people watched the game?

Hard to believe they wouldn't know exactly what channel the boxes are on at any time. I'd say the 47k is a rounded number.

How many people in the house watched it?

Why arent attendances rounded?

isn't as easy as that - plenty of people turn the tv off but leave the box on. Or switch the TV over to FTA and the box is running in the background. For all Fox would know, that prime time sport slot on Sundays for NRL is people watcing Dancing with the Stars with the box still on in the background. That's why you need proper ratings data.

Always got an excuse. 

What excuses? You mean the reasonable explanation on when he expects to receive the final figures?

Greg O'Rourke, the head of the A-League, said FFA would not receive data on how many times matches have been viewed through the app for another week or two,

You're saying it's reasonable

The Tech Expert says it's a lie.

It does matter if it's the truth or lie, whether it's accurate or not or whether the data can be collated instantly or longer.

If FFA haven't got it from Telstra they haven't go it.

So its an excuse. 

Excuse for what? It's a quoted reported statement of a factual event.

Was it 50c extra to get the SMS and Greg forgot to tick that box ?

Perhaps, just perhaps Telstra did  not want to release the info yet, if indeed it was available. Either way the world won't end if it comes out a week or two later.

Somewhat typical response from our media so so so so so so lacking in any depth or understanding, it's IMO so sad as our media is very often so quick to criticise as if they are Gods with eternal wisdom ... it's also adds to a narrative of hopeless management ....   so we have a journalist now saying he understands how to measure streaming and all the teck heads, nerds, analysis's etc must be hopeless ... OR is it the journalist who is never used to being questioned about beyond stupid writing... 

Consider some of  streaming measurement difficulties ....

You can get someone who is watching live and decides they want to check a post the see has been sent so they go away for say 10 minutes and come back...  on TV the leaving does not show...

So how do you measure do you count a 5 second view as a view or does the watcher have to not turn off ... and then you have the delayed viewer who watches after the game and stop's a couple of times and re starts... when do you stop counting the next hour after the match, next day, next week, next month ... and how do you measure what is a viewer how long do they have to watch.... and all this is somewhat new especially to our Telco's and advertisers ...

Football's demographic is young and it seems our supporters would be more into streaming than pay TV or FTA TV...

It's the techhead making the statement, is he wrong ?

I have said what I think some of the issues are.... have a chat to ""TheSelectFew"" he did an outstanding job over two years on NPL ratings... and he will tell you some of the difficulties in web ratings just teh difference between facebook and youtube numbers on the same game... 

 

I simply used the data that accumulated total all viewers who watched the broadcast for over 5 seconds. As for anyone watching the broadcast at the one time, there is a red. It is really up to the source to tally up what they deem to be relevant data.

These are pretty poor excuses. Let me put it to you this way. Would you ever go up to a company, ask for millions of dollars and when they ask for data you reply 'i dunno'. You'd get laughed at.

Neither of them are probably wrong in this instance. 

For instance Stuart Randall (SBS) told me yesterday that during the World Cup there was a contrast between the data SBS were getting straight off the encoder, and what the analytics companies were telling them. Its likely to be true here as well - more so, Im not even sure the FFA would even have access to the back end as its a Telstra, not FFA, operation.

Technically there is no reason they wouldn't know the exact number of people watching at any one time.
They would also know how long they watched for, how many times they reconnected, maximum number of people watching at once etc.
How they want to quantify the results is a decision that once they make, the final ratings will be calculated within seconds.

There is no technical reason preventing the data being released.  The technical reason is not technical but political.

When Bein was an add on for Fox and I went to get it switched off, I told the guy on the phone I was switching it off because I wasn't using it enough he gave me a list of all the things I had been watching and said I seem to be using it a fair bit.

Seriously? Them having data about how many people are watching each show is fine. Them having data on exactly what I watched less so. Them allowing any damn employee access to that data is a huge invasion of privacy.

As someone currently working on a streaming platform for a large media company, it's really not all that difficult. Telstra could easily give FFA numbers if they wanted to.

Even for broadcast, you get the ratings in first thing in the morning. This includes broadcast and digital. There are then updated figures released after a week, and then a month to account for people watching on demand, but these are not considered important. Note that these are for official ratings from OzTam. Unofficially you know immediately for streaming, because you have all the analytics data.

As for people switching to twitter or something for a bit and returning, it doesn't matter. You know it's the same viewer. 

Yeah. I find it a little BS that you can't get viewing numbers from a digital platform. They simply aren't getting the info or releasing it for whatever reason.

it seems clear that the numbers are shit and they are sitting on it until this news cools off a bit

Greg wouldn't fib about this, paulc says so.

Telstra will know precisely how many people are streaming their content. Exactly +/- 0 with no argument (if you disagree with that statement just go and google the topic, it’s all out there).

Telstra though will be very guarded on that number and may not want it published because it allows competitors to put a value on it and potentially compete with them in future years.

If I were the ffa I’d want some facts to know if my lost viewers are changing platforms and whether Telstra will provide it though is another question.

The Derby got 169,000 across ONE/FoxSports plus another 6,000 streamed on GO apparently. That’s 175,000 plus MyFootball .. let’s say 200,000 in total but spread across 4 platforms - that’s a huge change in how the product is valued and divided it may be worth significantly less than a single buyer.

Waz

No offence but you seem to have fallen for the same line as the post that essentially took a screen snap of who was watching.

Let me use myself as a streaming example.... Between my business and my two homes I have Five Optus mobiles, three land line numbers, and three unlimited internet connections so am a reasonably large customer so they give me the EPL for free... my team in the EPL is Liverpool...

If on early I will stream but if on late I will watch latter and sometimes nay often watch latter in two or three different times.... I will sometimes watch other teams and sometimes watch an entire other game that Liverpool is not playing... I often look at the weekly highlight packages .

So how are they going to measure my viewing live during the game or only if I sit thu and entire game latter on... or can they somehow add up maybe 6 or 7 different times I may click on to watch the complete Liverpool game and do they take off when someone is injured and I skip forward.

Simply look at the difference between facebook and youtube views ... facebook count for nano second....

What seems very easy is far more complex and as the article says thy are still trying to work it out.

Most of those arguments have the same or similar problems measuring using tv ratings so they are moot

Exactly, why trust one but not the other ?

I think someone above hinted that the number of devices streaming is different to how many are actually watching, it's not a one for one relationship, so you can measure the number of devices accurately, and the time watched to the second, but that's a different number to the number of people watching

How does standard tv ratings measure this?
They would be able to use the same method with probably a smaller multiplier.

Regardless of how they measure it, it will be much more accurate than standard tv rating guesses

I'm not saying one or the other is better.

The standard survey does collect info on who was home watching the TV, for example, a rating of 50,000 might represent 25,000 households (with 2 per household watching the show in question).

The streaming data is extremely accurate, I said that, but only as far as measuring individual devices - it does not measure how many people are watching whatever is getting streamed.  Is anyone trying to measure that?  I don't know.

Anyway, the streaming numbers I've seen so far are not huge, which is a big surprise.

@ Mid.

You’ve maybe got a confused argument going on. Let’s separate the two out.

First off, is the number of live streams (and later downloads) - This number is known exactly to the nearest “1”.

That was my point so let’s not confuse that with the second argument which is valid:

The second argument is, even if we know exactly how many streams are going on how can we determine how many people are watching. The answer is, you can’t.

OzTAM will have a numeric value that each “viewer” is equal to x people which presumably has some basis in fact, but even then OzTAM don’t know whether 1 person is watching FoxSports or whether there’s a Party going on and 25 are watching it (or even if no one is watching it and the set top box has just been left on).

That will be relevant to the ffa if the streaming numbers don’t equal the FoxSports fall off.

There’s an additional bit which I’m not sure I understand but the platforms being used provide extensive reporting that include total number of streams, average viewing length, number of times people drop out and come back, the duration they leave for, when they leave eg do they drop out at half time and come back for the second half or drop out when an Ad is shown. The available meta data is huge, but it can’t tell you how many people are watching the screen (although it’s a mobile device so likely to be low eg one)

https://mediaweek.com.au/history-of-a-league-ratings/

The data below, which is an average for every match of the season, including finals, shows season 2012/2013 was strongest with an average over 70,000.

A-League season average on Fox Sports:

2005-2006 – 42,054
2006-2007 – 55,465
2007-2008 – 69,745
2008-2009 – 63,792
2009-2010 – 54,018
2010-2011 – 44,968
2011-2012 – 65,789
2012-2013 – 74,659
2013-2014 – 65,109
2014-2015 – 59,749
2015-2016 – 55,193
2016-2017 – 63,422
2017-2018 – 51,169

thats some disgusting data analytics.. the big boys are all on real time now...

I signed back up to FOX NOW for the new season which i run through my playstation or watch on my PC.

I'm sure there are many more that do this as well, not sure if we are being counted.

FOX do need to start a new service though. Optus have shown them how far behind they are and they need to get up to speed or lose customers.

Watching the games on demand is a prime example. If you don't catch it live, you can't watch it later until they broadcast it again, usually at 4am in the morning.

Unacceptable.

In the grand scheme it doesn't matter why people aren't watching the games on Foxtel, all that matters is that they aren't...  When the next negotiation kicks off, Fox won't be happy paying the same for fewer viewers than before.

That's why it's important to know why ratings dropped now and give time to tackle the problem.

I think the ratings will bounce up irrespective.

It seems that the current stance is they've all gone to streaming services - if that's the case it's unlikely they will come back to tv...  They may switch to an alternative streaming service if it's cheaper - but in order to be that cheap one would think the provider wouldn't be keen to pay top $.

The trend over the last couple of seasons has been down - the standard on the pitch doesn't seem that different, VAR has damaged the game - hopefully removing it/reducing its use will reverse that damage, the marquees aren't pulling audiences in.

I don't see the ratings improving any time soon - which means the next negotiation will be tough no matter who handles it. The 'new' FFA have been left with a big shit sandwich to chew their way through before things get better.  Championship & pro-rel won't save the game by building the A-League up, they will save it by providing an alternate, cost reduced, model - that will be less dependent on the tv deal - for the A-League owners to transition to.

I think there's been a general downturn in interest across the board except attendances.

Just need to look how poor this forum is attended compared to a few years back. Interest is down for whatever reason.

I'm confident ratings will go up but we'll see and compare notes again in a year or so.

traffic in the forum is a fraction of what it was about five years ago
once upon a time, you'd be onto the second page within a few hours to look up the latest posts, not anymore

Forums are dead, they were critical in the foundation years to coordinate fan support and give us a place to discuss our passion when the rest of the media ignored us but  frankly the worlds moved on. The next generation are going to move onto social media with #sokkahtwitter and Facebook groups where they know they can directly interact with journos and club driven content.

Unwanted changes to this site since the transition to "insidesport" didn't help and coincided badly with the feeling of staleness within the league. People are just bored, i don't blame that most of the regulars have fucked off as they are probably also sick of discussing the same old shit for the last 10 years. 

This can't be understated.

P&R will fix it

this pretty much sums up the feeling most people I know have about the HAL, hence the ratings drops.

Are all the people you know AFL fans who never had an interest in the "HAL" in the first place, like you?

no, all are football fans and actively involved in local & NPL clubs, but unfortunately finding the repetitiveness and recycling of the HAL less interesting by the day.

Wow you know 5 people or less that don't like the A-League? Mass hysteria!!!

50% drop in Foxtel viewers over 2 years, FTA numbers have collapsed so low they are no longer reported, and that's the best reply you have.

FFA has set criteria for clubs to satisfy to compete in the A-League.  Although apparently higher than the FIFA and AFC minimum standards mandated in 2016 these higher standards, by FIFA Regulations, automatically become the standards used for Australian clubs to qualify for the ACL etc.  Will the reduced cost model established through the start up of the second division result in clubs being able to meet the established standards in Australia to qualify for the ACL?  If they don't is there a mechanism to reduce the minimum standards required for Australian clubs?  It would go against the purpose of the setting of minimum standards which is to improve the professionalism of clubs but for more sustainable football it might be worth taking the one off hit to minimum standards especially knowing that FIFA intends to ramp up the minimum standards over time so we wouldn't be locked into lower minimum standards long term.

Sounds like Greg's about a month behind before he can even sit down and think of a new brain fart

Maybe their production is the problem?

Same reason people left SBS in droves when listening to the same drones.

-PB

FFA and all the media outlets will have to get their heads around what is happening.
It's too easy to say viewers have dropped over 50% over two years and correlate that with a loss of 50% of people who used to watch football.
Clearly there is more going on than anyone knows at this time.
If crowd figures are hitting all time highs and viewers are down 50% ,then a lot more research needs to go into what is happening with viewers.No media outlet that wants to be successful in the future can afford to just assume the problem is the product(in this case football).

People are still watching games and paying up to attend games in as big a numbers as ever before.They just aren't watching it on tv like before.




Maybe the football people are still subscribed to FOXSPORTS but arent tuning in .If that's the case then the product is the problem.


However maybe they have dropped their subscription?
That means FOXSPORTS aren't selling HAL the right way..ie.... its too expensive .
People are no longer prepared to pay a premium to watch the HAL ,when they know they are paying for 90% content they dont need and can get from NETFLIX.

I am sure FOXSPORTS know more about this from their own data.

I like this forum i think twitter is really overrated can't get into it 

yeh, take it or leave it

most of you blokes have a very high knowledge on what's going on learnt a fair bit here