2.2m tune in for Roosters victory in NRL grand final
Sunday’s NRL Grand Final featuring Sydney teams Manly Sea Eagles and Sydney Roosters rated a metro audience 2.179m last night – down on last year, but up on last time there was an all-Sydney final, according to preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTAM.
Last year’s Grand Final – between Melbourne Storm and Canterbury Bulldogs – rated 2.401m.
The ratings are the biggest all-Sydney clash since 2003’s Sydney Roosters vs Penrith Panthers match, Nine said. The network said that with regional figures, the audience for yesterday’s game rose to an average of 3.315m.
The audience included 1.049m watching in Sydney. The OzTAM ratings do not take in account out of home viewing such as those watching in pubs.
There should be a big caveat and reality-check around these numbers.
The OzTam sample size is 3,500 homes.
OF THOSE 3,500 homes, a proportion were tracked as watching the TV.
Beyond that, it’s all assumptions and leaps of faith.
The numbers trumpeted in millions are nothing more than wild guesstimates.
Marketers need to have a long, hard think about this, when considering legacy media like television.
I understand ratings are a yardstick for advertisers and a wet finger in the air for everybody else, but I also think the ratings for events like this should be taken with a grain of salt.
To say the AFL GF rated 2.7 million and the NRL 2.2 is hardly worth discussing. The actual figure would easily be well into the 5 or 6 millions. These aren’t just TV shows, these are social events like NYE, Australia Day, etc…
For day to day ratings it’s passable, but these figures stand out like a sore thumb.
Mike and Natas – please stay on the sidelines and don’t get into the research profession in the future.
If you really think that sampling doesn’t work and that full enumeration is the only acceptable measure then (i) you will be disappointed as you go through your working life (ii) you will probably waste lots of money and time, and (iii) I hope you never need a blood test and demand full enumeration.
Hey John Grono, I never said the ratings were wrong; they do achieve what they were designed to achieve, plus I’m well aware the sample size is actually larger than required for reporting purposes (especially given Australia’s sample size to the US for example – in Aus it’s quite generous in its numbers given population sizes).
What I was getting at is all the comparisons (and in this article no less). You can’t bring up a Grand Final ratings figure without getting it compared to the other major code. “Oh, but the NRL is smaller than the AFL – best add in regional numbers then to boost it up!” And so the circle jerk goes on and on and on… Do a search of any blog site that has ratings and see the my code is bigger than your code arguments.
What I was saying – and I stand by it – is events like these transcend normal ratings metrics due to the social nature of watching them in big groups at non traditional viewing locations. I doubt people gather together all over the country to watch Bones for example, so in that case the ratings are probably in line with what you’d expect.
Besides, the sidelines are littered with people going off on tangents about things half cocked, so thanks for coming and standing next to me!
Natas is half-right and John is fully right. Sampling definitely works and both grand finals had millions more viewers.