Melbourne Cup down on last year but Seven claims 300,000 people watched on live stream
The number of people who watched the Melbourne Cup on live TV went down this year with 2.068m viewers tuning into Channel Seven at 3pm.
However the broadcaster is heralding the success of its live streaming app which launched yesterday which it said had 300,000 concurrent live streams of Michelle Payne’s historic victory over the internet.
Live stream of the Melbourne Cup on @Channel 7 was the largest online event of its kind in Australia. 488K streams. https://t.co/fB3hBASwnk
— 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) November 3, 2015
Oztam preliminary numbers show 2.068m metropolitan viewers watched Michelle Payne’s historic victory on traditional television, down on last year’s result where the race had 2.122m, although the figures do not account for people who watched the race out of home. Clive Dickens chief digital officer at Seven West Media told Mumbrella the significance of the live streaming numbers was broader than whether the TV audience was up or down. “This was around changing perception around the ability of people to enjoy live TV on their mobile,” said Dickens. “It wasn’t really about the three or five minutes it was about how among those 480,000 people who watched throughout the day – a significant portion would have done that for the first time. “I’m sitting here looking at our stats today at 9am and we are massively higher today than any previous day because people not realise ‘hey I can take Sunrise with me at the airport’ .
Congrats to team – 342,765 live concurrent streams during 5min Mel Cup (source Akamai) 480,000 over whole race day. pic.twitter.com/jzWSh6vz8U — Seven West Media (@sevenwestmedia) November 3, 2015
Dickens
The result is the lowest race result for terrestrial television since Oztam began in 2001 and well down on the historic record set in 2012 where the race had a metro audience of 2.741m viewers (confirmed times).
However, Dickens noted that the size of the live streaming audiences now needed to be taken into account alongside Oztam audiences.
“The Oztam preliminary numbers show 2m plus people watched the race (on terrestrial TV) plus another 300,000 – the point is that 300,000 is very likely to be out of home, on mobile and very unlikely to be in a lounge room on a TV.”
The Seven digital boss noted Oztam’s next step would be giving the market those cross-media numbers.
“Oztam are weeks away from their (cross-media) offering, and with Nine now coming to live streaming as well, this is an important moment for live television and events,” said Dickens.
Outside of the horse racing Seven’s Erik Thomson drama was the most watched non-news program in prime time with 1.151m metro viewers, up on last week where it drew an audience of 1.027m.
Seven’s the X Factor also beat The Block in overall audience at 7.30pm with 1.102m to 1.033m, but Nine’s renovation show beat its rival across all their demographics.
While on pay-TV The Great Australian Bake Off was the most watched show with 81,000 viewers on Lifestyle Food.
In news Seven News won the night with 1.245m compared with 993,000 for Nine in the 6pm slot, while at 6.30pm Seven dropped to 1.171m while Nine rose to 1.002m.
Seven had the highest main channel audience share with 24.9 per cent while Nine had 21.5 per cent, Ten had 11.7 per cent and the ABC 10.5 per cent.
Nic Christensen
Top 15 Shows
1 THE 2015 MELBOURNE CUP CARNIVAL: MELBOURNE CUP-THE RACE Network Seven 2,068,000
2 THE 2015 MELBOURNE CUP CARNIVAL: MELBOURNE CUP-RACE PRESENTATION Network Seven 1,788,000
3 THE 2015 MELBOURNE CUP CARNIVAL: MELBOURNE CUP-THE MOUNTING YARD Network Seven 1,300,000
4 SEVEN NEWS Network Seven 1,245,000
5 SEVEN NEWS / TODAY TONIGHT Network Seven 1,171,000
6 800 WORDS Network Seven 1,151,000
7 THE X FACTOR-TUE Network Seven 1,102,000
8 THE BLOCK -TUE Network Nine 1,033,000
9 NINE NEWS 6:30 Network Nine 1,002,000
10 NINE NEWS Network Nine 993,000
11 THE BIG BANG THEORY -TUE Network Nine 958,000
12 A CURRENT AFFAIR Network Nine 923,000 290,000 280,000 188,000 62,000 103,000
13 THE 2015 MELBOURNE CUP CARNIVAL: MELBOURNE CUP-LATE Network Seven 884,000 1
14 ABC NEWS-EV Network ABC 859,000
15 HOME AND AWAY Network Seven 823,000
Audience Share
Network 7 24.9%
Network 9 21.5%
Network TEN 11.7%
Network ABC 10.5%
Network 7TWO 5.4%
Network SBS 3.8%
Network 7mate 3.8%
Network Gem 3.6%
Network GO! 3.2%
Network ONE 3.1%
Network ELEVEN 2.9%
Network ABC2 2.7%
Network ABC3 0.6%
Network ABC News 24 1.2%
Network SBS 2 1.0%
Network NITV 0.1%
Total Audience Share
Network 7 TTL 34.1%
Network 9 TTL 28.3%
Network TEN TTL 17.7%
Network ABC TTL 15.0%
Network SBS TTL 4.9%
Data OzTAM Pty Limited 2015. The Data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM.
First, congratulations on the 300k+ Melbourne Cup streams – around 1.4% of Australia’s population.
But the readers need to be aware that the TV data provided is not the full picture. And no I am not referring to the public place and office viewing that OzTAM does not report – mainly because it is not financially vIiable to include it just for the Melbourne Cup (and similar events.
The TV data is just that of Seven Network owned entities.
For the full picture the Seven Regional numbers (i.e. Prime) need to be included. The Race averaged 816k on Prime in the Regional markets. Plus The Race was shown on Southern Cross in Tasmania (the shared second commercial FTA channel) and averaged 53k.
So all up The Race was watched live by 2.937 million people in Australian homes plus who knows how many in pubs, clubs, offices etc.
Also, the 342,675 reported is the peak minute of 15:05 (AEDT). The peak TV minute was 15:07 (AEDT) which saw 3.069 million in-home viewers.
So why the myopia in focusing on adding in the streams when you had over 900k Regional TV viewers at your fingertips? Because Seven doesn’t get the ad revenue from them?
User ID not verified.
One thing in streaming favour is that you can see ALL of the numbers watching, Not just a snapshot – like Oztam or Nielsen….
User ID not verified.
Gary, if only that were true.
In the case of the Melbourne Cup – because it is a few minutes – it probably is true.
But once you stream longer form, how do you KNOW that someone is at the device watching? A stream is a device count – not a people count. It is actually the maximum possible audience if the device is a one-person device. (If it is streamed to a TV set you may have the whole family around the set – you simply do not know).
Also, the majority of stream data is based on streams starts or streams at a point in time. It doesn’t indicate the average viewers across its duration – which is the most likely audience figure for any given minute and a proxy for planning and buying.
User ID not verified.
Question – could Clive tell us how much money he made from that stream – not cynical but if he refuses to detail or uses it as a promotion tool – maybe he should back back and do some basic maths ?
User ID not verified.