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Opinion
We need to talk about the ratings.
The A-League Men relies on TV money but no one is watching. Will Paramount and Channel 10 pull the plug?
The opening match of the season, the Big Blue between Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory, drew a healthy audience of 90,000 across the five-city metro market, but by Round 2, the weekly fixture on 10 Bold was pulling just 54,000 — a drop of 40-something per cent, according to ratings service OzTAM. Then we go to Round 3 and only 23,000 watched the Melbourne Derby.
Since then all of the games on Network 10 have not rated at all and to top it off, no Sunday games have made the media ratings threshold as yet.
Meanwhile on 7mate, the WBBL clash between Brisbane and Perth had 82,000 watching this Saturday and the ALM had no showing.
Besides Adelaide and Brisbane Roar, the rest of the clubs rate well on free-to-air TV from old numbers, so should the APL push poor viewing teams out to try and win the audience back? It’s something the old FFA did with its first FTA dealings in not having any Wellington games on SBS.
I’m kind of lost for thought on why no one is watching the A league Men, other than it’s not entertaining enough for the general public.
We could blame the big clubs for not playing an attractive style of football – looking at you, Victory and WSW – but the finger-pointing would not stop there. VAR screwing teams over and holding up play and the scheduling don’t help, and some more big name players across the league would pique a little more interest.
So, how do 10 and Paramount feel about these dire ratings? Surely they would have to be crunching numbers knowing they purchased a lemon. Ten has so far dumped the ALM onto its second channel after just one season. Okay, they added a second game on a Sunday to grow its audience base but it’s not bringing in the viewers.
Ten are in their second year of the $300 million contract, however I can’t see them sticking with it. I give them one year tops to pulling the plug if ratings don’t show any improvements.
Even crowd-wise the game is in dire need of improving, but that’s another story.
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