For the second year running, the National Rugby League
"has suffered a major ratings hit with TV audiences down by another 3.6
million across Australia and New Zealand" in '14, according to Josh Massoud of the Sydney DAILY TELEGRAPH. The final TV ratings figures for the 26-round regular
season "reveal significant drops for all three official
broadcasters -- Channel Nine, Fox Sports, and Sky New Zealand." With fans increasingly turning to social and digital media, "Nine’s
lost an estimated 2.3 million viewers across all free-to-air slots for
competition matches." That equates to a 7% "slump on last
year," which, in turn, was down 3.8% on '12. Pay-TV
ratings "are slipping away even faster," with NRL audiences for Fox Sports
games on Saturday, Sunday and Monday down 10% -- a loss of 1
million sets of eyeballs across the regular season. And in New Zealand, "where the Warriors failed to make the finals for the
third straight season," ratings were down a "whopping" 21% from 12
months ago. The "great irony of back-to-back seasons of plummeting ratings is their
coincidence with code’s richest-ever broadcast deal" -- a five-year
contract worth A$1.025B ($939M) (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 9/11).
