Australian Football League's Attendance Figures Improve, But TV Audiences Decline

The "delicate balance between football's live and television audiences has been underlined" by figures showing that, while Australian Football League crowds in Melbourne are "up marginally on last season, TV audiences for games have declined," according to Rohan Connolly of THE AGE. A "more fan-friendly fixture with bigger games between traditional clubs in day timeslots" has produced a "marginal increase" in crowds in Melbourne, where the average so far this season is 39,038 compared with 36,948 last year. But that "appears to have come at some cost" to the TV audience, where average viewing numbers in Melbourne are down 5% on last year. The cumulative numbers show that Perth is "the only capital city where viewers of live game broadcasts have increased," while Brisbane, with both the Lions and Gold Coast, has "performed poorly" and is down by as much as 15%. Australia-wide, taking in telecasts "on both the free-to-air Seven network and pay television's Fox Footy," numbers are down by 9% (THE AGE, 7/23).