Comment
Another 11.5 per cent lost from Great Race's TV audience just as Holdens wiped the floor at Bathurst… So too did the Seven Network against its rivals on the day -- yet the audience for the Great Race on Australian TV screens continues to shrink.
While Seven whipped the other networks on Sunday, the average audience for the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 of 1.046 million viewers in the five major capital cities was a far cry from the classic's halcyon days.
It still made the race the seventh most watched program on Australian TV for the day, and the podium presentation was number two at 1.316 million. Seven News was No.1 at 1.621 million.
Yet when Australia's major motor racing category returned to Seven in 2007 the Great Race drew an average of 1.357 million in those five capitals -- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
Last Sunday's 1.046 million was a 22.9 per cent fall from that '07 figure. And last Sunday's number was 136,000 -- or 11.5 per cent -- fewer viewers than last year (1.182 million).
It also was only half the TV audience in the five capitals the previous Sunday for the National Rugby League grand final, less than 40 per cent of either of the two recent AFL grand finals and less than 90 per cent of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix figure in late March.
The average across the five major capitals is the benchmark for the television industry and advertisers, although all the networks, understandably, highlight whatever numbers they see as most advantageous to them.
Seven trumpeted on Monday that 3.45 million Australians in the five cities had watched all or part of its Bathurst coverage on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In dominating Sunday's ratings, it boasted that the final 15 minutes of the race drew an average metropolitan market audience of 1.353 million viewers. And it proclaimed an "astonishing" peak of 1.519 million viewers in the five capitals.
But a perusal of Seven's announcements after previous Bathursts -- under 'media releases' on its sevencorporate.com.au website, and based on official ratings agency OzTAM's figures -- shows that the peak last year was 1.74 million, in '08 it was 1.89 million and in '07 it was 1.97 million.
In 2006, the last year of the V8 Supercars on the Ten Network, the peak was 2.244 million -- 725,000 more than last Sunday.
While the five-capitals average is the industry norm, there is also what's called the national average, in which a regional component is added to the figures for the five capital cities. On that national average score Seven reported 1.643 million for last Sunday's race. In 2007 it was 2.157 million.
Somewhere over the past three years 514,000 viewers -- or 23.82 per cent -- of that average national audience have tuned out.
V8 Supercar Australia's SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis revealed here in mid-April mentioned "TV ratings decreasing" as one of the sport's weaknesses.
Despite subsequent assurances that the picture was not as bleak as official ratings agency OzTAM's figures over the years suggested, the latest Bathurst numbers again tell us that the Great Race is not what it once was to the viewing public.
And, while V8SA chairman Tony Cochrane proclaimed the attendance at Mt Panorama the biggest other than at the 2006 mourning for Peter Brock, the remaining TV viewers were left 10 laps down as Seven's "live" telecast trailed 27 minutes behind the chequered flag on Sunday. The race finished at 4.53pm, but on TV it ended at 5.20pm.
One angry complainant on tvtonight.com.au reported that incidents from the race were appearing on Youtube before they were seen on our TV screens.
Which raises the question of how the 2011 lines of the following tables will look next October.
Bathurst 1000 five-capitals average viewers
2007 1.357 million
2008 1.249 million
2009 1.182 million
2010 1.046 million
Bathurst 1000 national average viewers
2007 2.157 million
2008 1.936 million
2009 1.864 million
2010 1.643 million
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