Originally Posted by promo-only:
“As you say, subscriber numbers is the important thing for BT. Not sure why weekly ratings are discussed because in the grand scheme of things, they don't mean anything. We all know that BT Sport has less subscribers than Sky Sports, for example, so the ratings are always going to be considerably less. I could be missing the point completely but I just don't understand why they are treated with such importance on this thread.”
Ratings are almost meaningless in the sense that advertising revenue is a tiny proportion of BT's (and indeed Sky's) income so is of trivial consequence to them.
However they are worth looking at to gauge how the rights are performing - the stronger the ratings the more value subscribers are getting for their subscriptions which in turn should lead to lower churn. Stronger ratings also imply stronger demand for the product which should mean it's easier to push through price rises and new subscriber additions should remain healthy going forward.
Ditto re BT's broadband strategy - if "free" BTS is a tool to drive broadband additions / retentions then stronger BTS ratings imply more people are getting value from their "free" BTS which should then in turn have the desired knock-on effect on the broadband business.
So BT's (and indeed Sky's) ratings are really just an indicator (and in particular a leading indicator) of the success of the strategy being followed.
Ultimately the results that actually matter are the financials but very few people on here take any interest in those. Though on that subject both BT and Sky's results for the quarter ending 30/09/15 will be out in the next week or so and they will be of particular interest given it is the first quarter of BT showing the CL (and Sky not showing the CL) - so we'll look at those when they come out.