Originally Posted by RichardRees:
“Some detail in the FT this morning around the BARB figures for Saturday:
43% of the 629,000 viewers were on Virgin Media
Of the 441,000 match average, 51% were paying BT subscribers (I take that as free viewers of the channel) of which 30,000 used BT, the remainder the Sky platform.”
Originally Posted by derek500:
“It also quotes
That's pretty low for a subscription channel sold on 38 EPL matches.
I would say the BARB panel hasn't picked up enough BT Sport subscribers. Last week's reach figures were in my opinion on the low side. Next week's include VM. Shame there wasn't one week with and EPL match and no VM.
edit: The FT article says the 441,000 match average is households. So we now know that the average number of viewers per household is 1.42 (629/441)”
I think there may be errors in that FT article.
For starters the match average was 629,000.
The 441,000 figure looks suspiciously like the programme average which was previously reported as 447,000. It may have changed slightly due to "tape-checking".
The % splits also look very odd.
I know the % figures are referring to different things - ie one to the 441,000 and one to the 629,000 but the % splits of each must be very, very similar.
If 43% are VM, that implies 57% are other platforms. But if 51% are BT customers watching for free that implies the other platform viewers split 51:6 as none (or certainly almost none) of the BT can be VM.
That 51:6 split simply cannot be right.
So I'm afraid it looks as if the FT article doesn't stand up.
EDIT: Is it actually the other way round - ie paying BT subscribers are people paying the £12? That would still imply a 51:6 split but the other way round - ie 51 paying : 6 watching for free?
That still doesn't look right - BT said that the majority of the 1m sign-ups were free customers though we would expect people paying to be more likely to watch. So I would expect the non-VM to split at least roughly 50:50 between paying and free - it simply can't be 8:1 either way.
EDIT 2: I suspect the 441,000 splits 225,000 specific orders (whether paying or free), 216,000 VM. That would make sense - implying VM are 49% of the 441,000 which would be reasonable (and close to the 43% quoted above).
EDIT 3: I think it's most likely that it is the specific orders that actually split 51:49 pay/free (or vice-versa)!!!!