Originally Posted by mlt11:
“But has anybody said what the average was?
The game was only last night. Nobody knows what the average was.”
It wasn't on last night, it was on Monday. I wouldn't be surprised if there was such a big difference between that match and Cambridge vs Halifax at the start of the season given that was before BT was on Virgin (and before the Premier League started so nobody saw any promotion, whereas Jake's attempt to promote this game on Saturday was so desperately shoehorned in it stuck in the mind) and it was partly oppisite the Charity Shield, whereas this was opposite no other fooball.
Originally Posted by D.M.N.:
“"not including play-offs it's just under the [highest] Setanta [Conference] peak, which was Exeter v York in Aug 07. They [Premier League and Conference] won't ever clash. BT won't put them up against Premier League games anyway. [Average on Premier Sport was] about 5k."”
That Premier Sport rating is pathetic and illustrates what a waste of everyone's time that deal was, moving fixtures around for the benefit of hardly any more people than were at the ground anyway. It was certainly no advert for the division. I know some of the BT coverage was a bit gimmicky, like the fan interviews, but at least it gives you some kind of context as a casual viewer stumbling on it, on Premier Sports it was just massive hardcore fans and nobody else.
Don't know about clashing with Premier League, I think a bigger problem would be clashing with the Football League as that surely has a bigger crossover. Not sure how you can guarantee that anyway, they're OK now with the Bank Holiday and international weekends but after that you'll be trying to find any available hole.
Interesting that highest rated match on Setanta was possibly the first one they ever showed, must have been considered enough of a novelty to tune in.
On an unrelated point, I see Skrill are going for the same kind of carpet-bombing approach as Blue Square for brand building by giving everyone Skrill T-shirts and anoraks and all that. I know they're paying for it, and it's slightly better than Blue Square because the logo isn't so garish, but it tends to overhwhelm a bit and surely the appeal of non-league football is the tradition and the homely nature of it. Less is more!