Last week Frost Global published an article about the lack of HD broadcasting of sport on free-to-air TV in Australia, especially since the rebranding last year of ONE HD to simply ONE.
Yesterday the SUPERBOWL XLVI was broadcast in Australia LIVE on TEN, ONE and through FOXTEL/AUSTAR on ESPN. According to the MediaWeek Morning Report and OzTAM, a total of 268,000 people watched the match on TEN/ONE, with 94,000 watching on ESPN.
The real story is the breakdown of viewers between TEN and ONE. On TEN’s Standard Definition broadcast 108,000 viewers tuned in versus 160,000 viewers on ONE’s High Definition (HD) broadcast. This shows that viewers will seek out an HD broadcast when available.
This provides further evidence that viewers want to watch an HD broadcast over an SD broadcast, when both are available. Hopefully it will also provide further impetus for FTA to broadcast more sport on HD digital channels rather than having pay-TV as the dominant HD broadcaster of sport in this country.
For the record the SUPERBOWL XLVI broadcast in the United States on NBC recorded the highest ratings ever for a USTV broadcast with 111.3 million watching the Giants beat the Patriots.
Do you want to see more HD broadcasting of sport on Free-to-Air TV in Australia?
Sources/References:
Mediaweek Morning Report – 07/02/2012