NHL TV ratings are down across the board on average for Rogers

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by goodyear

I hate SN for the following reasons:

The Flames camera crew panning in and focusing on a player going to the bench while the actual play is going on

The poorly synced audio which has been going on for years

The crappy virtual ads

The two-bit panel of rotating hacks.

Incorrect graphics shown on air

"Insiders" who tell you things you already know - Mike Johnston "wrote" an article on the website paraphrasing the Gaudreau Players Tribune article

Eric Francis

The Flames post game Sporstnet Connected with the two fools who can't read off a telepromter.

The post game Connected show that shows very little post game interviews and instead air the last minutes of another game

The times they want to troll people by showing the game on SN360

I think by contrast, the Blue Jays has better production value. Their broadcast inadequacies are less noticeable

And yes, I hate Strombo. He has a podcast. I like that better. Sports is not his thing. I feel like he is reaching every time he is talking on that panel

/rant

This very much echoes my experience and feelings -- some of it I don't care about (like the virtual ads - I just think they're stupid, but I think most ads are...). What I dislike are the dreadful production values: the cheesy commentators whose knowledge is as thick as a toothpick; the awful Strombo who is a hipster extraordinaire posing as a hockey fan; the poor HD and audio.

I give thanks for the pleasures of Ball and Hrudey, Kypreos and Friedman and pretty much turn the sound off the rest of the time. Actually, lately having been on the road and away from my home setup, I've become pissed with the NHL - why can't I watch my Flames in BC and am force-fed 'Nucks broadcasts? So I've been streaming and while the streams are generally pretty bad (including Rogers GCL or whatever it's called I had at a friends' place) sometimes its a relief to hear other teams' PbP guys. At least a relief from SN.

Maybe losing money - a LOT of money - will smarten them up.

But I don't think so.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by hwy19man

The same thing happened to Ron MacLean when he took over from the fired Dave Hodge. My father tells me that everybody wanted MacLean off the air or send him back to being a weather man.

Uh...not so much. He was a bit raw (read his book for some insights on that - it's kinda fun), but he did OK. Dave Hodge was getting oversold even then, and he was a lot younger. But Ron knew the game well and while there was some short-term yammering, it didn't last long.

If I had to compare that to Strombo, no way. Strombo is just awful. And not knowledgeable at all. He throws out things and you can see the real hockey people just trying not to roll their eyes. Blech.

[sharkov]

Poor performances by Canadian teams

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by N-E-B

For highlight shows TSN is worse than Sportsnet now IMO. Ever since Jay and Dan left the show hasn't been very good. The hosts try to be hip and cool using dumb slang and trying to relate to current trends/fads but they just come off as embarrassing. Also they're starting to report on stupider and stupider things now. They reported on a Call of Duty tournament for God's sake.

Hometown Hockey is also unbearable. I'm currently watching curling instead of tht crap. Curling.

There are no more good sports stations on TV anymore. I watch all my highlights on the Flames website now.

Curling!

Now that is a sport that has advanced 10-fold over the last few years.
Perfect tv sport. Great sound, graphics and you can hear the strategy!

And the skill of the star players is out of this world.

[nik-]

So yet another Roger's CEO is stepping down.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/roge...tale-1.3808002

Bleeding on the NHL rights, Shomi just failed. They will be on their third CEO since the signing of the NHL rights deal.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by nik-

So yet another Roger's CEO is stepping down.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/roge...tale-1.3808002

Bleeding on the NHL rights, Shomi just failed. They will be on their third CEO since the signing of the NHL rights deal.

I suppose someone has to pay the price when profits drop 50%. I expect things will get worse for Rogers before they get better as they can't escape that NHL deal and viewership and advertising will never increase to large enough numbers to make that deal worth it for them. There's a price to be paid for being stupid and that deal was stupid the day it was announced and is even stupider today.

[bettman]

Strange. I hear World Cup of Hockey was a financial success. Also heard Hockey including playoffs earned over 300 million in advertising sales. Game Centre Live was over 150 million. They had over 7.5 million watch their products on Saturday. Btw. David Shoalts works for Bell-Globemedia. Who of course works alongside TSN. Ah, can't let the facts get in the way of good gossip.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by bettman

Strange. I hear World Cup of Hockey was a financial success. Also heard Hockey including playoffs earned over 300 million in advertising sales. Game Centre Live was over 150 million. They had over 7.5 million watch their products on Saturday. Btw. David Shoalts works for Bell-Globemedia. Who of course works alongside TSN. Ah, can't let the facts get in the way of good gossip.

Rogers said they had to give a ton of free advertising away during the playoffs because the ratings didn't hit the targets.

[nik-]

edit: misread that as only WCH ad revenue.

[burn_this_city]

Last year no Canadian teams made the playoffs, so it's expected that viewership would be down. They probably make their money back towards the tail end of the agreement so long as Canadian markets begin to perform well and one or two teams go on deep runs. If Rogers ends up losing money on the entire thing I'll be surprised.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I suppose someone has to pay the price when profits drop 50%. I expect things will get worse for Rogers before they get better as they can't escape that NHL deal and viewership and advertising will never increase to large enough numbers to make that deal worth it for them. There's a price to be paid for being stupid and that deal was stupid the day it was announced and is even stupider today.

I think the big three (Rogers, Bell, Telus) will all be hurting and bleeding money for a long time. They are in a sector that really doesn't have that much intrinsic growth and basically they just keep stealing customers from each other by offering attractive "new customer" deals. The general population is watching less tv and the subscriptions are declining as well as prices.Advertising on tv is a tougher sell now because of less viewers and because PVR and on-demand video is allowing consumers to skip the ads. The mobile market is pretty saturated as most Canadians now have mobile phones. I don't really understand where these dinosaurs expect their growth to come from.

[tfi racing]

Even the NFL isn't immune to the general trend of plummeting TV viewership.All major sports properties are experiencing a decline in viewers and attendance,it will be fun to watch the management of these big media companies sweat and panic after boning us for decades...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...cc0_story.html

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by tfi racing

Even the NFL isn't immune to the general trend of plummeting TV viewership.All major sports properties are experiencing a decline in viewers and attendance,it will be fun to watch the management of these big media companies sweat and panic after boning us for decades...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...cc0_story.html

Really sports is the only reason a lot of people still hold on to cable (it's the only reason I do) so the day you can stream your favourite sport online is the day television dies.

[AcGold]

I'd wager a certain online forum is a large percentage of that decline. They have links for every single game ever.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Really sports is the only reason a lot of people still hold on to cable (it's the only reason I do) so the day you can stream your favourite sport online is the day television dies.

I don't think TV will die, just that people will pay their money to watch a select few channels with no commercials. HBO style. And the quality of programming will increase as networks don't have to pander to advertisers.

[Alberta_Beef]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Really sports is the only reason a lot of people still hold on to cable (it's the only reason I do) so the day you can stream your favourite sport online is the day television dies.

I dropped cable and got Sportsnet Now since I will get all the Flames and Jays games with it and with NHL.tv and MLB.tv I can watch the games after the fact if I miss them. Even with the 2 lump sum payments to MLB.tv and NHL.tv, I save a considerable amount.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Really sports is the only reason a lot of people still hold on to cable (it's the only reason I do) so the day you can stream your favourite sport online is the day television dies.

another generation probably. the generation before us still isn't good with computers and streaming. We are the first.

There is something about grabbing the remote and just turning on the tv though.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I think the big three (Rogers, Bell, Telus) will all be hurting and bleeding money for a long time. They are in a sector that really doesn't have that much intrinsic growth and basically they just keep stealing customers from each other by offering attractive "new customer" deals. The general population is watching less tv and the subscriptions are declining as well as prices.Advertising on tv is a tougher sell now because of less viewers and because PVR and on-demand video is allowing consumers to skip the ads. The mobile market is pretty saturated as most Canadians now have mobile phones. I don't really understand where these dinosaurs expect their growth to come from.

Mobile. And they know it. Every landline telephone and cable subscriber they lose is more than made up for by the high cost of internet and data plans. It is a major reason why Shaw bought Wind.

Shomi failed, but Rogers still has hopes for SN Now, for instance.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

another generation probably. the generation before us still isn't good with computers and streaming. We are the first.

There is something about grabbing the remote and just turning on the tv though.

Computers aren't needed for streaming. Amazon fire tv/Apple TV/Roku are as easy to use as a cable box, and everyone is using them for netflix anyway. This will be a big year in the US for OTT offerings that feature live tv and easy remote control use. Sling TV and PS Vue are great options and are starting to take off. ATT/Directv is going to launch a service they say will replace sat dishes by 2020.

The problem for sports is that people now have options. If they don't care enough about ESPN, RSNs and other sports networks, they'll go for the cheaper options that don't offer them. That's going to be a big hit in terms of subscriber revenue. Subscriber revenue is way more important than advertising and ratings these days.

There's going to be a period of hurt for sports leagues coming up for sure.

[bubbsy]

has anything come out indicating that the NHL deal has been hurting the rogers bottom line directly? I have several friends here who work for Rogers in the corporate/legal branches (ie. guys at the head office) who continue to state the deal is a great one for rogers, and hasn't hurt them.