What do TV/Streaming figures for The Hundred tell us about the ECB?
There are lots of things (many critical, a few not so bad) to say about The Hundred but a look at facts (as Gradgrind might say) is always a useful reality check.
Viewing figures for the Hundred (free to air/streamed BBC) (pay Sky) are released selectively to illustrate a perspective.
Picking a way through this can be done
Some games (mostly weekend) ones are free to air on BBC2. The viewing figures for the first game on Wednesday 21st July (a women’s game) were 1.95m 1.78m BBC 170,000 Sky. For the men’s game on Thursday there were 2.5m in total with the BBC accounting for 2m.
On Saturday 24th July a men’s game screened on BBC and Sky got 836,000 viewers(most will have watched free to air).
The ECB who promote the competition have briefed that women’s audiences for the early games were between 36% and 39% of the total. For the T20 which is screened only Sky pay channels the comparable figure was 27%. Perhaps this tells us that free air to cricket attracts a better gender balance against a much larger audience but it requires more thought and more figures
I don’t think it’s a secret that viewing figures for cricket on Sky pay channels are for the hardcore. Getting cricket on free to air for any kind of game adds lots of viewers and lots of potential cricket fans. The only people who can’t really grasp this are the ECB who run English and Welsh cricket.
Exactly the same picture can be found in TV coverage of the Tokyo Olympics. The IOC have sold the majority of the broadcast rights to pay channel provider Discovery who have licensed a limited amount of free to air coverage to the BBC.
FT journalist Henry Mance has tweeted the comparable viewing figures so far. 26 milion have watched the BBC and 1.7 million Discovery. Profit at the expense of promoting interest in the sport.
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