The Hundred Cricket. Free to air TV audiences decline in 2022
The BBC has published viewing figures for games in the cricket Hundred competition it has screened in August. Broadly they show a decline of a bit under 20% on 2021 with coverage getting rather fewer viewers than average for the bBC2 slots they have been in
The viewing figures have also declined over the month, possibly reflecting the one-sided nature of many games. Viewing figures for women’s matches are considerably less than those for men’s games no doubt due very largely to the reality that the women play in the afternoon when many are at work.
The BBC being publicly funded has a degree of accountability on viewing figures whereas Sky which has shown games on a pay to view basis, does not have. However in a mid-August list of most watched programmes on the ‘Main Event’ sports channel, The Hundred did feature a fair bit. Sky viewing figures would generally be significantly less than those for the BBC.
To give some comparison on BBC cricket viewing figures The Hundred has attracted an average of 500,000 viewers in 2022 (615,000 in 2021) while BBC2’s highlights package for each day of England Test cricket gets over a million.
What to make of this. In a market society things that are not going onwards and upwards tend to be viewed as problematic. The business model for The Hundred would surely have been for it grow viewers and interest not lose them.
More pragmatically one might note that it has been one of the warmest Augusts in recent times and people may have had other things to do then sit in front of a TV screen or even these days the screen of their tablet or smartphone. Many commentators including occasionally those that have a paid relationship with it have noted that The Hundred has seemed lacklustre this year though. I’ll write further on that
Leave a Reply