Darts, Beers, & Cheers!

Posts Tagged ‘sky sports’

Darts and TV audiences – the UK’s biggest indoor sport!

It’s a great time be be a darts fan – after a real lull in the televised game in the 90′s, it’s really come into its own again.  Love them or hate them, Sky Sports really lit the blue touch paper when it came to darts, bringing a new high glitz, professionally packaged product to the sports mad public.  Their 15 week premier league has been a real exhibition of darts – a showcase event which brings in a wedge of cash to the PDC coffers, allowing them to fund the richest darts tour of all time.

ITV have got back into darts in recent years, showing the Grand Slam of Darts (which gets some great viewing figures off on ITV4), and has won many plaudits for its great coverage (not quite as full on as Sky’s effort, but possibly a touch more informative with better and more frequent interviews).  I’d put the Sky spotter & camermen 1st though – they hardly ever miss a single dart or where it’s thrown.

Recently Bravo have got in on the act, and I know they are very happy with the viewing figures they received – I believe the final day nearly trippled their normal Sunday viewing figures, and probably brought in new viewers for the first time.  Bravo would make a good home for darts, as it’s targetted more towards the beer drinking lads who like motors, beer, girls.. and that’s most darts fans!

Some people may not realise that darts is the biggest indoor sport in the UK, and when you’re getting 10,000+ people in the audience for the Premier League (nearly filling the O2 Arena!) you’ve got to realise the sport is getting BIG!  Every PDC tournament seems to break previous records for ticket sales, and TV audiences continue to grow.

Just looking at the PDC World match play viewing figures on Sky, you can see what a draw it is, and that it’s pulling in more viewers than the golf or the cricket.

Sky Sports 1  w/e 25 Jul 2010

1 LIVE WORLD MATCHPLAY DARTS FINAL (SUN 1900) 466,000
2 LIVE WORLD MATCHPLAY DARTS (SAT 1900) 254,000
3 LIVE WORLD MATCHPLAY DARTS (WED 1900) 217,000
4 LIVE WORLD MATCHPLAY DARTS (FRI 1900) 208,000
5 LIVE PAK V AUS CRICKET (FRI 1319) 200,000
6 LIVE PAK V AUS CRICKET (FRI 1535) 199,000
7 LIVE PAK V AUS CRICKET (SAT 1000) 179,000
8 LIVE WORLD MATCHPLAY DARTS (THU 1900) 178,000
9 LIVE PAK V AUS CRICKET (THU 1316) 177,000
10 LIVE WORLD MATCHPLAY DARTS (TUE 1900) 168,000

(OK lets throw some premier league footy in the mix.. now this is end of season super sunday.. after the closest premier league in many a year;1 LIVE FORD SUPER SUNDAY – MATCH (SUN 1530) 1,568,000 – so OK a million more viewers.. but I’d say for the darts to have a 3rd of that is pretty impressive stuff, especially when you think how much the prem league is pushed and advertised on every channel every day of every week!).

Now lets look at Bravo’s figures – for their first ever televised darts;

BRAVO TV – week ending 1st August.

1 SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND S01 (TUE 2200) 572,000
2 LEVERAGE (WED 2101) 250,000
3 EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP (SUN 1900) 232,000
4 EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP (SAT 1900) 179,000
5 EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP (SUN 1300) 140,000
6 EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP (FRI 1900) 133,000
7 EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP (THU 1900) 109,000
8 SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND S01 (FRI 2401) 106,000
9 SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND S01 (MON 2301) 93,000
10 EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL DARTS CHAMPIONSHIP (SAT 1300 87,000

Now you’ve got to remember that Bravo is a smaller channel, with a much smaller advertising budget, and the European Championships aren’t quite the established draw of the World Match Play in Blackpool.  But the viewing figures for the final of 232,000 is massive for them – and I know they are very pleased, possibly looking to cover more darts in the future.

The BIG viewing figures still go to the BBC and their coverage of the BDO’s world championships of course – some three million people watched the final at the Lakeside.  That figure is lower than it used to be, as I feel the BBC hardly package the darts in a view friendly way (lots of it recorded and edited down to highlights.. or hidden on the red button).  But that’s still a large number of people seeing the darts on their TVs – and it can only be healthy to have the arrows on terrestrial TV too!

TV Records For World Matchplay – darts a big draw

I’ve just seen on pdc.tv that they have the viewing figures in from Sky for the World Match Play final – and it shows the sport is in a very healthy position.  Some people might not know that darts is now the no.1 watched indoor sport, and no.2 watched sport (average numbers per broadcast) on Sky Sports!!  Yep that’s right, more people watch a darts match than a rugby/golf tournament.  Get in there!

The WMP tournament, won by Phil Taylor at the Winter Gardens for an 11th time on Sunday night, saw Sky Sports’ live coverage accompanied by the first broadcasts of darts in 3D in over 1,000 pubs across the UK and Ireland.

Away from the 3D coverage, audiences watching on Sky Sports throughout the event were a record for the World Matchplay, which began in 1994.

Sunday’s final saw an average of 468,000 viewers, which peaked at 606,000 viewers during the clash between Phil Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld.

Coverage of the World Matchplay was also shown live in Holland, Germany and Australia, with German broadcasters Sport1 enjoying huge audiences ahead of their screening of the PartyPoker.net European Championship.

Sport1 averaged over 250,000 viewers throughout the tournament, with the final matching the success of Sky Sports’ coverage in averaging 400,000 and peaking at 670,000 fans.

Sport1 will be screening the European Championship in Germany, while Bravo will show the event live in the UK from Thursday July 29 to Sunday August 1.

Bravo can be found at channel 123 on Sky and 136 on Virgin Media.

Darts coverage up for awards

Sky Sports' Sid Waddell (Lawrence Lustig, PDC)

SKY SPORTS’ coverage of darts has been nominated for two awards in the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards.

The shortlists for this year’s sports broadcasting awards, presented by the Sports Journalists’ Association and voted for by its members, have been announced and include two nominations for darts coverage.

Sky Sports’ darts coverage has been nominated alongside Test Cricket, Open Golf, Match of the Day 2, Formula One Grand Prix and Soccer Saturday in the Best Television Programme category.

The nominations described Sky Sports’ darts broadcasting as having “superb coverage, unusual angles”.

Meanwhile, commentator Sid Waddell has been nominated for Best TV Broadcaster, being described as the “Geordie master of ‘the arrows’”.

Waddell’s rivals for the award are BBC duo Clare Balding, Jake Humphrey, ITV’s Steve Rider and Sky Sports’ Jeff Stelling.

“I’m very chuffed to be nominated and it’s a fantastic recognition of the job Sky Sports are doing with darts,” said Waddell.

“I think that the rock ‘n’ roll Sky treatment of darts goes from strength to strength and we’re fortunate to have the standard of players, and characters, we have now.”

The awards, sponsored by UK Sport and Sky Bet, will be presented on Monday March 8 in London.

Official PDC photographer Lawrence Lustig was amongst the 2009 nominations for Sports Photographer of the Year for his darts portfolio.