2010 Versus TV-ratings are up

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

I am tired of the Kentucky Derby Comparison.
Yes the Derby's ratings have been climbing as of late (Thanks Barbaro) but it has not equated to a growth in Horse racing. In fact parimutuels have been dying out across the land.

The growth in the Derby is a product of shrewd marketing of things that are unique to the event. Alcohol, fashion and gambling. Alcohol in that it is considered a Cocktail party that is "cool" to attend. Fashion in the hats and the label outfits the women at the cocktail wear. Gambling is self explanatory.
The media salivation over Barbaro also brought huge attention to the event. And people like Horses.

Indy has none of those. Aside from the cars and a few drivers Indy has Parades, Tenderloins and Jim Nabors. That is about as cool as a Jr. High-School Dungeons and Dragons club.

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You're missing the point. TV viewership for two marquee sporting events had been in decline for years. One has recovered VERY well, draws excellent ratings again and has its mojo back... and one has fallen even further. I would say it does have to do with shrewd marketing on the part of the Triple Crown handlers - and great job by them (proof being in the pudding). Maybe the IRL should try some shrewd marketing (for a change). I would also say that it has to do with personifying (basically) beasts of burden, and telling the "human side" of their story. Whether it was Smarty Jones (my personal favorite from the past few years) or the ill fated Barbaro, people actually identify with the horses (jockeys and owners) more than they do with anyone (besides The Danica) who races an Indy car. That's a very major problem, IMO. Mike Conway broke his back at Indy. Barbaro broke his leg during the Preakness. The American people (really people from all over the world) followed the plight of Barbaro. I doubt you could find five people walking down the street, in any place besides Indianapolis, who could even tell you who Mike Conway is, much less that he suffered leg and back injuries at Indy.

I like horses, but I don't love them. And I've never gotten into the whole horse racing thing (or gambling). But I've been watching the Kentucky Derby since I was a kid. I have an emotional attachment to the race. People used to have that same emotional attachment to Indy. It's getting back that emotional attachment (especially for the non-hardcore racing fans) that Indy and IMS better figure out before things get any worse.

So what should Randy focus on, the 500 or the series?? Because what is good for the 500 does not have to be good for series. For example having Nascar drivers doing the double will do nothing for the series, perhaps even damage it's credibility.

I still think we will see a Le Mans situation in the near future. A support series that is completely off the radar, with the small teams. And one keystone event where all the big factory teams and guest drivers show up.

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Originally Posted by Lousada

So what should Randy focus on, the 500 or the series?? .

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Randy is the CEO of the Indycar series...not IMS

so i suggest there is your answer

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Originally Posted by Lousada

So what should Randy focus on, the 500 or the series?? Because what is good for the 500 does not have to be good for series. For example having Nascar drivers doing the double will do nothing for the series, perhaps even damage it's credibility.

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I actually think having some (popular!) NASCAR drivers doing the double would help the Indy 500... and the overall series. It would be something of a gimmick move, but still, whatever works. And it would get us part of the way back to the way things used to be, with drivers from different series and disciplines taking part in the Indy 500. Everything possible that can be done, should be done, to get the taste and memory of 25/8 out of peoples' minds. I understand your point about not everything directed at the 500 would benefit the overall series (directly). But by bringing increased attention to Indy, I believe it's more likely that sponsors and fan eyeballs would follow the regualr season races after that.

I actually don't know what sort of power Bernard has as CEO of the IRL. But I'd agree with Ken, that his main focus has to be the overall health of the series. The IMS braintrust has to decide what to do with the Indy 500. And to be honest with you, I don't think the people running IMS right now could effectively sell snow cones on a 90 degree summer day to kids with pockets full of money. We've often discussed how NASCAR got to where it is. And while the IRL (and IMS) have a long way to go before they can even think about that kind of success (again), have they made any first steps to get a west coast or a New York public relations office open... or are they still in "cost containment mode"? I don't know. Outside of this board, I don't follow any IRL or IMS news. But it just seems to me that no one at IMS is ready to embrace what's been said for years: you can cut costs to the bone, but your product MUST retain a level of value that will satisfy existing customers and gain new customers. But I don't know what they should do now. Drop back and punt maybe. I don't know...

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I still think we will see a Le Mans situation in the near future. A support series that is completely off the radar, with the small teams. And one keystone event where all the big factory teams and guest drivers show up.

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I think we're all but there now... except that at Le Mans they actually do get manufacturer interest. Which is interesting, since the ACO makes the IRL look like sheer geniuses when it comes to rule and decision making. But imagine an Indy 500 where Audi, Peugeot, Porsche and GM/Chevrolet (not allowed to say "Chevy" anymore, I hear) were determined to be represented.

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Originally Posted by SarahFan

interesting...

becuase I tend to trust the neilson rating....and figure authors/posters/bloggers/etc get the conversion between hoseholds and viewers etc wrong/confused....



for me if neilson says texas is a .3...... and LB was a .5.......Id suggest LB outperformed texas..... the rest is just spin, statistics and Bull****

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I'm counting households Ken, not converting anything. Neilson is the one converting things. All I'm saying is that the number of households is up. That's gotta mean something. I'm sure you don't give a d@mn though. That doesn't fit with your doom and gloom story.

Sure I'd like the share numbers to be up, but I'm not expecting any miracles. It's a long road ahead.

To drag the point out a bit, let's look at the households numbers a bit more.

Long Beach 09: 388,000 10: 490,000 an increase of 26%
Texas 09: 467,000 10: 518,000 an increase of 11%

Personally I don't give a damn about some "share" number based on how many people are watching TV in total or what-not (especially when were still talking about such low number as to be noise). If I were a sponsor, I'd be interested in the ACTUAL number of TV's turned on to the program. And since that appears to be growing (at least for those two races), then I'd be a bit cautiously optimistic about the future of the series.

09' neilsen released a .36
10' neilsen released a .30

the rest is just authors/bloggers/posters/imposters/posers interpretation

http://www.indycar.com/news/


*above is the link to the Indaycar.com news page.....if texas was indeed the most watched race ever on VS I would the folks running the show would want to make it known....

like Lousada attempting to portray a .3 as a .45 i suspect the SBJ folks simply got it wrong

So are you saying that the number of households that have been reported are wrong?

My understanding is that the number of households watching are counted, then the share number is caluculated using some sort of formula based on total number of TVs on at that time, and the number of people who even get the channel, etc.

So even if the "share" is down the actual number of people watching the show could be up. If this is not the case then please explain, and I'll change my mind. But for now, I'll count the number of people watching a show, not the "shares"

"Figures don't lie, but liars figure" - Mark Twain

Ratings mean something to marketing people, but they often look at the demographics as much as raw numbers. If you are selling Geritol, the raw ratings are meaningless if the numbers come from a kid's show. On the other hand, if your market is teenagers (particularly male), the ratings from the NOPI Nationals on Spike are really important. Since no one seems to have a clue what demographics are represented in the ratings, or what market various companies are trying to target, all of this discussion is pretty meaningless. The numbers are very low, so the audience for a specific demographic can't be large but we don't know if it is large enough for a particular advertiser.

An interesting view on ratings came from an analysis of NASCAR ratings

http://sportsmediawatch.blogspot.com...ar-on-tnt.html

Ratings have been going down steadily every year, yet the Pocono race was #1 on cable in households, viewers and several key demographics, specifically men 18-49 - NASCAR's primary target group. The markets are getting more and more fragmented and the numbers have to be compared with the current competition for viewers, not what happened years ago.