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SBS pushing primetime Eurovision over Live voting

Updated: Is the European Broadcasting Union happy for SBS to be pushing repeats?

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Eurovision has enjoyed bumper numbers on SBS, with its best ever figures for its First Semi Final on Friday night at 500,000 metro viewers.

On Wednesday there were 75,000 watching the Live 5am broadcast and 61,000 on Friday morning.

But it’s a bit disappointing most of the SBS promotion for the event has focussed on primetime replays rather than the Live early morning broadcasts -the only time Australians can vote.

On air promos and recent press releases make no mention of 5am broadcasts.

Anyone would think SBS was more interested in having eyeballs watch their primetime ads than in having Aussies vote.

I can’t imagine the European Broadcasting Union is happy SBS is pushing repeats over Live voting…

Update: SBS advised it does not discuss promotional strategies.

7 Responses

  1. I too noticed the promos ignored the 5am live broadcasts but SBS paid big bikkies to boost their prime time ratings – not their 5am ones.

    And don’t forget the ratings merely represent a few thousand households with tv meters connected to them. Apparently these households then represent a thousand or so ‘similar’ households.

    I don’t have a meter and I was watching at 5am and again in the evening at a friends house who also doesn’t have a meter.I am sure there were thousands more people watching than the ratings actually reflected.

  2. I didn’t see a single mention of the 5am broadcasts at all on SBS itself and I can’t understand why they didn’t make a big deal about watching live and voting. Isn’t that the whole point of actually being “in” Eurovision? This would have been the best way for SBS to prove that Eurovision is a big deal in Australia – with hard numbers instead of anecdotes. The live broadcasts also had fewer ad breaks (always a good thing), were free of editing (the entire interval act from the Grand Final was missing in primetime) and none of the pointless singer interviews (if you can call them interviews). I only watched the repeats because there was nothing else on.

  3. “Anyone would think SBS was more interested in having eyeballs watch their primetime ads than in having Aussies vote.”

    I think that is perfectly fine, no diff from the other networks. It’s not as if we can vote for ourselves.

    I also don’t think that Eurovision care that much about how many Aussies vote this year compared with any other year. They’ve already sold the shows to SBS and will presumably be able to sell future ones more easily and for more money if SBS gets better ratings.

  4. SBS only paid for a spot in the finals for the prime time ad revenue.

    Eurovision don’t care, they want a European winner not and Australian one. But Australia was never going to beat European countries for whom it is a big deal and on in prime time.

  5. Going by Twitter, there was enough voting during the final that the SMS system got screwed up. So that’s a …good…thing…maybe?

  6. I was surprised when I saw the promos and they didn’t mention the live broadcast. I think they should have promoted the live broadcast more. It was great watching it live this morning with Europe.

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