By LOUISA CLEAVE
Television viewers have been slow to change a habit of a lifetime by tuning in to TV3 to watch free sport.
But TV3, since snatching the rights to rugby and cricket from TVNZ, says it is happy with its audience numbers.
The channel has doubled its ratings in the 9 pm-11 pm Saturday slot in some demographics and increased its overall share of the television audience.
It is also attracting more younger viewers than TV One when it had the rights to sport, it says.
Nick Brown-Haysom, TV3's head of sport, said people had been slower to switch channels than anticipated, although ratings were expected to keep building.
At present about half as many viewers from the overall television audience watch TV3's sport coverage compared with when TVNZ had the rights.
But Mr Brown-Haysom said TV3 was not concerned with that demographic because TV3's sport target was men aged 18-65, followed by all viewers aged 18-49.
"A lot of those older people have stayed on TV One whether there's sport there or not.
"We bought the sport to improve our performance. If we look at that Saturday night 9 pm to 11 pm slot ... our average older male audience through the Super 12 has been a 10 [rating], whereas last year it was a 4.9 in the same time slot."
The channel's best performance so far in the target audience of men aged 18-49 was the New Zealand vs Australia one-day match on March 3, which attracted 88,000 viewers.
Comparing the ACNielsen ratings with the same time last year, TVNZ's best performance in that age group was also a one-day cricket match, NZ vs India on January 19, which attracted 180,000 viewers. In men aged between 25 and 54, TV3 has done best with the same cricket match (87,000 viewers) while TVNZ attracted 180,000 viewers with the NZ vs South Africa one day cricket match on February 14.
TV3's best rugby performance for men 18-49 has come from the Crusaders vs Highlanders match on April 1 (78,000 viewers), while TVNZ's was the Highlanders vs Blues match (89,000 viewers) on February 27.
In 25-54 males, TV3 rated best with the Highlanders vs Crusaders game (86,000 viewers), while TVNZ attracted 113,000 viewers to the Chiefs vs Highlanders game on April 3, 1999.
Media buyers (companies that purchase air time for advertisers) spoken to by the Herald said they had not been overwhelmed by the ratings on TV3, but they were happy with its performance.
The ratings had been dependent on which of the Super 12 games were screened on Saturday night, said Stu Rutherford, media planner for Spark.
"Even TV3 has said to us it's game by game. At this stage the audiences are building."
Mr Rutherford said TV3 had been sensible about its expectations.
"For so many years TV One and rugby has been an icon and it takes a lot for people to change their habits, especially older viewers."
Dale Spencer, general manager of The Media Edge, said TV3's ratings for sport had been above expectations, "but not overwhelming."
"I think we approached it reasonably conservatively and it's delivered probably slightly above our expectation. I can't rave about it."
Mr Brown-Haysom said the All Black matches would attract more viewers and give TV3 a chance to promote its other programmes.
"What really matters is the improvement on our own performance and all our improvement has come off the other guys."
Viewers slow catching on to TV3 sport
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