It's not so much the premium rate. Very few programmes can charge a premium (only the likes of Big Brother or Friends in its heyday). I never worked for Sky Sports, so I don't know if they charge a premium for RU.

However, almost all adverts are paid for with reference to the audience watching.

Luxury goods, such as Mercedes cars, have a high spend on advertising. TV companies want to grab as much of the budget as they can. Therefore, if you have programmes which agents believe big spenders watch, they will spend more of their money with you. Programmes that are watched by people who buy Mercedes cars are rare. Therefore, you can easily fill your slots with adverts for luxury goods. Advertising luxury goods also gives gravitas to your channel and attracts other advertisers.

Programmes that appeal to a lower demographic, such as Corrie, reality TV, games shows, etc are two a penny. Therefore, harder to fill with adverts. Once you start putting crappy adverts for ambulance chasers, bottom-feeding loan companies, etc... in your slots decent products don't want to be in the same ad break. You end up having to phone round the agents begging them to go in the slots in exchange for a favour (perhaps getting them a slot in a decent programme).

Imagine convincing a Londoner (who's never been to the north, let alone a rugby league match) to spend his precious ad budget on a few slots during a RL match rather than cricket, tennis or RU.

The majority of people that worked in the industry when I was at C4, about 7 years ago, where southerners. The only ones that had heard of RL remembered it being popular years ago when Wigan won everything. If they did look favourably on RL, they might not be sure that their client would share this view. It's much safer to go with sports, programmes that are 'safe' i.e. viewed as prestigious by the majority.

I would imagine that ad agents generally view RL viewers as working class Northerners with little money to spend on their products, contrasted with RU viewers who are all CEOs drive flash cars and wear rolexes. It's the central bodies job to change this image, if the game is going to compete with other sports for sponsorship, TV rights, etc.

I know this is generalising, but that's what advertising is all about.

delusional?

Also, in relation to the very wealthy, it's just guess work. Mainly because the wealthy don't, by and large, don't have the monitor boxes in their homes on which the stats are based.

Thanks for the beginners guide to advertising (although I do have some experience of marketing and targeting certain markets).

Pretty much everything you put above contradicts the fact that it is more expensive during SL than it is during GP. Also, did you see the list of companies I put that advertised during the Ireland v Samoa game in the WC?

There may well be a slightly different type of advertiser during the RU, and your points about attracting CEO's is a valid one, but it doesnt get away from the fact that there are some very good advertisers during the RL programmes, and they are paying more than RU league games.

It will be more expensive because more people are watching RL. As I said, ads are paid for by reference to audience. There will also be good advertising during RL games, but that's not the important part.

If you have a channel with, for want of a better word, prestige programmes, such as, for sports, RU, cricket, perhaps tennis, etc... you get a bigger slice of a luxury product's advertising budget. At C4 at least, you can't dictate what slots you get. Ad agents are supposed to be given a broad range of programmes in the various time slots. They then negotiate with people who now do my job for what they perceive to be better slots.

For example, Sky Sports may believe that having RU gets them a bigger proportion of Mercedes' ad revenue. Mercedes will have to be given slots all over the place, late night, during RL, RU, cricket, american football, etc, but the bigwigs at Sky Sports will think that RU may have got that bigger slice of the pie. They may think that if they lost cricket and RU, many of the valued, high end products would cut their spending with the channel. Having these products advertised on their channel also draws in the next tier of advertisers, who want to place their ads next to luxury goods in the hope that the kudos rubs off by association.

In contrast, if they lost RL, yes their viewing figures would be down, but it would not have the same affect on the slice of the pie they get from advertisers. They would just have to give them more slots.

It's also slightly more complicated than that. Adverts are coded by audience type. So an ad slot for crisps may cost more, or may be more efficiently placed in a programme with a lower demographic audience than, for example, a documentary with a higher demographic audience, even if the programmes have the same numer of viewers.

Conversely, placing an ad for Mercedes may make the TV company more money by being placed in RU than RL, even if more people are viewing RL. However, unless the channel is inundated with ad revenue, you may have to place a Mercedes ad in a RL slot just to fill the slot. However, this will be inefficient for the TV company.

I think I understand more where you are coming from aftr this post.

So basically, even though Sky won't necessarily make more money from their ad breaks in Union, they potentially attract money from a different type of company, one who wouldn't necessarily spend their money on any old sport, but go for things like Union and Cricket?

I can see that, and it makes sense that possibly many of the advertisers during SL have no affinity with RL, they are simply advertising there to go with the numbers, whereas with sports like Union, there may be more affinity.

So if Sky lost SL, the advertisers would potentially just move to the next highest viewing programme (Speedway, Darts etc.) as they are more mainstream advertisers, whereas if they lost Union, they could potentially lose sponsors such as Mercedes altogether.

I know it is much more complicated than that, however I have tried to simplify it, as it is pretty difficult to understand why Union can get more cash, when Sky make more from SL.

I may Sky+ a Union game and compare adverts (geeky I know, but I find this thread interesting, and tbh, the ads are possibly more entertaining than the game in Union!).

Brilliant, these are the answers i've been looking for to justify 'their' tv deals.

It'd be interesting to see the scoring system sky place on their adverts against their programming.

This subject is made for a student interested in RL/RU to make a really good dissertation, surely someone will take the project on.

During last night's game, the adverts were:

1st Half Time Break:
Irn Bru - Programme Sponsor
Sky commercial
The Times
Peugeot Van
Movie - I love you man
Nurofen Express
Walkers Sensations
RAC
FirstChoice Holidays
Machine Mart

2nd Half Time Break:
Irn Bru
Sky Commercial
Moneysupermarket
LoveFilm.com
T Mobile
The Guardian
Tropicana
BMW Z4
Samsung
Greggs


There is no Union on today, so I can't compare what they have.

Very typical institutional version of teh spectator of the sport really. vans? headache pills, crisps, RAC and first choice holidays. all essentially aimed at what they see as working class type people. not sure what the times is doing in there though?

the second half. the guardian well says it all. greggs? northern pie eaters. a few phone companies,money supermarket for poor people. BMW Z4 (hairdressers car).

will be interesting to see the comparrison next week should be better you can compare two games on the same day. from memory union tends to get guinness (sponsor) ford, mercedes some insurance companies,

your right it would make a cracking dissertation infact i'm considering a MA in sports development next year so i may consider it.

I dont think it too bad actually. Vans - aimed at fleet managers or people who own their own business. I dont think moneysupermarket is for poor people either. Greggs i'll give you that one .The Z4 is around £30k so definitely not for poor people. Not too bad on balance