MCN will sell Foxsports.com.au from Jan 1, 2009, replacing News Digital Media.
This will be a bit of a hit to News - which would have generated around 5-10% of its display revenue from Foxsports.
But will it be a bigger hit to Foxsports - who would have generated a stack of traffic from being the sports site across the News Digital Media network?
Who knows ... News have inked a deal with ESPN, which isn't really on the same scale that FoxSports currently is, but isn't a bad save.
My thoughts are News should focus on building their own sports offering through their masthead sites - like they have done with Superfooty. This, to me, seems like a better long term strategy than representing someone elses content.
The pressure will now be on MCN to deliver strong, integrated responses, which they haven't nailed to date across their other properties. FoxSports has potential for cross platform deals but the execution must be right.
Showing posts with label foxsports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foxsports. Show all posts
Friday, October 3, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
The online Olympics? Or is it ...
Many of us (including me) thought that the Beijing Olympics would be a huge shot in the arm for online.
It makes sense ... daytime events, people are at work and wanting immediate information. Online is the channel they turn to?
Right?
Well ... I'm not so sure after looking at last weeks Nielsen Market Intelligence data across the News and Sport categories.
Above are the Nielsen figures for the Sport category, Domestic browsers, 11/8-17/8
Foxsports is at number 1 at 654,834. SMH Sport and afl.com.au are at 2 and 3 respectively.
The interesting things about the above for me are ...
- The entire category sits at 3.5m UBs, only up 8.7% on the week prior. Last week was when the Olympics really heated up ... but it hasn't really brought any incremental traffic to the category
- Fairfax Digital's SMH Sport is up week on week 216% to 578k weekly users. Their The Age Sport is also up significantly, up 151% to 310k weekly users.
- ninemsn's WWOS is down 40% week on week, to 207k users
Now take a look at the News category ...
As a category, News is sitting at 5.8m domestic users a week for 11/8-16/8 ... a decrease week on week of 3.14%
Most Masthead News sections or web news sources are either flat traffic wise, or down. I personally expected News traffic to spike during the Olympics.
Interestingly, UB frequency is relatively flat, so are page views per person. Both key engagement metrics.
What does this mean? I'm not so sure ...
I would suggest a high proportion of Olympic traffic is going through to Olympics.com.au and also the beijing2008 site - both of which Nielsen does not have access to.
Yahoo!7 is claiming they had 1.2m unique visitors through to their Olympics site in week 1. Problem is these are internal figures and don't specify whether they are AU eyeballs only. I find it odd that Yahoo!7 chose not to put their Olympics site on Nielsen when it's 100% localised.
Yahoo! is also spruiking incremental traffic to their front page as well. Again, no audited data on this.
So ... maybe the Olympics isn't pulling in any NEW eyeballs for these providers. Already loyal users of sites like The Age, ninemsn etc are moreso visiting their Olympic sections as they navigate through the site as per usual.
Or maybe everyone is just watching it on TV in the office and at home?
What are your thoughts?
It makes sense ... daytime events, people are at work and wanting immediate information. Online is the channel they turn to?
Right?
Well ... I'm not so sure after looking at last weeks Nielsen Market Intelligence data across the News and Sport categories.
Above are the Nielsen figures for the Sport category, Domestic browsers, 11/8-17/8
Foxsports is at number 1 at 654,834. SMH Sport and afl.com.au are at 2 and 3 respectively.
The interesting things about the above for me are ...
- The entire category sits at 3.5m UBs, only up 8.7% on the week prior. Last week was when the Olympics really heated up ... but it hasn't really brought any incremental traffic to the category
- Fairfax Digital's SMH Sport is up week on week 216% to 578k weekly users. Their The Age Sport is also up significantly, up 151% to 310k weekly users.
- ninemsn's WWOS is down 40% week on week, to 207k users
Now take a look at the News category ...
As a category, News is sitting at 5.8m domestic users a week for 11/8-16/8 ... a decrease week on week of 3.14%
Most Masthead News sections or web news sources are either flat traffic wise, or down. I personally expected News traffic to spike during the Olympics.
Interestingly, UB frequency is relatively flat, so are page views per person. Both key engagement metrics.
What does this mean? I'm not so sure ...
I would suggest a high proportion of Olympic traffic is going through to Olympics.com.au and also the beijing2008 site - both of which Nielsen does not have access to.
Yahoo!7 is claiming they had 1.2m unique visitors through to their Olympics site in week 1. Problem is these are internal figures and don't specify whether they are AU eyeballs only. I find it odd that Yahoo!7 chose not to put their Olympics site on Nielsen when it's 100% localised.
Yahoo! is also spruiking incremental traffic to their front page as well. Again, no audited data on this.
So ... maybe the Olympics isn't pulling in any NEW eyeballs for these providers. Already loyal users of sites like The Age, ninemsn etc are moreso visiting their Olympic sections as they navigate through the site as per usual.
Or maybe everyone is just watching it on TV in the office and at home?
What are your thoughts?
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Olympics 2008 - the online battle
The Olympics will be with us in just over 2 weeks, and many are thinking that this will be the first Olympics that online perhaps becomes the most important media channel.
Main reason is most events are taking place during work hours (to coincide with US prime time). During these times of the day Internet is the dominant media - and it will provide people with real time updates, images, stories and reports from Beijing.
My feeling is people will be turning to Internet and Radio primarily during the big events, with TV functioning as the catch up mechanism in the evening. Raises the question - what role will Newspapers play given the event times? I'm not quite sure ... but I think free transit papers like MX will be more popular than normal during this time.
It will be an interesting battle online for the Olympic eyeballs. All the major publishers have been out in market this year selling their 'Olympic packages' ... some have been good, others not so much. Yahoo!7 has the "official" rights and is confident they will experience success with these Olympics and the content they have.
My thoughts are that the biggest benefits from the Olympics will go to Google.
Why? Well - Google search is where the majority of people will turn to find out information and results. And YouTube will undeniably be a first stop for people looking for video coverage of events.
Yes, I am aware that YouTube/Google have no streaming rights for Olympics ... but it doesn't matter ... clips will be uploaded to YouTube and will generate millions of views before they are taken down. It is difficult to compete against YouTube users and their ability to share/upload information - effectively they have a million strong editorial team. YouTube will enjoy a strong spike in usage during the Olympic period.
The main publishers could benefit from Google being the first stop for those wanting information - if they buy SEM terms around all key athletes and events. This will result in a strong payday for Google. Imagine the demand for search terms such as Grant Hackett, Eamon Sullivan, Hockeyroos etc as the news outlets frantically try and buy traffic.
The biggest site traffic wise will be olympics.com. This happened with the World Cup and will happen again for Olympics.
I think it will be difficult for Yahoo to generate big traffic from their official presence despite them having the best legal coverage. Their overall sports offering is weak traffic wise, which means they won't have the residual audience of a WWOS or Fairfax's masthead sports offerings. Personally I think it is imperative that 7 really push their online content during the Opening Ceremony ... like REALLY flog it ... because this will rate highly and is their best chance at pushing their TV audience to their web destination. I haven't seen Yahoo!7 nail this with Sports (or anything aside Dancing With The Stars) in their 2+ years of marriage so it will be interesting to see the execution. Remember too, Yahoo!7 had the official socceroos online presence during World Cup 2006 but were beaten by their rivals (the real winner being worldcup.com - which was a Yahoo! global property)
The one to watch will be ninemsn. They have 3 core things on their side. They have a huge sports audience already through WWOS. They have the biggest homepage in the country - hitting 1.4m people every day, and they have the Messenger product and it's MSN Today popup which reaches huge numbers and can drive massive volume to their key properties. Remember too that wwos.com.au reaches 1m people per month as well. My bet is that ninemsn's Olympic presence will only trail Olympics.com in terms of usage during Beijing.
FoxSports and Fairfax will enjoy usage increases as well. Fairfax have the massive homepage volumes of The Age and SMH to drive traffic to stories as they happen. I don't feel Bigpond will play much of a role online.
Main reason is most events are taking place during work hours (to coincide with US prime time). During these times of the day Internet is the dominant media - and it will provide people with real time updates, images, stories and reports from Beijing.
My feeling is people will be turning to Internet and Radio primarily during the big events, with TV functioning as the catch up mechanism in the evening. Raises the question - what role will Newspapers play given the event times? I'm not quite sure ... but I think free transit papers like MX will be more popular than normal during this time.
It will be an interesting battle online for the Olympic eyeballs. All the major publishers have been out in market this year selling their 'Olympic packages' ... some have been good, others not so much. Yahoo!7 has the "official" rights and is confident they will experience success with these Olympics and the content they have.
My thoughts are that the biggest benefits from the Olympics will go to Google.
Why? Well - Google search is where the majority of people will turn to find out information and results. And YouTube will undeniably be a first stop for people looking for video coverage of events.
Yes, I am aware that YouTube/Google have no streaming rights for Olympics ... but it doesn't matter ... clips will be uploaded to YouTube and will generate millions of views before they are taken down. It is difficult to compete against YouTube users and their ability to share/upload information - effectively they have a million strong editorial team. YouTube will enjoy a strong spike in usage during the Olympic period.
The main publishers could benefit from Google being the first stop for those wanting information - if they buy SEM terms around all key athletes and events. This will result in a strong payday for Google. Imagine the demand for search terms such as Grant Hackett, Eamon Sullivan, Hockeyroos etc as the news outlets frantically try and buy traffic.
The biggest site traffic wise will be olympics.com. This happened with the World Cup and will happen again for Olympics.
I think it will be difficult for Yahoo to generate big traffic from their official presence despite them having the best legal coverage. Their overall sports offering is weak traffic wise, which means they won't have the residual audience of a WWOS or Fairfax's masthead sports offerings. Personally I think it is imperative that 7 really push their online content during the Opening Ceremony ... like REALLY flog it ... because this will rate highly and is their best chance at pushing their TV audience to their web destination. I haven't seen Yahoo!7 nail this with Sports (or anything aside Dancing With The Stars) in their 2+ years of marriage so it will be interesting to see the execution. Remember too, Yahoo!7 had the official socceroos online presence during World Cup 2006 but were beaten by their rivals (the real winner being worldcup.com - which was a Yahoo! global property)
The one to watch will be ninemsn. They have 3 core things on their side. They have a huge sports audience already through WWOS. They have the biggest homepage in the country - hitting 1.4m people every day, and they have the Messenger product and it's MSN Today popup which reaches huge numbers and can drive massive volume to their key properties. Remember too that wwos.com.au reaches 1m people per month as well. My bet is that ninemsn's Olympic presence will only trail Olympics.com in terms of usage during Beijing.
FoxSports and Fairfax will enjoy usage increases as well. Fairfax have the massive homepage volumes of The Age and SMH to drive traffic to stories as they happen. I don't feel Bigpond will play much of a role online.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Cricket - Who is winning the online battle?
It's obvious this year that cricket is being taken more seriously than ever by the publishers.
It makes sense, it is a good match for online as most games are played whilst people are at work - so many rely on digital channels to get the info on how much Australia is smacking the opposition by. ;)
So who is winning the war?
Well - it's tough to work out ... Neilsen Market Intelligence only allows you to split sites by category (ie sport) ... below are figures for December 07
Rank Site Domestic UBs per month (UBs per day)
1. Foxsports 887,203 (68,483)
2. WWOS ninemsn 729,709 (42,991)
3. smh.com.au/sport 669,448 (47,765)
3. smh.com.au/sport 669,448 (47,765)
4. Baggy Green 478,348 (46,005)
5. The Age Sport 413,084 (28,413)
6. Cricket.com.au 275,216 (16,984)
7. Sportal 132,203 (9,987)
Now just to clarify, the only pure cricket plays here are baggy green and cricket.com.au. It's interesting baggy green is still beating cricket.com.au given most of the in game cues are pushing to cricket.com.au. Foxsports includes not only their cricket coverage, but also all their other coverage AND stickcricket.com.au ... so it is hard to grasp which traffic is purely for cricket information. SMH and The Age are strong and one could hypothesise that most of their December traffic is Cricket related ... Sportal rounds things off at 132,203.
It's safe to say Baggy Green has benefited from being an early mover within this category - great figures for 07/08 season with definitely reduced TV pushes. (disclaimer: MI represents the interests of one Baggy Green advertising sponsor).
Another piece of data worth looking at is the % of overseas visitors on the main sites - considering the visiting Indian and Sri Lankan cricket teams
Foxsports - 22% of total traffic is intl
Cricket.com.au - 18% of total traffic is intl
Baggy Green - 4.5% of total traffic is intl
SMH/Sport - 36% of total traffic is intl
The Age/Sport - 33% of total traffic is intl
Fairfax properties have the highest % of intl visitors - however these properties IP target their display advertising to AU eyeballs only. Interestingly baggy green has a very low % of overseas visitors. One would hope the advertisers on Fox Sports and cricket.com.au are utilising IP targeting to make sure some of their ads aren't wasted on intl eyeballs.
A quick check of Google shows none of the above are presently (13/1/08) undertaking any SEM. The only properties using SEM are Yahoo!7, The Roar .com.au and Windows Live Search.
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