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Sport and Technology - news and features on the use of technology in sport
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View From the Editor: Technology at the heart of a ratings war - February 2004  

edThis month's View From the Editor starts with an apology to all of you who have complained about the prevalence of material in this column in recent times relating to my favourite sport. A sport with origins that stretch nobly back to medieval times and archery. I am of course referring to the superbly entertaining sport of darts.
dartsIn the last issue of Sport and Technology I mused over the possible joy that could be personally induced by watching 11-times PDC World Darts Champion Phil 'The Power' Taylor indulge in his arrows artistry by virtue of high definition television. This prompted a veritable trickle of consternation including an e-mail from a reader in the Netherlands (subject matter: 'Do we really want this?') who felt passionate enough to declare: "Would we really want to see all of this in glorious HD? This Phil Taylor does not look like one of the furry critters usually associated with the editor's favourite sport. Darts also involves a lot of sweat and a lot of close-ups. When those are combined with HD resolution you have a problem."
Furry critters and sweating aside (we will save that fantasy for a future issue of S&T), the fact that this complaint hails from the Netherlands, home of darts' other regular (but not current) World Champion Raymond van Barneveld in the rival (BDO) championship held at Lakeside in the UK each January, makes this Editor a little suspicious. Methinks this reader has not yet recovered from the thrasing that Taylor gave Barneveld during the only televised time that the champions from the two rival world championships met and played each other (in November 1999).
By the way New York is so great they named it twice. Darts has two World Championships. Spot the analogy? Just thought it was worth pointing that out.
Our Dutch reader might have been more enamoured if I had used the example of topless darts as an attraction for covering the sport in a high definition format. And I am not talking about darts with their flights missing [for those of you who don't know - or indeed don't care - that's the feathery bits].

What's wrong with radio ratings?

mackenzie
Kelvin MacKenzie
By coincidence, but eminently useful for providing a neat segway to the actual focus of this month's View From the Editor, (please bear with me, I promise it will be worth it), this month I went along to the headquarters of The Wireless Group (TWG), home of UK sports radio station TalkSport, to talk to TWG's chairman and chief executive Kelvin MacKenzie, the man credited with bringing topless darts to UK television in the 1990s on the now moribund television channel L!ve TV. MacKenzie is also the former Editor of The Sun newspaper, one of the UK's most popular tabloids and well-known for its bevy of 'Page Three' topless 'beauties'. With this in mind I was surprised to read a recent news headline in the US press that declared 'ESPN.com ready to launch a Page 3'. UK readers of Sport and Technology will be either pleased or disappointed to hear that 'Page 3' in this instance will cover the hedonistic world of celebrity and sport: "Want to know about Justin Timberlake in the NBAE (Entertainment) League or movie producer Bobby Farrelly's 'two frosty-ones' custom goalie helmet at the NHL All-Star Celebrity Challenge? That's Page 3." Okey dokes. (Hmm - Timberlake, Janet Jackson, Page 3.....surely there's a headline there?)
But back to sports radio. MacKenzie has been vitriolic in the UK press over the last year or so on the subject of radio audience ratings. He is currently preparing to file a law-suit against Rajar, the body responsible for radio ratings in the UK, on the grounds that the paper and pen 'diary' ratings system the organisation currently employs is outmoded and is costing TalkSport millions of pounds in lost advertising revenue. TalkSport has introduced a rival ratings system through use of a wristwatch developed by German research company GfK. The wristwatch is 'always on' and records all the radio consumed by the listener though a small microphone that is attached to it, without the listener having to remember to write it down "though ticking little boxes every quarter of an hour," says MacKenzie. "Technology has proved that when people fill in these diaries, they fill them in wrongly. This technology can be used in anything from a pen to a mobile phone. It doesn't matter how it is implemented, just make it real-time and make it fair."
TalkSport became suspicious of the Rajar ratings diary system following the transmission of the Pakistan v England Test cricket series in 2000 "and we didn't register so much as a blip on the Rajar despite owning the rights exclusively."
Research commissioned by TWG subsequently showed that not only was TalkSport's audience three times the size claimed by Rajar (6m versus 2m), but that overall radio listening across all stations was higher, although listeners tuned into these stations for shorter periods of time.
Says MacKenzie: "The other radio groups in the UK hate me because they are being paid money for an audience that doesn't exist. Or where it does exist, the audience isn't spending as much time listening to it. Advertisers are being swindled."
"When Rajar go into court they are going to have to defend the diary and that's going to be the biggest laugh in history. We tested people wearing a watch and filling in a diary [simultaneously] and they got the diary completely wrong. Rajar issued a press release saying those tests were wrong and when they get to court they are going to have to defend that and they can't. So I am feeling very bullish about our chances and am completely up for it."
TWG will seek two things from the legal action continues MacKenzie. "Firstly damages in the region of nearly £2m a month in lost advertising through Rajar not implementing this technology - £25m-£27m in total. Plus we are seeking for the judge to tell the radio industry to decease from using the diary system. This is big-time stuff. A whole industry has to face up to the fact that the technology is there today and the diary system is wrong and has always been wrong. The sound of axes are being sharpened for a war. And that's what we are going to have - a war in court." With Rajar recently extending its research contract for another two years, therefore precluding a new system being introduced before 2006, MacKenzie and his team will be no doubt be bookmarking www.knivesplus.com/LANSKY.HTML

Pats, Panthers, pom-poms and pizza

pizzaThat's nearly all folks for this month, but Sport and Technology couldn't sign off without thanking the NFL UK for being the perfect host at London's sports party of the year, the Super Bowl 2004 party at The Ministry of Sound.
There was glitz, there was glamour and there was gossip (and that was just in the men's bathroom apparently). It was a party to top all parties and a game to end all games (well done the Pats) on a day when more pizza is consumed in the US than any other day of the year. Having a predilection for the odd mushroom, garlic and pineapple thin-slice combo, I say, make every day Super Bowl Sunday and make mine 12 inches to go.

Rachael Church - Editor

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Page from ArkSports' Sport and Technology (www.sportandtechnology.com) on 2008-09- 8 : View From the Editor: Technology at the heart of a ratings war - February 2004 : http://www.sportandtechnology.com/features/0131.html