ENGLISH FA CUP:QUESTIONS ABOUT the decline in profile of the FA Cup are likely to get louder after new figures revealed average television audiences for the competition have dropped by more than a third.
This season has been the first of a four-year €473 millions deal agreed by the Football Association with Setanta and ITV, which was hailed by the then FA chief executive, Brian Barwick, for boosting revenues by 42 per cent when it was signed in 2007.
But a series of production errors on ITV, combined with the travails of Setanta after it missed out on a crucial batch of Premier League rights and attempts by both broadcasters to restructure contracts with the FA, have called the wisdom of the deal into question. Official viewing figures show that the average audience for live matches across both broadcasters fell from 5.072 million to 2.097 million in the third round, from 3.7 million to 2.1 million in the fourth round and 3.7 million to 1.8 million in the fifth round, when compared to 2007-08.
Although a notable decline would be expected, because a greater proportion of games are shown on pay-TV under the existing deal and because Setanta is in fewer homes than Sky, the figures will provide more evidence for those who claim the FA Cup is losing its mass appeal.
FA executives are likely to be concerned about the trend. If ITV’s average audiences are compared to the BBC’s, there is still a sizeable drop compared to last season. In the third round, they fell from 6.2 million to 4.4 million, in the fourth round from 4.5 million to 4.1 million, and in the fifth round from 4.6 million to 4 million.
ITV left itself open yesterday to further accusations of devaluing the FA Cup with a bizarre technology test. Viewers tuning in to ITV4+1 for the FA Cup Preview Show yesterday could find only a test card saying: “Sorry, for legal reasons we cannot broadcast the programme that was shown earlier on ITV4.” The broadcaster insisted this was unconnected to its attempts to renegotiate payment terms on its FA Cup contract. Instead, claimed ITV, the programme was canned for “ongoing technical tests”.
GuardianService
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