Cricket was the winner on the day . . .
The annual Black Clash entertainment extravaganza — involving rugby and cricket stars on the field and a fair few media personalities off it — attracted a massive audience for TVNZ 1 on Saturday night.
According to Nielsen stats, the cricket encounter at Bay Oval in Mt Maunganui recorded the biggest audience for a single sports event on one channel — 1.085 million viewers — since the start of last year.
That means it surpassed the likes of the Rugby World Cup final. Before Sky jumps on the phone, the RWC final did attract more than 1.5 million people cumulatively across various channels and times last year.
The Black Clash spectacle was one to behold, whether it was Ruben Love’s astonishing-catch-that-wasn’t, or the fun on the sidelines featuring the likes of Leigh Hart and Mike Lane.
You have to hand it to David Higgins and Carlena Limmer at Duco Events — they have created an annual event that draws eyeballs.
They’ve also, somehow, managed to convince TVNZ to cut short the 6pm news by half an hour. As a viewer myself that night, I didn’t think the news bulletin suffered at all.
The Black Clash was also the third most-watched broadcast overall in TVNZ’s Saturday night timeslot in the past 12 months, trailing only the general election and the coronation of King Charles III.
As well as 1.085m viewers, TVNZ+ attracted an additional 80,000 accounts with 155,000 streams.
“The Hot Spring Spas T20 Black Clash in association with Wolfbrook continues to be the biggest sportainment event by pretty much every metric,” said Limmer, the event director.
“When you’ve got the likes of sporting legends such as Brian Lara and Johnathan Thurston rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in Kiwi sporting history, an atmosphere that’s all about engaging the fans and celebrating our heroes, plus the wonderful job TVNZ do, it’s not surprising the event continues to capture such a huge audience.”
Meanwhile, NZME’s ACC commentaries and cricket analysis are drawing big numbers, too.
“ACC’s loyal fan base continues to grow massively, and it is fast becoming one of New Zealand’s top sport entertainment brands,” says NZME head of digital audio James Butcher.
“In just the first couple of months of the summer of cricket we’ve already seen 200,000 streaming The Alternative Commentary Collective’s live commentary, with more than
50,000 total listening hours, and
30,000 downloads of The BYC podcast.”