The Score: SEN struggles in the ratings during the AFL off-season
Craig Hutchison’s SEN team has made a tardy start to the radio ratings after its venutre into cricket wasn’t the bonanza expected. But there’s one reason why the station can anticipate a spike in the numbers soon.
The Score
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Football can’t come quick enough for Craig Hutchison’s SEN empire after a tardy start to the radio ratings.
Historically the opening survey of the year is always poor and there were no real surprises in the drop-off for the sports network.
Overall SEN dropped to 2.4 — down from 3.1 in the last survey — which is the lowest station share in over three years.
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Its venture into cricket clearly didn’t provide the bounce they were expecting although internally it’s viewed more as a revenue raiser than ratings bonanza.
The biggest hit came in the morning shift which went down from 3.5 to 2.2 although regular host Gerard Whateley was absent for a large chunk of the survey.
Breakfast dropped from 3.5 to 2.9 while an increase in live sport in the evenings saw an impressive 1.9 surge in that slot to 3.4 which was the best rating for the station.
SEN is used to rollercoaster ratings with Whateley the perfect example given at the end of October last year he reached a high of 5.1.
Meanwhile, there was a slight overall improvement at Macquarie Sports Radio who registered 0.3, up from 0.1 last year.
HALE V BROWNING (ALMOST) FEUD
Hats off to Jack Hale and his mate Rohan Browning.
It’s fair to say athletics needs a bit of firing up this season and the two sprint guns decided they’d add some spice on Twitter.
Hale’s first tweet since November 2015 certainly caught the attention of track and field followers who thought they’d stumbled on a legit feud.
But the real story is the pair were in cahoots and even thought that deleting the tweet, which Hale has done, would help add more fuel to their alleged bust-up.
What is correct is that Browning is only running the 200m in Perth on Saturday night while Hale is sticking to the 100m which he’s dominated throughout the summer.
THE TWEET
@JackHale98
“I don’t really know how this twitter thing works, but does anyone know where @Rohan_Browning’s balls are? Can’t find his name on the Perth Track Classic 100m start list?”
‘IT’S ONE OF THE WORST FEELINGS EVER’
It was international day at Melbourne United training on Tuesday and not just for the media.
ASADA drug testers were waiting for United’s three imports Casper Ware, Josh Boone and DJ Kennedy when they arrived at Melbourne Arena.
The theory was they’d get the drug test out of the way before fronting the media to talk about Game 3 of the final series in Perth on Friday night.
This wasn’t an issue for Boone and Kennedy who returned after a few minutes to fulfil their media commitments but Ware wasn’t so punctual.
In fact it was another 40 minutes before the star point guard appeared with the story being he’d been 10ml short on his requirements.
Testers require 90ml of urine but Ware could only hit 80ml which was the subject of much mirth among his teammates.
“It’s one of the worst feelings ever,” Ware said.
“You see them and you just hope they don’t call your name, that’s all you can do.”
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