Because the Milan-Napoli experiment free and clear on DAZN did not go as expected

Dazn says it is satisfied with the result achieved with the free-to-air broadcast of Milan-Napoli, but the audience estimates and the comparison with more recent matches say otherwise.

How it went MilanNapoli are Dlittle in terms of ratings? He didn’t break through. It was reasonable to expect a much better figure judging from the formula, open (in addition to season ticket holders) also to a maximum of 2 million “occasional” users registered for free (and without subscription obligation), with which the key match of the 10th season was presented Serie A day.

Indeed, looking at the data on OTT viewers (1,883,064 in total), it was anything but exceptional also in light of another detail that was not at all marginal: the free-to-air broadcast after 30 years of a championship match, an opportunity that it was certainly not a gift because it was part of the “Try and buy” package of TV rights acquired by the platform. That is, broadcasting with the method tested for the Meazza match is planned for 5 of the 380 matches included in the paid offer.

As good as they are, the numbers collected in support of the challenge between the teams of Paulo Fonseca e Antonio Conte they didn’t raise the bar of contacts much: essentially the real bang didn’t happen. The tangible example was the daring Italian derby, which ended 4-4 at San Siro between Inter and Juventus: overall audience of 3,135 million viewers with Sky Sport (1,937 thousand-odd) which almost doubled Dazn (1,198). The same Inter-Milan 1-2 match on 22 September last year kept almost 2 million people (1,972 thousand-odd) glued to the TV, on Dazn.

Milan-Napoli in free, where to watch it on TV and free streaming on Dazn: timetable and official lineups

“It was the best match in terms of ratings played during a midweek round from the 2014-2015 season to today, with the exception of some rounds played on holidays, exceeding the numbers recorded by both first legs of previous seasons on Dazn, both played on Sunday evening”Dazn reports, underlining the satisfaction with the result obtained thanks also to the trick included in the tender and designed to bring a new audience of fans closer to the football product, so as to stem the hemorrhage of spectators which has become worrying.

The figures describe such a scenario: in the first 9 days of Serie A there were 4.8 million fewer people watching football on TV. And the postponement of Bologna-Milan to a later date was certainly not excellent publicity in this sense.

This is why what was collected with Milan-Napoli is part of the classic glass-half-full/half-empty evaluation: on the one hand, the free-to-air broadcast of the match solicits so-called ‘dormant’ customers (those registered but inactive because they have not renewed their season ticket) and tries to make proselytes, on the other hand a numerical comfort in terms of audience to be satisfied with in the current times.

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Source: www.fanpage.it