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Paid attendance figures for DCI World Championships


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LOL well team was known as the B'ars way back in the 30s. Think even before they became part of the AHL.

Guess we'll have to make do with Doc Emerick who leaves nearby in Palmyra last I heard....

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LOL well team was known as the B'ars way back in the 30s. Think even before they became part of the AHL.

Guess we'll have to make do with Doc Emerick who leaves nearby in Palmyra last I heard....

I thought ISIS destroyed Palmyra?

Oh . . . . THAT Palmyra. :tounge2:

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BTW--I work with TV ratings and have access to Nielsen. The telecast on ESPN2, 9/5/07, was estimated to have 507,000 viewers .

Were these half a million viewers "existing fans"? Who knows? First you'd have to define what an "existing fan" is. Is it someone who had to attend or watch at least one show that season? Is it someone who participated in the past and was just coming back to watch out of curiosity?

A half a million viewers of the DCI Finals is far, far more of both fans and non fans alike than watched this years DCI Finals ( as I mentioned above ). While we don't have the breakdown of the level of interest of these 507,000 TV viewers of the DCI Finals from 8 years ago, it can be said the same for anyone watching a DCI Finals in any year. The level of interest probably runs the gamut. Every year at Finals we have the die hards, but we also have the parents, grandparents, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc that are primarily there to simply pick up their friend, children, grandchildren at the conclusion of the Finals and its season. How many of them are there in this latter category ? Who knows. Who cares. if they bought a ticket they are included in the attendance figures. Some of the estimated 40,000 in attendance at some of the Finals in the pre DCI years were veterans conventioneers at the VFW or the American Legion National Drum & Bugle Corps Championships. But they did buy a ticket and ( in the case of Miami for just one example ) they did sit in the heat and humidity in the outdoor Orange Bowl for over 3 hours to watch the Corps at Finals. So even though quite a few in the 40,000 or so in attendance at some Finals in the pre DCI years were not" true" Drum corps fans ( whatever THAT means ), we do count them as paid attendance as they bought a ticket. I have no idea the total number of people that saw this years finals in the AMC select Cinemas, and thru pay per view subscription ( perhaps DCI will release those figures shortly ), but it can't be anywhere close to the half a million viewers that caught the DCI Finals just a few short years ago..

Edited by BRASSO
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Don't forget to factor in the cost of getting 500K+ fans on ESPN. It's nice that many people tuned in for whatever amount of time. But if it was breaking DCIs bank account to do so, then it wasn't worth it.

And I have no idea how the theater show expenses are paid.....

Edited by JimF-LowBari
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Don't forget to factor in the cost of getting 500K+ fans on ESPN. It's nice that many people tuned in for whatever amount of time. But if it was breaking DCIs bank account to do so, then it wasn't worth it.

Yes, my understanding from press reports from DCI was that DCI decided that it was a business endeavor with ESPN that DCI no longer wanted to continue with ESPN. Thats certainly the perogative of any party to a business deal at the end of the agreed to terms. DCI exercised that option. And the reason given was that DCI determined it was no longer a financial benefit to them that justified the costs. ( for another example of cost cutting measures, DCI cited " costs " as a central factor in eliminating full judging panels at early season shows a few years back as well .) Incoming revenue streams, levels of profit, etc do dictate what ventures become future sustainable and which must be cut, in order to remain financially solvent.

Edited by BRASSO
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A half a million viewers of the DCI Finals is far, far more of both fans and non fans alike than watched this years DCI Finals ( as I mentioned above ). While we don't have the breakdown of the level of interest of these 507,000 TV viewers of the DCI Finals from 8 years ago, it can be said the same for anyone watching a DCI Finals in any year. The level of interest probably runs the gamut. Every year at Finals we have the die hards, but we also have the parents, grandparents, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc that are primarily there to simply pick up their friend, children, grandchildren at the conclusion of the Finals and its season. How many of them are there in this latter category ? Who knows. Who cares. if they bought a ticket they are included in the attendance figures. Some of the estimated 40,000 in attendance at some of the Finals in the pre DCI years were veterans conventioneers at the VFW or the American Legion National Drum & Bugle Corps Championships. But they did buy a ticket and ( in the case of Miami for just one example ) they did sit in the heat and humidity in the outdoor Orange Bowl for over 3 hours to watch the Corps at Finals. So even though quite a few in the 40,000 or so in attendance at some Finals in the pre DCI years were not" true" Drum corps fans ( whatever THAT means ), we do count them as paid attendance as they bought a ticket. I have no idea the total number of people that saw this years finals in the AMC select Cinemas, and thru pay per view subscription ( perhaps DCI will release those figures shortly ), but it can't be anywhere close to the half a million viewers that caught the DCI Finals just a few short years ago..

The half a million who saw it on TV was in addition to whatever the attendance at the actual event was that year.

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I have no idea the total number of people that saw this years finals in the AMC select Cinemas, and thru pay per view subscription ( perhaps DCI will release those figures shortly ), but it can't be anywhere close to the half a million viewers that caught the DCI Finals just a few short years ago..

So then you must have an idea.

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The half a million who saw it on TV was in addition to whatever the attendance at the actual event was that year.

Yes. and for some verifiable data, DCI long time broadcaster Steve Rondinaro stated on air live twice in the 2007 Finals ESPN broadcast ( still on youtube )that " DCI's announced Finals attendance here tonite is 25,000 fans ". Coincidentally, I watched the ESPN Finals show( and heard DCI's figure ) just this past week. That 2007 DCI Finals Attendance figure is a little bit more than what DCI announced for Finals attendance earlier this month in Indy. So the numbers of people who saw the 2007 DCI Finals in 2007 was approx. 530,000 or so. Eventually, DCI will get around to releasing the 2015 pay per view subscriptions, and the AMC theatre attendance for the 2015 estimated viewers of the 2015 DCI Finals

Edited by BRASSO
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Viewer statistics remain a mystery to me. I know how Nielson works, but don't think everything revolves around their little boxes. Maybe you can help provide answers to these questions:

1. How long (minutes) does one need to watch to be considered a viewer?

2. Because thousands of bars have something ESPN tuned on during all business hours, with no one ever changing the channel, is that kind of casual viewership counted?

It would seem, statistics like these are extrapolated from a much smaller sample.

By the way, the common belief is that DCI did purchase the airtime. I can't confirm this.

Anytime you see a Nielsen "rating" it is the number of viewers to the average minute in the telecast. Some minutes may have had more viewers. Others may have had less, but if you average all the minutes, that is what the figure is expressing. It is done that way because, traditionally, advertisers wanted an estimate for the number of people who could potentially see their ads.

There is an alternate measure called "cumulative viewers" which could measure "number of people watched for at least 1 minute or 6 minutes" or whatever, but that is not being used here.

Viewing in bars is not measured. It is considered "bonus". But, it is too hard to quantify and there are a lot of questions about whether the sound is on(it often isn't) and whether people are actually watching.

Yes, it's statistics and statistics is a science.

If DCI had to purchase the airtime rather then have ESPN pay for the rights, it illustrates the problem. I'm sure college lacrosse or flyfishing has to purchase airtime to get aired. Have a network purchase the rights--it doesn't have to be ESPN--and let them worry about selling advertising. Most advertising on cable networks is sold "run of schedule" anyway.

For ESPN2, it wasn't even poorly rated. Out of 157 telecasts on the network that week, DCI ranked 16th. It had more viewers than a WNBA Play-off game and more viewers than Major League Soccer games. I'm sure the WNBA and MLS don't have to pay to get airtime. ESPN buys the rights to air it and pays for the production.

Maybe DCI should have hired a sports agent to handle this.

There are so many small TV networks desperate for content now.

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