UK viewers want more women’s sport on TV
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Editor
| 18 March 2019

Research from consumer insights consultancy Netfluential has found that a majority of British and Northern Irish viewers want broadcasters to do more to encourage women to play sports.

Conducted in January 2019 among what is said to be a nationally representative sample of 10,000 people, the survey showed that overall respondents were united in their view that broadcasting more women’s sport was a positive move.

Just over two-fifths (43%) of people interested in sport had watched women’s sport in the last month, compared with 81% for men’s sport. Viewers believe that the main barrier to watching more women’s sport is the lack of coverage, not the quality of the sport being played. Three-fifths of the respondents interested in sport said that the reason they don’t watch women’s sport more often was a combination of a lack of coverage of women’s sport on TV, the commentary not being very good and that relevant fixtures were not advertised enough so people did not know when they were being shown.

Almost three-quarters (71%) of UK adults agreed that showing more women’s sport would be good because it would have a positive effect on girls and women taking part in sport. In addition a majority (61%) of young women agreed they would “feel more confident if there were more people like me on TV”, versus 43% of the general population.

The findings also showed that more than half of viewers (52%) thought the BBC should be doing more to encourage women to participate in sport. This compared with 50% for Sky, 44% for ITV, 36% for Channel 4, 33% for Facebook and 31% for BT.

“Our research points to a growing demand in the UK for women’s sport on TV, and in most cases, we can see that this need isn’t being met by the mainstream broadcasters,” said Netfluential CEO Jeroen Verheggen. With the positive impact of women in sport being broadcast on TV, we’re looking ahead to see how...broadcasters will respond.”