This year, the Melbourne Cup hardly “stopped the nation”, as it has in days gone by, as poor publicity in the wake of the 7.30 report on race horse slaughter continues to damage the industry’s standing with ordinary Australians.
As a result, Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup crowd of 81,408 was the lowest since 1995 (when Doriemus won both the Melbourne Cup and the Caulfield Cup). Gambling was also down, as was TV viewing.
The punters bet 6.9% less on the race in NSW and Victoria, while overall TAB turnover fell 5.9% on the biggest punting day of the year. That also means state governments will get less from their various gambling taxes.
TV viewing fell sharply — the official ratings showed a fall from just under 2.5 million for the 2017 and 2018 cups, on Oztam ratings data, to 1.76 million — a drop of 730,000 or just under 30%.
Now Ten says the adjusted times for the 2019 cup showed an average national audience of 1.94 million — down more than half a million viewers or more than 20%. (The 2017 and 2018 figures are not time-adjusted.)
Viewing fell in metro markets from 1.83 million in 2018 to 1.324 million (1.44 million time adjusted) — a clear fall of more than 20%.
The regional audience dipped from 701,000 in 2017 (and 653,000 in 2018) to 438,000 this year (480,000 time adjusted).
Now, these figures do not include viewing in pubs, clubs cafes and other venues. But it should be noted that Lucio’s, a top Sydney Italian eatery in the suburb of Paddington, advertised a “non-Melbourne Cup” lunch on Facebook on Tuesday.
Lucio’s is an eatery where racing people like to celebrate, while a pub in the inner Sydney suburb of Newtown (where Greens and animal rights activists are highly visible) was also promoting a non-Melbourne Cup lunch function.
Was the Melbourne Cup yesterday? Who won? Who cares?
I’ve lived in Melbourne my whole life. A Melbourne Cup has been run each year of that life. A Melbourne Cup was run for each year of my parents’, grandparents’ and (I think) great grandparents’ lives – all of them now long gone. I don’t have a connection to country the way our indigenous people do, but to the extent that I have any at all, the Melbourne Cup is part of that connection. For my whole life it has stood as a sentinel to summer, which as a kid meant beaches and barbecues and Christmas and holidays: all of the things we colonials tend to treasure under the umbrella of ‘our Australian lifestyle’. So, even though I have no affinity with horse racing, I’ve always seen the Cup as part of my cultural heritage.
I don’t feel that way anymore. Partly it’s because of a growing awareness of the toll it takes on horses. Partly it’s a growing impatience with the pretence and pomposity and so-called ‘larrikin’ behaviour that goes with the Cup – although the truth is those things have always been there. Mostly, it’s the saturation advertising promoting gambling. This has exposed not only the Cup but the whole Spring racing carnival for what it is: a month-long festival of greed and avarice, long since stripped of cultural meaning, where the spivs’ sole goal is to relieve the mug punters of as much of their wealth as possible in the time available. It is about money, money and more money.
I can’t tell you who won the Cup yesterday. I really don’t care anymore.
I love your “sentinel to summer” observation – yes, it’s always been an opening to the silly season for me at work, too. The rise of the “non Melbourne Cups” events in 2019 is good to see – we can hope that the date will become a generic gateway into the season.
Yesterday I avoided watching TV news bulletins as it was guaranteed the Cup would be the lead story across the board. It’s encouraging to see the figures proving interest has dwindled this year.
If only the general public had been as discerning at May’s federal election.
Yes zur alors – if one the general public had been as discerning. I agree with you whole heartedly.
Its actually WAY worse than the figures imply….. Since 1995 the population of Melbourne has skyrocketed from 3.3m to 4.8m so the proportion Melbournians going has plummeted.
The only thing keeping things alive is the cosy/lazy/parasitic relationship between the media and the race – by continuing to pretend that the race is a major cultural lodestone all the dead tree/dying video players can rely on a few days of guaranteed Phil Space content each year.
It will be interesting to see at what point the downward spiral is reflected in actual coverage?
Or will ScoMo save us all by just declaring it Criminally UnAustralian to boycott the Cup….
We don’t get channel 10 in Tasmania, so watched it on channel 68 which is good racing coverage, not all that other crap.