Chris Burton and Polystar I are all focus in the CIC3* ERM class
© William Carey
Event Rider Masters (ERM), the equestrian Eventing series launched in 2016, today announced significant increases in their television distribution figures for the 2018 season, following their annual independent media audit carried out by SMG You Gov.
ERM’s total dedicated television audience showed a massive 235% rise from 687,000 viewers in 2017 to 2,34,894 in 2018, with a major increase in Asia thanks to new broadcast deals in India, China and the Far East. The total number of hours broadcast globally on television rose from 965 to over 1,300 hours in 2018. ERM enjoyed 80 hours of broadcast on Australian TV channels and 54 hours of broadcast on New Zealand TV channels.
UK-based Australian Event Rider Christopher Burton, originally from Toowoomba, took home the £30,000 series winners prize cheque following outstanding results in multiple legs across Europe which drove a dramatically increased level of support from Australian fans. With the highly engaged Australian audience growing once again in 2018, it is clear the appetite for the ERM in the Southern Hemisphere is strong.
2018 ERM Series Winner Christopher Burton
© Event Rider Masters
Sponsors and host venue partners gained huge benefit from the increased television coverage, as the series generated a total of 1,135 hours of sponsor branded exposure across the season, up by 64% on 2017. ERM Sponsors enjoy an average of 10 minutes brand exposure per hour of broadcast.
The number of people reached by ERM across multiple digital platforms also grew from 1 million in 2017 to over 2 million. ERM’s digital fan base continue to prove themselves hugely attractive to sponsors, demonstrating higher than industry average engagement rates across all social media platforms and consuming over 100,000 hours of online video content.
Commenting on the latest figures Jim O’Toole, CEO of ERM said:
“This excellent growth in both linear television and digital distribution audiences reflects the quality of the horse sport we cover, with most of the world’s top 20 riders competing regularly in our series. The presence of World and Olympic champions and their horses is key to our core offering of world class performance sport.
Our ongoing commitment to exploration of innovative methods of both television production and distribution is paying off. Our strategic commitment to creating multi-faceted social media content to complement our many hours of live stream broadcast has driven the growth of our digital fan base and their valuable higher than industry average engagement rate.
We have created a solid branding and engagement platform for our Sponsors and host venues who continue to benefit from high branding exposure per hour of broadcast. With an exciting new calendar planned for 2019 including our first ever live linear television broadcasts, these figures will continue to grow next year.”
Event Rider Masterclass facts:
- FEI approved CIC three-star competition series
- Every minute of every ERM competition live streamed online, TV Highlights shows produced from every ERM leg – broadcast globally
- 2018 – six leg series, season championship points awarded at each leg. Final championship result taken from top 5 out of 6 legs of riders’ results.
- 2018 ERM Season Championship:
- ERM Champion Christopher Burton (AUS)
- Runner up Laura Collett (GBR)
- Tim Price (NZL)
- Up to 40 riders compete in each leg. Eligible competitors accepted into each leg are announced on ERM Social Media platforms in “The ERM Cut”. Riders are selected based on their FEI World Rider Ranking at the time of entry to each leg.
- Event Rider Masters has innovated the live online broadcast of the dressage starting order draw, in line with the unique seeding of the ERM Dressage phase according to the competitors’ horses average Dressage score.
- Riders perform their Dressage routines to their own choice of music to enhance the spectator experience. Live movement by movement Dressage scoring is available for spectators both on-line and on site.
- SAP provide a Spectator Judging App for the Dressage phase, to allow spectators to act as a dressage judge and compare their opinion to that of the official Dressage judges.
- The Show Jumping is run in reverse order of merit from the Dressage results.
- The top 20 riders after the first two phases of Dressage and Show Jumping, start the Cross Country in reverse order of merit – ensuring that the tension builds till the very last rider is on course.
- SAP Sports Technology provides live virtual tracking of riders on the Cross Country course, including speed, position and time on course.
- Unique rolling ERM Podium at the Cross Country finish, with live big screen TV and ERM Fan Zone creating an exciting atmosphere that builds towards the final result of each leg.
- Televised ERM Podium prize giving is located at the finish, immediately following the cross country.
Source: Event press release
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