Silver Ferns have golden TV touch

Silver Fern Tania Dalton's compatriots watched the tests in their thousands. Picture / Simon Baker

The egos of the world champion New Zealand women may be battered - and their bodies bruised black and blue - but it is the Australian administrators who are green with envy after the latest netball series between the two sides.

On-court, the New Zealand netball side were narrowly outplayed, losing the series 2-1.

Off-court there is a yawning gap between the transtasman cousins in terms of the sport's popularity, image, and the associated money-spinning television ratings - and the Silver Ferns are the clear winners.

The Australian team arrived back home on Tuesday to a welcoming party of just two fans - a rubbish truck driver who had just finished his morning shift, and his friend.

Australian coach Norma Plummer told journalists at Sydney Airport that the homecoming was in stark contrast to the team's time in New Zealand, where they were constantly in the media spotlight.

"Considering we are just mobbed in New Zealand - I just can't believe how it is over there. I can walk around Canberra and nobody knows me.

"Over there, I just can't move. It's just incredible. They're the number two sport in the country, they get everything."

New Zealanders had superior financial backing and the Australian netballers were still fighting for recognition in their home country, she said.

New Zealand player prizes, however, as the Australians have already told us, are a bit on the cheap side - we give out cosmetic baskets, not cash.

It's true that Rugby World Cup fever is still a while off, but even Ms Plummer may have underestimated netball's current popularity in New Zealand.

Beside being sold out with capacity crowds of 4000, 5000, and 6900 at Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch respectively, the three netball tests drove television ratings through the roof.

On each occasion the television audience for the netball outstripped the number of viewers who tuned in to watch the rugby league test match, against the Kangaroos, and both semifinals of rugby's Air New Zealand Cup.

According to AGB Nielsen Media Research, the series-deciding netball test on Monday drew 654,800 viewers aged 5-plus. The first test drew 497,300 viewers and the second test 434,000.

Those three games were sport's best-rating events for the week, despite the perceived dominance of rugby, cricket and rugby league in New Zealand.

Both rugby codes rated behind netball in terms of viewership last week.

Each netball game was televised live on TV One, while the rugby games were covered live by pay-TV channel Sky Sport.

However, free-to-air coverage of the rugby was still available on Prime Television (albeit delayed coverage, falling outside prime-time spots).

The live and free-to-air nature of TV1's coverage is presumed to have largely contributed to netball's high ratings, although the transtasman series is also held, at the most, twice a year.

By contrast, the high diet of rugby that has swamped the New Zealand public since the Super 14 competition began on February 10 is thought to have contributed to a waning interest in that sporting code.

* In Australia last week, controversy raged on talkback radio over ABC's initial decision not to take a live television feed of the netball tests.

Broadcasting laws in that country allow free-to-air channels exclusive access to 1300 sporting events of national importance (Super 14 Rugby is not included because it is the creation of a pay-TV channel).

Many of the free-to-air networks take the rights, but also choose to "hoard" many of them, meaning coverage of the events are delayed outside prime-time spots, or are not screened at all.

The executive director of the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association, Debra Richards, said ABC bowed to public pressure on Monday and at the last minute agreed to screen the deciding test live.

However, because ratings for news and other programmes were seen as more important, coverage of the first test was delayed until 11.45pm last Thursday.

"Not even international tests against our sporting arch-rivals New Zealand are safe from free-to-air TV abuse," Ms Richards said.

"This latest example by the ABC is even more brutal because women's sport should be given a fair go and not shoved into delayed timeslots that conclude well past midnight."

A new scheme was being drafted by the Australian Government, which would force a "use it or lose it" scenario, Ms Richards said.

She said her organisation was set up to push for a similar open marketplace to that of New Zealand, where television rights went to the highest or most preferred bidder.