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This week's column is going to examine our audience surveys for last year's Red Stripe Bowl.

However, before turning attention to that data, we will glance at the Busta Cricket Series as the eight teams engage in the seventh and final round of competition.

Thus far it has proven a gripping and exciting tournament with no runaway winner for the Busta Cup - which will be determined after this round of matches - nor any clear indication of which four teams will advance to the semifinals of the Busta International Shield.

The closeness of this year's competition, which looks set for an intriguing climax, and the tournament's new format have triggered increased interest and we hope this will continue into the Busta International Shield.

Above are three informative tables regarding our audience surveys for the 2000 Red Stripe Bowl. We hope that by examining these statistics for radio, television and newspapers, fans will better understand the WICB's strategy to develop the electronic distribution of cricket regionally.

By holding the three games of the Final Four stage of the tournament to Kingston, Jamaica, significantly more people throughout the Caribbean were able to see the games (1.3 million average audience via television per game) than ever before.

Of course, the trade-off - poor match attendance - is clearly not desirable but, at this point, we feel the growing television and radio markets are a priority. As has happened in other sports globally, we believe these figures will eventually reflect an increase in gate receipts.

We hope you will find this information and the accompanying notes useful and we will present a similar survey for the current Busta Cricket Series.

l Table No. 1 (showing estimates of the radio audience):

The Red Stripe matches attracted a sizeable radio audience. Calculated estimates put the number of people throughout the Caribbean who listened to sections of the final encounter between the Leewards and the Windwards at 1 496 000.

It needs to be emphasised that this figure relates to the actual reach, defined as the total number of different people who listened to some section of the match, and does not mean that each person listened to all the commentary.

In fact, very good radio audience numbers are seen for all of the final round matches, with 1 452 000 persons listening to some section of the Jamaica vs. Windwards semi-final and another 1 060 000 listening to sections of the Barbados vs. Leewards semi-final.

Two other matches, both involving Jamaica also attracted good radio audience. These were the match against Barbados, audience estimates being put at 1 213 000 and the match against Trinidad with an estimate of 1 035 000 listeners. l Table No.2 (showing estimates of the television audience):

Apart from the final round of matches, i.e the two semi-finals and the finals, the television audience was generally lower than that for radio.

For the final, an estimated 1 381 000 persons throughout the Caribbean watched some section of this match on television. l Table No. 3 (showing estimates of the readership to newspaper/other means of interface):

The most significant levels of interface with the electronic media were for earlier zone matches, specifically those between Jamaica and Trinidad, Trinidad and Barbados and between the Leewards and the Windwards.

This pattern was different for the electronic media where the final matches tended to attract the largest audiences.

© The Barbados Nation