NRL outrates AFL for semi-final clashes as Seven says it will show AFL grand final in HD
Nine has won the sporting weekend ratings battle with its coverage of both NRL semi-finals easily outrating Seven’s AFL semi-final coverage on Friday and Saturday nights.
On Friday evening 1.709m combined viewers in metro and regional areas tuned in on Nine as the Broncos overran the Roosters, while 1.519m watched Seven’s coverage of the AFL match in which Hawks beat the Dockers in Melbourne and Adelaide, according to OzTam ratings.
Yesterday Seven announced it will simulcast the AFL grand final in high definition on its 7Mate channel, after years of pressure from fans.On Saturday 1.739, metro and regional viewers watched the Cowboys – who have a large regional following, beat the Melbourne Storm on Nine, while 1.434m tuned into Seven to watch the Eagles beat the Roos in the AFL.
The ratings system does not account for out of home viewing in pubs and clubs.
Despite losing the sports battle on its primary channel Seven managed to secure a win for the ratings week in all people, finishing the week on 22.8 per cent and Nine on 20.2 per cent. ABC was third with 12.7 per cent and Ten fourth with 11.6 per cent audience share in the metro regions acccording to OzTam data.
While Seven has said it will have the HD broadcast this Saturday, Nine Network has yet to announce whether it will follow suit and broadcast Sunday’s NRL grand final in HD.
Last year Seven was accused by fan’s group AFL in HD Please leader Josh Rowe of backflipping on a promise to show the grand final in HD, with the network telling Mumbrella it was technically difficult as its coverage was created to broadcast on its main channel, which is in standard definition.
Fox Sports, which has high definition coverage for subscribers willing to pay an additional $10 per month on top of their subscriptions, does not have the rights to show wither grand final live.
Your not really telling the full story. NRL games are exclusive to free to air television while AFL is shown like everyone on FTA and Pay TV.
The average audience for Friday nights Freo/Hawk’s contest was actually 1,939 Million when you include Ch7, 7Mate, Fox Footy and regional networks.
Saturday nights game had 1,817 Million average viewers.
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If the AFL grand final is in HD (on Ch72), does that mean the ads will show on Ch7 and Ch72 simultaneously?
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As Keven mentioned, the AFL is broadcast on 7/7Mate and Foxtel on Fox Footy.
383,000 watched Saturday night AFL on Fox Footy
420,000 watched Friday night AFL on Fox Footy.
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This is actually very poor journalism. The exact opposite of what the article suggests is in fact the truth – the AFL games smashed the NRL games in ratings.Why? The answer is in the line about the ratings of the AFL games ‘. in Melbourne and Adelaide, according to OzTam ratings.’ What? only two cities showed the AFL games??
No. Only channel 7 showed the game in those two cities. In Western Australia, where Fremantle and West coast are from, the game is shown on 7mate. In every other state this is also the case. On top of that, Fox Footy also showed the games ad-free. They got around half a million viewers, making it one of their most watched shows of the year on the whole cable service. So when you add the channel 7 in two cities, to the 7mate everywhere else, and to the huge fox footy numbers, the AFL coverage completely blew the NRL coverage out of the water. For a media analyst website to do such poor research here and present a headline ‘NRL outrates AFL for semi finals’ which is completely wrong, is very poor form.
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