Sydney derby helps Big Bash to best season opening yet helping Ten win the night
The season debut of the Big Bash cricket helped Ten win the ratings battle last night after pulling much bigger audiences than last year’s opening match.
The first innings of last night’s match between the Sydney Sixers and Sydney Thunder had 797,000 viewers from 7.30pm for the first session, growing to 813,000 from 9.30pm for the second session, according to Oztam preliminary overnight metro ratings. The match was not broadcast in Perth on Ten.
Last year’s opening match pulled 681,000 viewers for the first session, but had to compete with a rearranged Test Match on Nine.
This year Ten benefited from the lack of competition with the Big Bash the most watched non-news show of the night helping Ten to a 21.8 per cent main channel audience share.
Ten claims the live viewing figures for the match, including viewers on One on which it was broadcast in Perth, were 856,000 metro viewers for session on and 917,000 for the second session.
In the news stakes Seven beat Nine in the 6pm bulletin with 888,000 across the five cities compared with 837,000 but then came back in the 6.30pm timeslot pulling 873,000 viewers compared with 833,000.
Overall Nine had a 16.4 per cent main channel audience, Seven 14.4 and the ABC 10.2 per cent.
