AFL delivers ratings boost for Seven but Nine takes the week
The return of the AFL brought a timely boost to Seven last week, with a network share of 27.5% across the five metro markets, up from 24.7% the prior week.
It wasn’t enough to topple Nine though, which increased share by 0.2% to reach 30.4%, off the back of the continued dominance of Married at First Sight in prime time slots across the week and viewers tuning in to the recently launched 2021 NRL season.
Nine and Seven were first and second over the week, ahead of ABC with 17.6% and Ten with 16.4%.
Image: 7AFL / Facebook
Across the first three days of the AFL season (Thursday to Saturday), Seven’s broadcast had an average national audience of 783,000 viewers, which was an increase of 3% on last year’s launch week.
Seven also reported that of all AFL TV viewers, it had a share of 80.7% across its network, with Foxtel holding a 19.3% share. With AFL broadcasts across 7mate in several markets, Seven claimed the title of the #1 multichannel group.
Managing director Seven Melbourne and head of network sport, Lewis Martin, said: “There’s been so much excitement in the lead-up to this season, with the return of fans at all venues and a competition that’s the most wide-open in memory, and round one did not let us down.
“It’s so good to have AFL footy back for what’s sure to be an unforgettable roller-coaster ride over the next six months. There’s only one place all Australians can enjoy all the action live and free – Seven, Your Home of Footy.”
Despite that, none of the matches made it into the Top 20 programs of the week across metro markets.
MAFS continued to deliver strong performances for Nine across the week, and took our the top four metro shows of the week, with only one of those episodes failing to crack the one million metro viewer mark.
The most-watched episode came last Sunday, with 1.096 million metro viewers across the 5 markets, a series high.
The remaining spots in the top ten programs for the week were split between Nine News and Seven News.
The only entertainment programs to make it into the Top 20 programs other than MAFS were ABC’s Hard Quiz and Death In Paradise, which garnered 622,000 and 599,000 metro viewers respectively.
Ten managed to claim the #1 multichannel for the week, with Bold taking a 3.6% share, ahead of 7mate with 3.4%.
Hear from the AFL’s head of marketing and content, Julian Dunne about the season launch.
Linkedin