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AFL grand final beats State of Origin to 2017’s most-watched sports show

Richmond’s win against the Adelaide Crows during Saturday’s AFL grand final was a big win for Seven, scoring 2.801m metro viewers and 3.694m nationwide during the game’s post-match presentations.


July’s State of Origin decider drew 2.488m metro and 3.652m national viewers, meaning Seven has narrowly beaten Nine to the year’s most-watched sports show so far.

Of the record-breaking audience, 1.426 million were from Melbourne, with Sydney making up just 399,000. Meanwhile Brisbane drew in 365,000, Adelaide 323,000 and Perth 288,000.

The result was down on last year’s AFL Grand Final, when the Western Bulldogs’ clash with the Sydney Swans drew an average metro audience of 3.201m.

Seven’s broadcast dominated the day, with not a single AFL-related program achieving an audience of less than 1m, and resulting in an overall audience share of 40.2%.

Seven also won the most-watched session outside of the AFL, with 796,000 metro viewers tuning in to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark.

ABC News was the next most-watched show, clocking in 754,000 metro viewers.

The news was also Nine’s most-watched Saturday show, clocking in 745,000 metro viewers and an average audience share of 23.3%.

The AFL win rounds off a winning week for Seven’s main channel, which won with a share of 31.4% over Nine’s 23.3% and Ten’s 10.7%.

Aside from the AFL shows, Seven’s Saturday news drew the biggest metro audience of the week with 1.464m.

The Wednesday, Sunday and Tuesday episodes of The Block drew in the next largest weekly audience, with metro audiences of 1.142m, 1.400m and 1.215m respectively.

This article has been amended to state the AFL Grand Final metro viewer numbers were down on last year.

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