AFL State of Origin returns to 607,000 metro viewers
The special Australian Football League (AFL) State of Origin match between a Victorian team and an All-Stars team drew 607,000 metro viewers to free-to-air television overnight.
The match was broadcast on the Seven Network, and was most popular in Melbourne where it had 375,000 viewers.
Big V win on a night where the footy community united for a great cause.https://t.co/TqQ7Uh9Krk pic.twitter.com/JECHmym8js
— 7AFL (@7AFL) February 28, 2020
In Adelaide, the match also had primary channel billing and drew 96,000 viewers. The match was relegated to multi-channel 7Mate in Perth (80,000), Sydney (30,000) and Brisbane (26,000).
Seven Network viewers in Sydney overwhelming chose Better Homes and Gardens over the AFL special, with 132,000 choosing the gardening program. Better Home and Gardens’ metro total was 440,000 across the various channels, and its national total climbed to 758,000.
Nationally, with the addition of regional viewers, the AFL State of Origin had 796,000.
The most popular program of the night though was Seven News with a metro total of 754,000, and a national viewership of 1.194m.
Nine News won in Sydney (215,000 to Seven’s 186,000), Melbourne (226,000 to 213,000) and Brisbane (166,000 to 137,000), but due to its underperformance in Adelaide (43,000 to Seven’s 108,000) and Perth (62,000 to 111,000), it placed second overall. Nine News’ metro total was 712,000, and nationally it had 952,000.
In entertainment, the ABC’s Endeavour won with 560,000 (national: 851,000).
Ten’s most-watched metro program was the second half hour of The Project, with 297,000, just ahead of 10 News First’s 296,000. With the addition of regional figures though, 10 News First climbed to 441,000, ahead of The Project’s 418,000.
Earlier in the day in the breakfast battle, Seven’s Sunrise had 272,000, while Nine’s Today had 193,000. Sunrise won across the five individual capital cities, and with the addition of regional figures climbed to 456,000 to Today’s 293,000.
Overall, it was easily Seven’s night on Friday, with a 25.5% audience share. Nine had 15.6%, and ABC was not far behind on 15.1%. Ten sat outside the pack with 7.7%, and SBS finished on 3.4%.
The multi-channel with the largest share was 7Mate (which screened the AFL in some cities), with 4.5%.
This helped the Seven Network to 35.8%, well ahead of Nine Network’s 23.3%, ABC Network’s 19.7%, Network Ten’s 14.3%, and SBS Network’s 6.9%.
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Friday TV ratings
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State of Origin for Bushfire Relief
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TV ratings
So the “AFL State of Origin returns to 607,000 metro viewers”.
Given that the last AFL State of Origin was in 2008 that’s amazing. Or maybe it was the 1999 match with 607,000 viewers? Nah, maybe an even earlier game?
Or maybe “to” shouldn’t be in the lede.
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