Australia’s Ashes resurgences sees audiences flock to Gem as Masterchef enters final stretch

Cricket fever bit hard last night with the first session of the second Ashes clash pulling the biggest audience of the series so far, helping Nine’s multichannel Gem to one of its biggest audience shares ever.

The first session from 7.30pm to 10.30pm saw 782,000 viewers tune in as Australia dominated with the bat, up on the start of the first test which grabbed the secondary channel an audience of 678,000.

Session two, at 10.30pm, was watched by 440,000, handing Gem an audience share of 14.2 per cent. Gem was the most-watched channel in Perth, and beat Seven in Melbourne and Nine in Adelaide for audience share.