Ten nearly doubles audience for Big Bash final as sport dominates the weekend
Nearly twice as many viewers tuned into the final of the Big Bash last night than last year to see the Sydney Thunder defeat the Melbourne Stars at the MCG.
Started from the bottom now they’re here… #BBLFinal pic.twitter.com/8jzEq2v59K
— KFC Big Bash League (@BBL) January 24, 2016
Last year the showpiece final of the short-form game grabbed just 733,000 viewers, but figures for the confirmed times of the match on Ten and One in Perth had 1.301m viewers to see the Thunder snatch the trophy in a tight finish to the match. 1.130m watched the Star’s innings.
It came on a weekend when sport dominated viewing with the one day cricket on Nine and Australian Open tennis on Seven.
Last night’s final helped Ten to a 23 per cent share to win the night, with the women’s Big Bash final, which also saw the Sydney Thunder win, drew 204,000 in the afternoon.
Over on Seven the Australian Open had 776,000 on night seven of the competition, where Australian representative Daria Gavrilova lost to Carla Suarez Navarro.
Saturday’s one day match between Australia and India drew 954,000 on Nine while the Big Bash semi final drew Santos Town Down Under drew 366,000.
In the news race last night Nine had 928,000 viewers while Seven had 812,000 for its 6pm bulletin.
Nine’s audience suffered as the Big Bash and Tennis drew audiences with 60 minutes its highest rating show outside of news 618,000.
In terms of audience share Ten’s victory saw Seven come in Seven with 21.1 per cent while Nine had 11.7 per cent and 11.5 per cent.
Wonder what the Tour Down Under figures would be in Adelaide – where it enjoys media saturation.
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Part of the enjoyment of the Big Bash is its commentators – Ponting, Gilchrist, Fleming and “Junior” Waugh – who treat the game and the occasion with the lighteartedness that it deserves, unlike the supposedly profound experts on the Nine coverage of “serious” cricket where they just drone on and on like the boring know-alls that they are while the younger, supposedly hipper ones, Warne and Lee, offer nothing but inanities. It seems the only way you get moved on from the Nine commentary box is in a pine box.
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