Elections and Invictus Games give the ABC a Saturday night boost
The Wentworth by-election and the Invictus Games opening ceremony gave the ABC a boost on Saturday night with the broadcaster’s 7pm news being the most watched show nationally and in the five metro markets while the games’ launch was the most viewed non-news program of the day.
According to OzTam’s preliminary overnight ratings, the ABC news attracted a metro audience of 831,000, ahead of Seven’s 699,000 and Nine’s 645,000. The Invictus Games opening drew 606,000 viewers.
The ABC’s election analyst, Antony Green, was a key feature of the by-election broadcast
Sport however wasn’t such a good drawcard for Nine with the Australia versus Tonga Rugby League test match attracting 191,000 viewers for the main, scheduled part of the game with the post-match coverage pulling in 241,000 metro viewers.
Mumbrella has contacted Nine to confirm that the match ran late and into the timeslot for the after-game program, thus affecting the ratings figures.
Ten’s Supercars coverage picked up 227,000 viewers while the rest of the evening was dominated by repeats of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , Forrest Gump, and ABC drama, Pine Gap.
On the back of the Invictus Games and election coverage, the national broadcaster’s main channel audience share was the same as Seven’s on 18.5%, ahead of Nine’s 15.3%. Ten’s main channel attracted a dismal 4.9%, just ahead of SBS’s 4.5%.
Nine took the greatest network audience share with 28.7%, with the ABC’s 27.3% edging out Seven’s 27.1%. Ten attracted 9.9% while SBS recorded 6.9%.
