News

First State of Origin clash brings 2.353m metro viewers to Nine

The first State of Origin match between the New South Wales Blues and Queensland Maroons achieved 2.353m viewers across the five metro cities, slightly up on last year’s 2.348m.

In Sydney alone, the match, which kicked off at 8:10pm, captured nearly 1m viewers, while in Brisbane, the audience was at 765,000. In Melbourne, where the match was played, 366,000 tuned in.

But the national result – 3.456m – made it the highest-rating TV event of the year to date.

The pre-match and post-match coverage also pulled in large audiences, with 1.127m metro viewers and 758,000 respectively.

Breaking out the key advertising demographics, the 16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s, the biggest audience for the match, which saw NSW defeat Queensland, was from the 25-54s, with 1.151m viewers.

With the help of the State of Origin, Nine’s share rose to 39.3%. That result was more than 20 percentage points ahead of its closest rival Seven, on 12.3%. Ten’s share was 10.9%, ABC’s was 10.7% and SBS finished with a 3.5% share.

Outside of the sports coverage, Masterchef Australia was the most-watched entertainment show, with 733,000 metro viewers tuning in at 7:30pm. The show placed fourth across all key advertising demographics, coming in behind Nine’s pre, post and match coverage.

ABC’s Gruen, which ran at 8:30pm, achieved 643,000 – down from 715,000 last week.

Seven’s Home and Away, which ran from 7pm until 8:30pm, achieved 565,000 metro viewers.

In news, the most-watched program was Seven, with its 6pm bulletin achieving 1m viewers. Nine News, which ran at the same time, managed 976,000.

On the multi-channels, the most-watched show was Fireman Sam, with 198,000 viewers. Love Island Australia, which ran from 8:30pm on 9GO, achieved 160,000.

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