First Test between Australia and India averages 414,333 for Seven

The first Test between Australia vs India averaged 414,000 metro viewers across the three sessions on Thursday, according to new figures from OzTAM.

Session three delivered the largest audience for Seven Network – a metro audience of 544,000, while session two averaged 398,000 and session one captured 301,000 metro viewers. Overall, the three sessions averaged 414,333.

A remarkable finish to an enthralling opening day of the Test series!@ARamseyCricket's report plus bulk video highlights right here: https://t.co/9uLdyZjWJt #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/4QaTvtbGi3

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 6, 2018

Nationally, the audiences were 773,000, 588,000 and 454,000 respectively.

It marks the first time Seven has aired a local test match since the sports rights changed hands from Nine in April.

The last time Australia played India at this time of year was in the 2014/15 season. At the time, the first test match was the most watched non-news show of the night. Session three was watched by 843,000 metro viewers, while sessions one and two captured metro audiences of 518,000 and 637,000.

However unlike when the cricket aired on Nine, Seven is not the exclusive broadcaster of the test matches. Seven has the free-to-air rights to all men’s test matches and all Commonwealth Bank women’s internationals, as well as 43 KFC Big Bash League and 23 Rebel Women’s BBL games. Foxtel has exclusive rights to the One Day Internationals.

According to the national subscription TV figures, Fox Cricket’s coverage of the test match led the subscription ratings, with three sessions averaging 214,000, 162,000 and 137,000.

Seven had more than double the audience of Fox Cricket in every session. According to numbers provided to Mumbrella, the split of those watching live cricket – when taking out pre-game and lunch – was 77% to 23% in Seven’s favour.

Kurt Burnette, chief revenue officer at Seven West Media said he was “thrilled” with the first results.

“Seven reached 2.67 million Australians and secured a 53% commercial share of daytime viewing in metro areas,” Burnette said. “Our production and commentary teams have hit it for six, proving once again that no-one does sport like 7Sport.”

“And this is just the beginning – we still have the day/night tests and men’s Big Bash to come. Roll on summer!”

Outside of cricket, Seven led the evening with 906,000 metro viewers at 6pm. It beat Nine News’ 811,000. The most watched non-news program of the evening was Nine’s Paramedics, which averaged 775,000. Paramedics also led all the key advertising demographics – the 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54s.

The show ran later in the evening against Seven’s Orange is The New Brown and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, which averaged 310,000 metro viewers and 159,000 metro viewers respectively.

Earlier on in the evening, Seven’s Home and Away, which ran for an hour and a half, pulled in 558,000. Nine’s RBT averaged 550,000.

Nine had the biggest main channel share in the evening – at 22.4% over Seven’s 17%. ABC came in behind Seven with a 12.7% share of audience, while Ten’s share was 8.1% and SBS’ share was 5.8%. Nine’s total network share was 32% – a strong lead over Seven Network’s 27.2%, ABC Network’s 18.%, Ten’s 13.7% and SBS Network’s 8.6%.