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Just 435,000 tune in to Australia vs Ireland Rugby test match, while 489,000 watch Belgium vs Tunisia in FIFA World Cup

Ten’s live broadcast of the deciding Rugby test match between Australia and Ireland drew a metro audience of 435,000, which was not enough to pull the channel out of last place on the ratings ladder.

Ten finished Saturday evening with a 10.5% audience share, behind SBS’ 10.9%. 

SBS’ main draw card of the evening was the FIFA World Cup. Last night, it was the Group G Belgium vs Tunisia match, which had 489,000 metro viewers.

SBS will continue to broadcast all group-stage FIFA World Cup matches after Optus’ technology failed to keep up with audience demand. The group round ends on Friday.

Seven also had a football offering, broadcasting the Western Bulldogs vs North Melbourne Kangaroos AFL match. The game had a metro audience of 366,000, according to OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings. The match was most-popular in Melbourne, with 266,000 tuning in. In Sydney, the match was on 7mate, where it had an audience of 13,000.

In the cities where Seven broadcast the AFL on the multi-channel, its main station showed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – the fourth film in the franchise.

Nine broadcast the Tonga vs Samoa Pacific Rugby League test on its main station in Sydney.

In other cities, Nine’s main channel broadcast movies, including Jurassic World.

The ABC’s prime-time offering Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators had a metro audience of 590,000.

The ABC finished the night with an 11.3% audience share, behind Seven’s 16.5% and Nine’s 16.8%.

On a network basis, however, which includes multi-channels, Seven nudged ahead with a 28.5% audience share. Nine Network had 25.6%,Ten 17.0%, ABC had 16.1% and SBS 12.8%.

The most-watched multi-channel was 7mate, with 4.3%.

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