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Melbourne Cup coverage helps Seven to a weekly ratings win

Seven was able to conquer free-to-air rivals in the weekly TV ratings battle, thanks to strong audience numbers from its Melbourne Cup coverage.

The race, which averaged a metro audience of 1.899m, was the most watched show of the week in total people and across all key ad demographics, while the presentation itself pulled in a metro audience of 1.454m.

The Melbourne Cup was the most watched event of the week

Seven’s mounting yard coverage at the Melbourne Cup captured 1.284m metro viewers. It was a strong result for Seven’s last Melbourne Cup event, ahead of the broadcasting rights switch to Ten in 2019. 

According to OzTAM’s overnight figures, seven of the top 10 programs came from Seven this week, while Nine’s most watched program was its Wednesday news bulletin, with 841,000 metro viewers. The ABC’s Spicks and Specks Reunion Special also performed well, with 905,000 metro viewers.

Seven was the only channel to achieve a weekly average share above 20 – at 20.9%. The channel beat Nine’s 16.2% average, ABC’s 13.9% share, Ten’s 11.2% share and SBS’ 5.3% share of audience.

Among the key advertising demographics, the 16-39s, 25-54s and grocery shopper and child, Seven also took the lead,  with shares of 22.9%, 21.8% and 21.3% respectively.

By comparison, Nine’s shares were 14.6%, 16.7% and 17.8% respectively.

Average weekly network share was also won by Seven, which achieved 30.8% overall. Seven Network beating Nine Network’s 25.7%, ABC Network’s 19.3%, Network Ten’s 16.3% and SBS Network’s 7.9%.

On Saturday night, Seven led OzTAM’s overnight preliminary ratings with Seven News – 724,000 metro viewers – and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which achieved 577,000 metro viewers.

Nine’s most watched program on Saturday night was its news bulletin, with 672,000 metro viewers. ABC captured a metro audience of 633,000 for its news bulletin, and Ten’s most watched program was 10 News First, with a metro audience of 250,000.

The charts below are provided by Nine, based on OzTAM data. They include data on Seven, Nine and Ten, but exclude SBS and ABC.

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