Nine and Seven share weekly ratings honours, as the AFL Grand Final cracks 2m metro viewers

2.197m metro viewers tuned in to Seven on Saturday afternoon to watch the Richmond Tigers beat the Greater Western Sydney Giants in the 2019 AFL Grand Final. That’s a significant drop from 2018’s 2.601m for the West Coast vs Collingwood match and an even bigger fall from 2017’s 2.801m.

The total reach across the day was 4.4m metro viewers, with that figure rising to 6.153m for the combined regional and metro viewership. After the match, the presentations were the next most-watched (1.99m metro viewers), followed by the on-the-ground coverage (1.6m).

The Tigers won the 2019 AFL season with a 114 to 25 win over the Giants

But the coverage wasn’t enough to give Seven the win on Saturday night. Nine edged ahead with a primary channel audience share of 26.80% and a network share of 36.10%. Seven landed in second place as a channel (23.10%) and a network (33.70%), followed by ABC (8.70% as a channel and 13.00% as a network). Ten held just 4.80% as a channel and 10.20% as a network.

Nine’s coverage of the NRL preliminary final match between the Sydney Roosters and the Melbourne Storm which saw the Roosters win 14-6 delivered 880,000 metro viewers to Nine as it aired across Nine and 9Gem.

Throughout the week, however, the honours were split.

The overall network win for the week narrowly went to Seven, holding 30.2% above Nine’s 29.9% and Ten’s 17.0%, mainly due to Seven’s strength on Monday and Thursday. Nine did pull ahead in the primary channel shares, holding 21.9% to Seven’s 21.3%. Ten held 11.5%.

Overall, Nine Network is still winning for the year, holding a 29.7% share compared to Seven’s 29.5%.

The AFL was the most-watched programming overall in all three of the key advertising demographics – 16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s – with The Masked Singer premiere slipping in as the top entertainment program.

The following graphic was compiled by Nine, based on OzTAM data. It excludes ABC and SBS viewing, meaning percentage numbers will not match the numbers referred to above.