Nine and The Ashes dominate Saturday television, beating Rugby League World Cup final on Seven
The first day of the second Ashes test between Australia and England in Adelaide helped Nine top the ratings ladder on Saturday night, although Nine News was the most-watched program for the day with 1.040m metro viewers, according to OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings.
Session two of the test – which screened on Nine’s main channel between 4:30pm and 7:40pm AEDST – had the largest audience of all sessions, pulling 871,000 metro viewers.
The final of the Rugby League World Cup on Seven at 8pm AEDST had 842,000, slightly ahead of session three of The Ashes (8:18pm to 10:30pm) with 836,000. The first session of The Ashes (1:30pm to 4:30pm) had 789,000.
The sports battle between Nine and Seven saw Nine come out on top, with a 26.2% audience share for the night. Seven had 22.9% of the nightly audience.
ABC’s top-rating program for the night was ABC News, with 687,000 metro viewers, followed by royal UK drama Victoria with 539,000. The national broadcaster ended the night with a 10.6% audience share.
It was a poor night for Ten and SBS. Ten had an audience share of just 5.3% after its most-watched show, Ten Eyewitness News at 5pm pulled just 283,000. Its most-watched entertainment program was a repeat of Law & Order SVU which attracted 203,000 metro viewers.
SBS had an audience share of just 3.5%.
On a network basis, factoring in the various digital multi-channel offerings, Seven closed the gap, but Nine remained on top. Nine Network had 35.2% of the Saturday night television audience. Seven Network had 34.2%. ABC remained in third place with 15.7%, ahead of Ten’s 9.1% and SBS’ 5.9%.
Once regional numbers were added to the mix however, the rankings did change. When audience numbers from broadcasts on affiliate stations were included, Seven News won the night (1.438m) and the Rugby League World Cup placed second – beating The Ashes with an audience of 1.283m.
The Ashes various sessions were in third, fourth and fifth place on the national scale – session two had 1.205m, session three 1.122m and session one 1.100m.
So which one is larger? 1.283 million or 1.205 million? Thanks for weird analysis but.
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Hi Philip,
You are correct. 1.283m is indeed a larger number than 1.205m. The article is angled on OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings though, which is made clear in the first paragraph.
The second session of The Ashes had 871,000 metro viewers, ahead of The Rugby League World Cup’s 842,000.
It’s also clear that on a national basis, the World Cup snatched the lead: “Once regional numbers were added to the mix however, the rankings did change.”
Happy to offer you a weird analysis any time,
Vivienne – Mumbrella