Sport has helped Nine take another night in TV ratings, with the ICC Cricket World Cup semi-final seeing 702,000 metro viewers tune in to watch England defeat Australia and nab a spot in the final.
It comes the night after Nine’s coverage of game three of the 2019 State of Origin delivered over 2m viewers, giving the network an easy audience share win on Wednesday night.
The cricket match was the most-watched program in all three key advertising demographics – 16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s, and gave Nine the top spot overall in metro audiences 25-54, holding a 28.9% share, and 16-39s with a 31.7% share.
But the cricket wasn’t strong enough to topple news for the evening. Seven News was the most-watched show overall, pulling in exactly 1m metro viewers for the first half, and 934,000 for the second which airs as Today Tonight in some cities. Nine News delivered 869,000.
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After the cricket, the next most-watched program was ABC News with 633,000 metro viewers, followed by The Chase Australia on Seven which was the most-watched entertainment program with 627,000 viewers.
Ten’s Masterchef was the most-watched for the network, serving up 592,000 metro viewers. It also took the second spot in the 16-39 year old viewers and the 18-49 year olds. Nine News was the second most-watched by 25-54 year olds. 394,000 metro viewers tuned in for the Masterclass which airs at the end of the Masterchef episode.
300,000 metro viewers tuned in to watch Seven’s AFL panel show, The Front Bar. The show had success after Nine cancelled the AFL Footy Show, pulling a high of 464,000 in May, but has since dipped.
Overall, it was Nine’s night, with the primary channel holding a 25.5% audience share and 33.4% as a network. Seven held 17.8% for its primary channel and 27.8% as a network. Ten held 11.4% as a channel and 17.2% as a network, and ABC had 8.9% and a network share of13.5%. 7Two was the most-watched multi-channel, holding a 3.8% share.