Nine wins the Melbourne Cup despite Seven’s swindle

Nathan Jolly

November 5, 2025 3:47

Nine wins the Melbourne Cup despite Seven’s swindle

Nine was the main winner at this year's Melbourne Cup

Over two million Australians tuned into to watch the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday afternoon, with the average audience during the race rising by 8.8% from the 2024 broadcast.

According to Oztam’s ratings data, an average audience of 2.08 million viewers tuned into watch jockey Jamie Melham take the cup with Australian horse Half Yours.

Interestingly, the post-race presentation, as well as the ‘late’ coverage of the event, reached more viewers than the race itself, suggesting a number of people tuned in late — possibly due to widespread confusion about Seven’s own horse racing coverage, which was conveniently airing at the same time.

Nine’s “Melbourne Cup – Late” footage, which followed the presentation and led into Tipping Point at 5.30pm, officially topped the Tuesday ratings, with a 2.44 million people tuning in at some point during the post-presentation wrap, with an average audience of 945,000.

The presentation was seen by 2.37 million, with an average of 1.79 million, while the race itself was seen by 2.316 million, with an average of 2.079 million throughout.

463,000 viewers tuned into the race through 9Now, a 24.8% leap from 2024.

Meanwhile, Seven’s coverage of horse racing from Randwick fooled 690,000 people into tuning into the wrong channel during the race, with its own post-race horse-based “Late” broadcast drawing 1.4 million confused punters.

Seven’s own website added to the obfuscation, explaining viewers can “watch the race live through free-to-air racing channels 78 (metropolitan) and 68 (regional) or stream it online at Racing.com or on the Racing.com app, or on Channel 9”, with its free-to-air rival’s broadcasting seemingly added to the end of the list as an afterthought.

The explainer, titled: “How to watch/listen to the Melbourne Cup”, continues: “Channel 7 will have all the action from the Big Dance at Randwick live and free, and 7NEWS will also have all the highlights from the races, including the Melbourne Cup and the Big Dance, throughout the day with news updates.”

Clear as horse blood.

Oztam ratings data for Melbourne Cup day (click to enlarge)

Despite the deception, this year’s rating will be pleasing to Nine, with the best results in the past five years.

The 2023 cup drew an average of 1.11 million viewers across the five capital cities, and 1.68 million nationally – including streaming. The 2022 cup was watched by just 1.35 million viewers, nationally, while the 2021 event pulled in 1.695 million viewers.

In February 2024, Nine signed a six-year deal with Tabcorp and the Victorian Racing Club for the Melbourne Cup Carnival. Tabcorp initially bought the rights from VRC for north of $100 million, with a caveat to on-sell the race to a free-to-air broadcaster.

Ten held the broadcasting rights from 2019 through to 2023, but decided not to bid again for the rights, citing strong “commercial constraints” put on the deal by Tabcorp.

Seven followed suit, with then-CEO James Warburton pulling out of the race with a fiery email to the CEOs of Tabcorp and VRC.

During the elongated negotiations, Tabcorp pushed for 50% of all betting advertising aired during the entire carnival, and to produce the Melbourne Cup broadcast, with a renewed focus on the gambling aspect of the race. In addition, Tabcorp also stipulated that Sky Racing personalities would appear during the free-to-air broadcast.

Anti-siphoning broadcast laws requires the free-to-air stations get first right of refusal, meaning technically the rights could have been sold to Netflix if Nine didn’t come to the bargaining table. However, the VRC’s deal with Tabcorp required the betting company to secure a free-to-air broadcasting partner as one of its stipulations.

The financial details of the deal struck with Nine have not been made public, but given it was the only horse left in the race, it would be surprising if they agreed to Tabcorp’s restrictive terms — or paid anywhere near the $100 million that Tabcorp spent to secure the initial rights.