Nine’s primary channel share slips but Gem boosted by Australia’s Cricket World Cup clash

Channel Nine saw its audience share plummet last night to 14.8 per cent as The Block: Triple Threat and US drama Forever continued to struggle, although its multichannel Gem was boosted by the decision to air Australia’s Cricket World Cup clash with Afghanistan on it.

The unfriendly primetime timezone of the match in Perth saw the game, only the third screened by Nine at the tournament, moved to the secondary channel which claimed a share of 10.9 per cent as session one from 5pm AEDST was watched by 357,000 with 300,000 viewers tuning in for session two from 9.30pm. On Fox Sports the match was watched by 226,000 and 111,000 viewers.

However the primary channel suffered with US crime series Forever seeing its audience slip to 460,000 metro viewers from 613,000 last week at 9pm, as its competitor Winter on Seven lifted to 804,000 after posting its lowest audience to date of 731,000 last week according to OzTam overnight metro ratings.