Nine’s Thursday Night NRL Live sees viewers drop for 2018 opening
Last night saw the return of Rugby League and AFL coverage with Nine’s launch of the NRL season seeing 452,000 viewers tune in across both Sydney and Brisbane for the opener between St-George Illawarra and Brisbane.
The 2018 opening was down from the 506,000 viewers who tuned in to last year’s opening game, according to OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings.
The NRL and AFL Footy Shows also returned, with 198,000 Brisbane and Sydney viewers tuning into the post match NRL program and 247,000 for the AFL show in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, according to the network’s consolidated figures.
The most-watched program for the evening was Seven’s My Kitchen Rules, which saw 954,000 metro viewers tune in.
In the news battle, Nine News managed 847,000 metro viewers beating Seven News’ 829,000.
Seven won the Thursday night ratings battle with an overall audience share of 21.5%, topping Nine’s 19.7%, Ten’s 14.7%, ABC’s 11.4% and SBS’ 4.4%.