NRL Grand Final wins Sunday TV ratings but fails to beat Saturday’s AFL final
Nine’s NRL Grand Final offering featuring Cooper Cronk’s broken scapula wasn’t enough to beat Saturday’s AFL Grand Final in the TV ratings, with 2.122m metro viewers tuning in compared to the AFL’s 2.601m, according to OzTam figures.
The difference can be partly attributed to Melbourne’s AFL mania, with 1.247m Melburnians tuning into watch the the West Coast Eagles defeat Collingwood compared to just 551,000 for the Melbourne Storm vs Sydney Roosters showdown.
Nationally, the NRL final attracted 3.034m viewers, which was down on last year, when Melbourne Storm’s victory against the North Queensland Cowboys drew 2.325m metro viewers and 3.400m nationwide.
However the match still resulted in a massive Sunday audience share for Nine, with 40.2% of the audience on its main channel and nearly half (47.6%) across its entire network. In contrast, Seven achieved a 15.8% main channel share.
Nine News, which aired just before the game, pulled in 983,000 metro viewers. Seven’s news show pulled in 944,000 metro viewers while its The Story of the Royals attracted 425,000.
ABC’s 10.4% main channel share was primarily down to its news offering, with 614,000 metro viewers, and Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road Adventure, which attracted 481,000 metro viewers.
Ten’s only entrant into the top 20 shows for the night was its news show, which pulled in 280,000 metro viewers. Ten’s main channel share was 5.3%, hovering just above SBS’ 4.1%.
Come Josie, You couldn’t surely have expected the NRL (NSW/QLD) to come out in front of game played in Australia since the gold rush era of the 1850s.
NRL is a new code based in Sydney in comparison. It will never truly compete with our Australian Game.
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I am pretty sure more people would be watching the NRL grand final if you counted New Zealand.
Don’t forget AFL is only known about in Australia, unlike Rugby League which is played in PNG, England, New zealand, France etc..
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The difference can be attributed to “AFL mania” in Melbourne. What does that mean? Where is the insight and research as to why a Saturday afternoon TV slot would beat a primetime Sunday night slot if, as you are, comparing apples with apples? NRL package their GF for television brilliantly, and their entertainment offering is miles ahead – yet you put it down the ratings loss to some intangible, unexplainable hysteria? Some greater insight would be helpful to readers would you not think.. or maybe the mistake you have made is we are not comparing apples with apples.
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Don’t forget to factor in that the NRL is shown in prime time when the total viewing audience is MUCH higher, than the AFL shown in the afternoon. It would be interesting to see their broadcast time shares.
Regarding the NZ comment that is one of the stranger straws to grasp at. It poses the question has NZ acquired AU, or the other way around?
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The facts are New Zealand has their own NRL team (Auckland Warriors). And they have their own national team in rugby league too. (New Zealand Kiwis)
So a lot of people their would watch the NRL grand final.
While very few there would watch the AFL final because there are no teams or interest for your sport there.
No need for sour grapes that NO OTHER COUNTRY CARES ABOUT AFL. I’m just stating the truth.
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