Seven pulls more than two million viewers for Comm Games opening ceremony
The 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games launch last night attracted 2.006m metro viewers, with Seven claiming the biggest audience for an opening ceremony in more than a decade.
Seven won the rights to the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2014, nabbing them from Network Ten, which broadcast the Glasgow Commonwealth Games that year. The last time Seven broadcast the Commonwealth Games was in 2002.
https://twitter.com/7CommGames/status/981512363122728961
Last night also marked the first local opening ceremony in 12 years. The 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, which was broadcast on Nine, pulled in 3.561m metro viewers.
But Seven’s opening ceremony coverage wasn’t the only program attracting attention. In addition to the ceremony itself, the countdown show pulled in 1.357m while the highlights reel had a metro audience of 1.092m.
The result brought Seven’s main channel share to 43.8%, compared to its nearest competitor Nine on 12.5% as well as Ten’s 7.5%. Brisbane was a major contributor to that portion of main channel share, with 65% of Seven’s audience coming from the city. Melbourne attracted more than a 40% share, on 41.3%.
Last night ABC’s share fell to 8.8% and SBS’ share was 3.6%.
Inevitably the ceremony dominated all key advertising demographics – 16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s. In the 25-54s, 755,000 Australians tuned in.
Other shows in its time slot, included Nine’s RBT and Ten’s Bondi Rescue. RBT which ran for the hour between 7:30pm and 8:30pm managed just 370,000. Ten’s Bondi Rescue had two episodes, with the second making OzTam’s overnight preliminary ratings with its audience of 349,000.
On the ABC, Hard Quiz and Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell both ran at the same time as the opening ceremony. The show attracted 501,000 and 472,000 across the metro cities.
Unsurprisingly, Seven News defeated rival Nine News at 6pm, with 1.018m metro viewers. Nine News audience was not far behind on 929,000.
ABC News, which ran slightly later, achieved 617,000 in its time slot.
