Seven wins Friday night, despite tennis semi-finals on Nine
Nine’s summer of tennis and Seven’s summer of cricket went to battle on Friday, with session one of day two of the test between Australia and Sri Lanka drawing 383,000 metro viewers. Session two had 458,000, while session three averaged 571,000.
During the day, 310,000 metro viewers tuned in to watch the tennis on Nine, according to OzTAM’s preliminary overnight ratings, while 528,000 tuned in for the night session, featuring the men’s semi-final between Novak Djokovic and Lucas Pouille.
Despite some struggles with the Big Bash, Seven says its cricket coverage is tracking above its projections
None of the sporting contests, however, managed to out-rate Seven News, which attracted 843,000 metro viewers in the first half hour and 922,000 for the second segment – which in some markets airs as Today Tonight.
Nine News had 799,000, while ABC News – at the later time of 7pm – had 579,000. Ten’s earlier news at 5pm had 447,000.
The Australian of the Year Awards on ABC had 353,000, while the most-watched entertainment program was a repeat of Father Brown on the ABC, with 303,000.
In the breakfast battle, 272,000 tuned in to Seven’s Today, while 207,000 watched the new Today Show team live from the Australian Open on Nine.
Despite it being the semi-finals of the Australian Open tennis tournament on Nine, Seven’s news and cricket offering took it to a Friday night win, with a 21.3% primary channel share. With the addition of multi-channels, Seven finished on 31.8%.
Nine placed second with 19.1% for its primary channel and 29.3% for the network.
The ABC once again beat Ten, with a 10.4% primary channel share and 15.4% across the network. Ten had 8.7% and 14.6%, while SBS finished on 5.7% and 8.9%.
