Ten’s share tumbles to 4.8% on Saturday night up against The Ashes and AFL
Ten’s share of the metro TV audience has tumbled to just 4.8% on Saturday night, as it struggled against the AFL finals on Seven, and The Ashes on Nine.
This is one of the lowest shares for a commercial free-to-air network in recent times, and means the primary channel was beaten by multi-channels 7Mate (6.0%), 7Flix (5.0%), and 9Gem (7.5%).
Ten’s dismal share, however, does remain ahead of the 3.4% Ten achieved in May last year, when Seven and Nine showed the royal wedding between Price Harry and Meghan Markle.
Ten’s Saturday night offering in prime-time was a repeat of the 2004 animated film Shrek 2, which had a metro audience of 157,000 viewers. This climbed to 251,000 with the addition of regional viewers.
This was above last week’s 7:30pm offering of Saturday Night Rove, which drew in 138,000 metro viewers, and 202,000 nationally. Saturday Night Rove was cancelled after two episodes, with Ten and Rove McManus reportedly mutually agreeing the audience for the format simply wasn’t there.
The only Ten program to grab more viewers than Shrek 2 last night was 10 News First, which secured 216,000 metro viewers, and 339,000 across the country.
Network Ten, including the multi-channels, had a 9.2% audience share.
Tonight sees the commencement of Pilot Week on Ten, with Sydney’s Crazy Rich Asians premiering at 9:00pm after Ambulance Australia.
Last night, however, was Seven’s night. Seven’s primary channel had a 24.0% share, while the network had 38.4%.
Seven News won the night with 842,000 metro viewers, and 1.222m nationally.
The Saturday night AFL football finals had 779,000 in the cities, and 1.038m nationally. Over on Nine, the NRL had 165,000 metro viewers, and 273,000 nationally.
In Sydney, on multi-channel 7Mate in the evening, it was the AFL match between the Brisbane Lions and the Richmond Tigers, which screened to 30,000 viewers. On Nine’s primary channel was the NRL match between Gold Coast Titans and St George Illawarra Dragons, which had a Sydney audience of 93,000.
AFL-mad Melbourne had the Brisbane vs Richmond game on its primary channel, which screened to 428,000. The city is less keen on the NRL, so the Gold Coast vs St George match went to air on Nine’s 9Gem to just 3,000.
In Brisbane, it was primary channel treatment for both the AFL on Seven, and the NRL on Nine. The AFL had 124,000, while the NRL on Nine had 62,000.
93,000 watched the AFL match on Seven’s primary channel in Adelaide, while just 4,000 watched the NRL on 9Gem.
And in Perth, 103,000 went to 7Mate for the AFL, but just 2,000 went to 9Go for the NRL.
The Ashes on Nine, which was, on the primary channel in some cities, and 9Gem in others, had 604,000 metro viewers for session one of day four of the fourth test. This climbed to 854,000 with regional viewers. Session two had 511,000 metro viewers, and 697,000 in total.
And an earlier AFL match on the Seven Network had a metro audience of 533,000, and a national audience of 738,000.
The Greater Western Sydney Giants taking on Melbourne’s Western Bulldogs was most popular in Melbourne with 295,000 metro viewers.
Despite the popularity of The Ashes, Nine couldn’t compete with Seven last night, with a 21.3% primary channel share, and 34.4% for the network.
The ABC had a primary channel share of 7.9%, and a network share of 12.2%. SBS’ primary channel share was 3.1%, while the network finished on 5.8%.
