The Ashes helps Nine to a rare Friday night win
The Friday night television ratings are traditionally dominated by Seven, thanks largely to its news and current affairs offering, combined with sport (AFL), game shows (The Chase Australia), and lifestyle (Better Homes and Gardens).
The Ashes, however, has helped Nine edge ahead on Friday this week, with session one of day two of the first test getting 528,000 metro viewers. Session two had 371,000.
LUNCH – It’s been tough going. What will session 2 bring?
WATCH: @Channel9 and @9Gem
STREAM: https://t.co/ARaHMPPTti #9WWOS #Ashes pic.twitter.com/gtYGJOQ6gH— Wide World of Sports (@wwos) August 2, 2019
With the addition of regional viewers, the two sessions had 744,000 and 497,000 respectively.
Seven’s ratings stalwarts, however, still topped the overall ratings ladder, with Seven News coming in at 869,000 metro viewers, which climbed to 1.368m with the addition of regional figures.
The Chase Australia too remained high up on the ratings ladder, with 542,000 metro viewers, according to OzTAM’s preliminary overnight metro ratings. Its popularity in the regions pushed it even higher, with 349,000 outside of the five main capital cities taking its total overnight viewing number to 891,000.
The AFL’s total in the five metro markets was 524,000. The North Melbourne Kangaroos vs the Hawthorn Hawks screened on Seven’s primary channel in Melbourne to 243,000, and Adelaide to 75,000. In the other cities, it played on 7Mate, with 14,000 tuning in in Sydney, 22,000 in Brisbane, and 69,000 in Perth.
With the addition of regional figures, the AFL on Seven had a total of 580,000.
Comparatively, Nine’s NRL had a metro total of 340,000 and a national total of 523,000.
In Perth, the Brisbane Broncos vs Melbourne Storm match screened on 9Go to just 6,000 viewers as The Ashes was featuring on Nine’s primary channel and its HD offering 9Gem. In Adelaide, just 4,000 watched the match.
The match got primary channel screening privileges in Sydney, even though the match was between two non-Sydney teams. It had 171,000 viewers in the traditionally NRL-favouring city.
In Melbourne, The Ashes was on Nine’s primary channel, but the NRL took over 9Gem for 21,000 viewers.
In Brisbane, home of the Broncos, 137,000 watched on the primary channel.
Ten’s most-popular program was lifestyle panel show The Living Room, which had 421,000 in the cities, and 605,000 in total.
In the breakfast battle, Seven’s Sunrise had 264,000 in the cities, and 458,000 in total, while Nine’s Today had 214,000 and 306,000.
Overall, Nine just managed a win. Its primary channel had 22.0% of the metro evening audience, narrowly ahead of Seven’s 21.1%. Ten had 9.7%, ABC 7.7%, and SBS 3.4%.
On a network basis, Nine Network was also victorious with 33.9%, ahead of Seven’s 32.4%, Ten’s 14.9%, ABC’s 12.2%, and SBS’ 6.5%.
Nine’s Gem had a 6.9% share.
