The Footy Show kicks goals in pre-grand final specials
With the grand final for both AFL and NRL this weekend, Nine’s The Footy Show was last night’s highest rating program.
The majority of the audience share came from the AFL version of the show, which in Melbourne rated 522,000, in Adelaide 119,000 and in Perth with 97,000, according to preliminary ratings from OzTam.
The NRL version, which screens in NSW and Queensland in the same time slot of 8.30pm, rated 242,000 in Sydney and 128,000 in Brisbane.
The two shows were the top programs across the three key demographics of 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54.
The mystery is why Nine do not run the AFL Footy Show at 8.30 in NSW and Queensland. They could easily do it on one of their digital channels. It would give a boost to the AFL show, however it would drag audience away from the NRL version.
That’s a mystery? Nine have a vested interest in the success of NRL, and NewsCorp has controlling interests of not only the entire code, but stakes in two teams within the competition (Brisbane Broncos and Melbourne Storm).
It’s also not a mystery that the Broncos receive, on average from the last 3 seasons, Friday night games 19 out of 26 rounds.