Swans beat Sharks in battle for viewers as AFL and NRL dominate
The AFL had another big win against the NRL in terms of TV viewers last night, with the finals continuing to dominate Friday night TV.
The Swans’ victory over Geelong Cats managed the bigger main channel audience of the two sports with 739,000 viewers in Melbourne and Adelaide on Channel Seven, with Seven opting to keep the match off of its main channel in Sydney despite the presence of a local team.
Across the five cities, including audiences on 7HD and 7Mate the audience was 1.032m. A national audience of 497,000 thousand tuned in for the match simulcast on Fox Sports.
Nine’s coverage of the Sharks’ victory over reigning champions Queensland Cowboys mustered 728,000 viewers across all channels including 9Gem in Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth.
The main channel audience for Nine was 671,000, with 356,000 viewers in Sydney and 315,000 in Brisbane.
Seven News at 6pm topped the night with 861,000 viewers ahead of Nine’s 822,000, although Nine won the 6.30pm slot with 818,000 against 812,000.
The AFL helped Channel Seven to an audience share of 25.3% on its primary channel to Nine’s 19.9%, with ABC on 9.3% and Ten on 8.9%, not far ahead of multichannel 7Mate which had 7% courtesy of the AFL.
Tonight the AFL final between GWS Giants and Western Bulldogs on Seven takes place from 5pm, with the NRL starting at 8pm, which could boost audiences for both codes.
