TV viewers opt for AFL over NRL on Friday night
In the sports ratings battle on Friday night, AFL emerged as the victor, achieving 577,000 viewers across the five metro cities, and a further 160,000 in regional markets, giving Seven and its affiliate broadcasters a total audience of 737,000.
The NRL clash between the Gold Coast Titans and the South Sydney Rabbitohs had 362,000 metro viewers and 229,000 regional viewers, bringing its total to 591,000.
Second quarter blitz helps @PAFC tame the @Richmond_FC Tigers. #AFLPowerTigers https://t.co/hKCoY7ck3r pic.twitter.com/f2fdattcoF
— 7Sport (@7Sport) June 8, 2018
The AFL’s largest audience was, unsurprisingly, in Melbourne, where the match between Port Adelaide Power and reigning premiers Richmond Tigers had 318,000. A further 129,000 watched from Adelaide. In Sydney, the match was broadcast on multi-channel 7mate, where it had 28,000.
Nine broadcast the NRL on its main channel in Sydney, which grabbed 211,000. In Melbourne, it screened the match on 9Gem, where it had 11,000.
Better Homes & Gardens, which Seven ran on its main channel in Sydney instead of the AFL, was the most-watched entertainment program of the night, totalling 581,000 metro viewers, according to OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings. 158,000 watched from Sydney, while 205,000 tuned in from Melbourne, where an abridged 30-minute show was screened on the main channel ahead of the AFL, and the whole program ran on 7Two.
Across the nation, Better Homes & Gardens had 950,000.
The Chase was the other popular entertainment offering for the night, also on Seven, with 548,000 metro viewers and 337,000 from the regions.
Seven News won the news battle, and the overall ratings game, with a national audience of 1.428m – 922,000 of which were from the five metro cities.
Nine News had 1.125m, with 821,000 from the metro markets, while ABC News had 845,000 nationally and 563,000 from the cities.
Ten News was the network’s most-watched program, drawing in 591,000 nationally, with 428,000 of those from the metro markets.
Overall, Seven won the night with 22.9% of the metro TV viewing audience. Nine placed second thanks to a share of 16.3%. ABC had 12.8%, ahead of Ten’s 11.1% and SBS’ 3.9%.
On a network level, including multi-channels such as 9Go and 7Two, Seven had a decisive victory with 34.3% – the second-highest network share of the week after Nine Network had 46.0% thanks to State of Origin on Wednesday. Last night, Nine Network had 25.2%. ABC remained in third with 17.9%, while Ten Network had 16.4% and SBS finished on 6.3%.
