TV Wrap: Olympics breaks 2m mark on Sunday after Seven’s best weekly OzTam ratings share
A weekend full of gold medals for Australia delivered ratings gold for Seven, as the network celebrated a dominant 49.8% network share in the week ending Saturday, 31 July.
The momentum showed no signs of slowing on Sunday, with the Night session becoming the first of the Olympics to break the 2 million milestone, as 2.070 million metro viewers tuned in.
The session included Aussie Rowan Browning competing in the 100 metres semis, as well as Brandon Starc competing in the high jump final, and while neither were successful, it followed a medal-filled day for Australia.
The Night session was #1 overall and also topped all three key advertising demos.
Seven managed to have all six of its Olympics sessions in the top ten programs on Sunday, with big numbers for the Afternoon (1.524 million) and Evening (1.519 million) across metro markets.
Seven News brought in 1.742 million metro viewers, ahead of Nine News with 991,000 metro viewers.
Looking at other entertainment programming on Sunday, Nine’s Beauty and the Geek brought in 678,000 metro viewers, while Ten’s Australian Survivor had 568,000 metro viewers.
Meanwhile, Seven had a 54% network share on Sunday, ahead of Nine’s 19.8%, Ten’s 12.7% and ABC’s 9.0%. 7Mate continued to dominate the multi channels with a 4.8% share.
As mentioned, Seven won TV ratings week 31 with a 49.8% network share, and a 59.8% commercial share – its highest since the OzTam measurement system began in 2001.
7News also recorded the largest Monday to Friday metro news audience since 2011, with an average of 1.39 million metro viewers during the period.
On Saturday 31 July, Seven had a 72.4% network commercial share, also the biggest since the OzTam measurement system began in 2001.
As of Saturday, Seven reported its 7Plus user base had grown to 8.1 million, with multiple days throughout the games so far breaking steaming minutes records for Australia.
Seven West Media chief revenue officer and director of Olympics, Kurt Burnette, said: “The record-breaking reaction from audiences to our exclusive, live and free coverage on Seven and 7Plus has surpassed all our expectations.
“Tokyo 2020 is delivering for our partners and sponsors what we said it would in every aspect, and more.”
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Zanda Wilson was a reporter and podcast producer at Mumbrella, specialising in radio reporting. He left Mumbrella in September 2021.
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