Finals face-off: AFL pulls in more viewers than NRL

So how did the weekend Festival of The Boot go? Well the AFL had the numbers over the NRL.

The Winners: Underbelly: Razor lost 89,000 viewers, much fewer than the week before, but Seven’s Wild Boys shed 276,000 viewers (a loss of just over 16%) from last week’s debut 1.674 million. But it was Seven’s night in All People, but the demos saw Nine win thanks to Underbelly: Razor, which is very popular in 16-39s.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.555 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.504 million
Underbelly: Razor (Nine) (8.30pm) — 1.461 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.411 million
Wild Boys (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.398 million
Bones (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.254 million
60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.157 million

The Losers: Ten’s The Renovators (what else is new?).

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Brisbane, thanks to the NRL finals. Seven won the rest, thanks to the AFL final, and had more viewers nationally.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.555 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.504 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.411 million
60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.157 million
ABC News (7pm) — 718,000
Ten News (5pm) — 393,000
Ten Evening News (6pm) — 276,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 188,000
Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 141,000

In the morning:

Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 365,000
Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 292,000
Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 186,000
Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 169,000 + 38,000 on News 24 simulcast
The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 134,000
Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 109,000
Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 106,000
Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 104,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 33.7% from Nine (3) on 30.1%, Ten (3) was on 19.3%, the ABC (4) was on 13.0% and SBS (2) channels ended on 3.8%.
Main Channel: Seven won with 27.2% from Nine on 24.7%, Ten was on 11.8%, ABC `1 was on 10.1% and SBS ONE ended on 3.3%.
Digital: 7TWO and ONE shared the digitals with 3.9% each, from Eleven on 3.6%, GO was on 2.9%, 7mate was on 2.7%, Gem was on 2.5%, ABC 2 was on 1.4%, News 24 was on 0.8%, ABC 3 was on 0.7% and SBS TWO ended with 0.5%.
Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 35.4% from WIN/NBN (3) on 33.0%, with SC Ten (3) on 15.1%, the ABC (4) was on 12.5% and SBS (2) ended on 4/0%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 27.9% from WIN/NBN on 26.6%%. ABC 1 was third with 9.5%, ahead of SC Ten on 9.0%. The digitals were won by 7TWO with 4.4%, from GO on 3.9% and ONE on 3.2%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 24.7%%.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 27.5% from Nine (3) on 24.6%, pay TV (200-plus channels) ended on 16.1%, Ten (3 channels) was on 15.8%, the ABC (4) was on 10.6% and SBS (2) ended with 3.1%. The 15 FTA channels had a total TV viewing share last night of 83.9%. The 10 digitals had a share of 18.7% and the five main channels’ share was 65.2%. the 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share of 22.9% last night.

In pay TV homes, it was sport, sport and sport, led by the Rugby World Cup (RWC):

Fox Sports 3 (5.27%)
Fox Sports 2 (4.52%)
Fox 8 (2.86%)
Fox Sports 1 (1.86%)
Showtime Premiere (1.43%)

The top five programs were:

RWC Australia versus Italy (Fox Sports 3) — 319,000
RWC South Africa versus Wales (Fox Sports 3) — 203,000
US Women’s Golf (Fox Sports 2) — 138,000.
RWC Ireland versus USA (Fox Sports 3) — 139,000
US Open Tennis, Sam Stosur’s US women’s semi-final (Fox Sports 2) — 116,000

Major Markets: Nine won Sydney overall and the main channel. Seven won the rest with Nine mostly second and Ten third except overall in Perth where it was Ten second and Nine third. Eleven won Sydney, 7TWO won Melbourne, 7Two, 7mate and ONE shared Brisbane. ONE won Adelaide and Perth.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Last week was Seven’s by a mile. Seven won everywhere bar Sydney, where the NRL finals on Friday and Saturday nights pushed Nine past Seven. Seven though managed to hang on and win the Brisbane market which is the second NRL stronghold. Seven also won the digital channels. Prime/7Qld won the regionals in All People, overall, the main channels and the digitals.

Underbelly: Razor is getting odder. So many interior shots (i.e. sets) compared to exteriors that are harder to recreate along the lines of the late 1920s and early 1930s now that Newtown, Erskineville and Surry Hills and Darlington have been gentrified.

The most-watched programs nationally last night were:

Nine News with 2.107 million (696, No 1) in the regions and 1.411 million in the five metro markets.
Sunday Night with 2.095 million viewers (591,000 in the regions , No.3 and 1.504 million metro viewers.
Wild Boys was third with 2.067 million viewers with 669,000 in the regions (No.2) and 1.398 million metro viewers.
Seven News was fourth with 2.058 million with 503,000 in the regions (No.8) and 1.555 million metro viewers.
Underbelly: Razor was fifth with 2.037 million, with 576,000 regional viewers (No.5) and 1.461 million metro viewers.

So how did the weekend Festival of The Boot go? Well the AFL had the numbers over the NRL.

AFL: Geelong versus Hawthorn (Seven) (Friday night) — 1.094 million
NRL: Tigers versus St George (Nine) (Friday night) — 977,000
AFL: Collingwood versus West Coast (Ten) (Saturday) — 944,000
AFL: St Kilda versus Sydney (Ten) (Saturday night) — 922,000
AFL: Carlton versus Essendon (Seven) (Sunday) — 901,000
NRL: Brisbane versus Auckland (Nine) (Saturday night) — 794,000
NRL: Manly versus North Queensland (Nine) (Saturday night) — 699,000
NRL: Melbourne versus Newcastle (Nine) (Sunday) — 749,000

Meanwhile, Friday night’s opening game of the Rugby World Cup on Nine between New Zealand and Tonga was watched by 322,000 people (and 237,000 on pay TV in the metro markets). Yesterday’s Australia versus Italy was watched by 494.000 on Nine and 319,000 on pay TV, making for a total audience of 813,000, which means it had more viewers than the Melbourne-Newcastle NRL final and the Saturday night finals.

Tonight: The usual hours and hours of news and current affairs on the ABC from 7 o’clock. Ten brings back Undercover Boss. Good News World at 9.30.

Seven has Body of Proof, which is a weak and very standard US crime drama. The X Factor for anyone interested at 7.30. Swift and Shift Couriers on SBS at 8.30. Nine has The Farmer Wants a Wife for an hour from 7.30 instead of at 7 o’clock for 90 minutes. Nine also has a movie at 8.30.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports