The numbers for the AFL Grand Final hit a staggering 3.2m viewers yesterday.
They top the preliminary 3.1m for The Voice: The Winner Announced (but it reached 3.23m with Timeshifted data). It was nearly a record for the football -the highest rated AFL Grand Final since OzTAM began was 3.39m in 2005.
Seven tactfully divided the match into separate portions with the Presentations at 3.19m, and the bulk of the match still on a whopping 2.93m viewers. There were 1.4m viewers in Melbourne alone and another 740,000 in Sydney -not including clubs, pubs and restaurants.
As a result Seven easily won the week. TEN lost to ABC, just, for the seventh week in a row.
Network:
Seven: 33.0%
Nine: 26.7%
ABC: 17.6%
TEN: 17.1%
SBS: 5.5%
Primary Channel:
Seven: 24.7%
Nine: 20.0%
ABC1: 13.6%
TEN: 10.8%
SBS ONE: 4.8%
Multichannels:
7TWO: 5.0
GO!: 3.9
7mate: 3.3
ELEVEN: 3.2
ONE: 3.1
Gem: 2.8
ABC2: 2.3
ABC3: 0.9
ABC News 24: 0.9
SBS TWO: 0.8
Nine won 16-39, 18-49 and Seven won 25-54.
Seven ranked first every night except Thursday, which fell to Nine. TEN lost every night to the ABC except Friday and Saturday.
Seven was also first in all 5 cities.
Aside from AFL, Seven’s other performers were Seven News (Sat: 1.88m, Sun: 1.39m, weeknights: 1.18m), The X Factor (1.63m / 1.42m), Sunday Night (1.62m), Border Security (1.24m) and Air Ways (1.16m).
60 Minutes (1.4m) was best for Nine then House Husbands (1.2m), Nine News (weeknights: 1.1m, Sunday: 1.08m), The Footy Show (1.06m) and Big Brother (Eviction 1.02m).
ABC News (weeknights: 1.01m, Sun: 917,000) topped ABC1 followed by Call the Midwife (983,000), Great Southern Land (948,000), Australian Story (936,000) and Gruen Planet (916,000).
NCIS (704,000) was best for TEN then TEN News (666,000), Puberty Blues (654,000) a Modern Family repeat (611,000) and Can of Worms (592,000).
On SBS ONE it was Coast (354,000), Who Do You Think You Are? and Prohibition (both 340,000) and Rebuilding the Past (290,000).
Corrected.
For finals yes.
Channel 7 has coded there AFL broacasts differently this year to achieve higher ratings and fool many people. Has this also been happening with Ch.9 ‘s broadcasts of the NRL?
It seems the AFL are moving the Grand Final start time to 5.15/5.30 ish next year, ( touch wood) which will certainly mean a big share for 7 in 2013 with about 2 hours of game time and maybe 1 hour of post game in prime time up the east coast.
It will be interesting to see how much the ratings will go up, some commentators suggest at least 1 million more nationally, but origins of the teams would also make an impact.
Obviosuly the Sydney audience is going to be much higher with a Sydney team in the AFL GF, but we will see.
Here we go again with the footy on channel 9.
Last night should meant to show the big brother eviction night from 630p
This is the first time they have not shown big brother lastnight and there for its starting to feel less big brother then you can imagine because so much of this footy programes. Why bother have bb show during bad seasons like the football matches? know you have cricket comming up. Ch9 has GO channel GEM channel why bother have these channel and not have bb show in there at least for last night ?
Channel 9 is not the best network when it comes to fair shares. Im so angry about this football i never watched it. I cant stand footy by all means. Thanks ch9 for ruine spectators for not seen bb. It made my night quite upsetting.
Well, I am of the minority, did not watch either. too many greedy sports leagues with stupid TV networks paying over the odds for the rights, I can remember when local football actually had to beg for coverage, how times have changed and not for the better.
I like Temper Trap, but a bit too mellow for an AFL grand Final. The AFL often gets it wrong. You have to rock it out, just like Good Charlotte did on the NRL grand final. The NRL should do similar figures. In Melbourne they will get 1 million alone. 1.4 mill in Sydney and 750 k in Brisbane.
I doubt the NRL will beat those numbers because the NRL isnt as popular in states like SA and WA, a possible reason for this as their no SA, WA teams in the NRL. This is where the NRL are left for dead by the AFL. I could be proved wrong though.
@kimbeth – Gyngell may be referring to the fact that the daily ratings percentages that are quoted (eg here – tvtonight.com.au/2012/09/saturday-29-september-2012.html) are calculated based on audience numbers from 6pm. Hence why Seven only got 34.8% despite an audience of about 3 mil for around 3 hours.
Oh although i will say the AFL’s entertainment is still disgraceful. When I watched the NRL tonight it kicks the afl arse every single time. I dont understand how the AFL get it wrong every single year.
7′s coverage was excellent from 9am right through to 7mates continueing coverage after 6pm then a replay.
7 deserved the reward.
From a network perspective no doubt AFL is more profitable than NRL. The game goes longer, there are more opportunties for commercials (during goals and qrt/half/3 qrt). Compared to just half time in NRL.
When I watch NRL i wonder how Nine justify the new deal without having more ads, like its crazy the limited space for ads. They really should have 3-4 ads per try to make more cash.
I think that biggest ever grandfinal was west coast vs sydney which drew in the west market and the nsw market and then had the powerful vic market to add.
And congrats to the Swans, great club and amazing effort to play 3 grand finals in 7 years.
According to David Gyngell the NRL GF needs to be played and televised at night in order to attract the huge ratings. Well explain 3 million on a Saturday arvo Mr Gyngell ? The best footy is played during the day. I just don’t get how the big wigs can claim the new league deal is better than the AFL one when NRL has had to sell its soul to get the dollars while AFL still retain day time final and 4 live FTA games per week. Clearly AFL is much better run.
Big Big results for Seven and the AFL Grand Final yesterday. It was so awesome to see my Swannies get up over the Hawks. Really excited and had a good night last night. Good to see Seven win the week.
Ten beat abc on friday didnt they
I don’t know why Seven shows the Grand Final on their SD channel while showing a tv show from the 90s on their HD channel… What a waste of technology..
Agree with Kathy. The highest rating Grand Finals ever, have both included the Sydney Swans.
I disagree with Tomothyd. While The New Normal is terrible, Ben and Kate is a charming and engaging show. I could see this being a hit for Ten in the right timeslot e.g. Sundays at 8pm after Modern Family. Could possibly rate between 800k-1 million.
Unfortunately since they shafted it to Mondays against X Factor’s 1.6-million rating performance shows, it’s likely to struggle to break 500k
“Who would have ever predicted that both these games would fall into the ‘highest rated AFL Grand Final’s.” – Me. It’s only ever going to occur when the teams are from two different states – either Sydney v any Melb team, or Syd v Brisbane/West Coast/Adelaide because lots of Melbournians will still watch.
@oztvheritage – Sydney was also in the GF in 2006. That match rated very highly too.
Surprises me that they don’t code the game into quarters.
Seems like it would be the best way to get the biggest number possible. “Winner revealed” for the last 5 minutes maybe.
Excellent game = excellent television.
3.2 million viewers. The AFL Grand Final is our Super Bowl.
AFL is just huge
Its great to see so many wins over 1m viewers again. I wonder how TEN will fare over the next two weeks with returning and new programming? Unfortunately their new comedies Ben and Kate and New Normal are not very good, so they may struggle with those two.
Wow, TEN actually beat the ABC Saturday night? Things might actually start to improve as people ‘take a fresh look’.
It’s probably worth factoring in the nearly 100,000 people at the MCG for the event.. (Or would OzTAM do that?)
Wow- Big figures due to Sydney being in the Final. The biggest since 2005 when Sydney was last in Grand final too.
With Storm in the NRL final it will be interesting to see the NRL ratings for tonight!
AFL vs NRL – here we go again!
I don’t think MJL was talking about the rounding.
I think he was referring to the headline that 3.2 million watched the GF when it was the presentation not the actual GF
The Actual GF was 2.9 million. Presentations was 3.1 so the title is a bit deceptive IMO.
In 2005 the Swans win the GF, and again in 2012. Who would have ever predicted that both these games would fall into the ‘highest rated AFL Grand Final’s. I am one very happy Swan, what a great game.
3.196m = 3.2m with rounding, which is the convention above the million mark. 7, 9 and 10 all code events this way. I don’t make the rules…
How does 2.9 million = 3.2 million?
7 have been coding the AFL this way all season so yesterday was nothing new.