Last night’s AFL final scored the first +1 million rating of the week and helped Seven to its highest Friday night share in over two years. The 45.5% share was up two points on the previous Friday and featured a massive 569,000 in Melbourne alone. The audience for the one-point win by Collingwood compared to 819,000 for the equivalent game of 2022. The game received main channel coverage along the east coast with around 100k tuning in in both Sydney and Brisbane.
The Rugby League Final on Nine also on the main channel in eastern markets, by contrast to the close result in the AFL saw a blow out result and drew almost 500,000 to see the Panthers progress. That was down from 745,000 the previous year on a night when it was the only footy on TV. The number was up slightly on the previous week and saw Nine’s share steady week-on-week.
Meanwhile Better Homes and Gardens attracted a big audience as the AFL lead in and was the number one entertainment show of the day. Its closest competition was Gardening Australia with 200k fewer viewers.
Not much to see for the other three networks that had a combine reach of less than 30%, all down on the previous week.
The AFL was Foxtel’s top game last night with 312k while the NRL had 262k. That compares to 3984k and 418k respectively for 2022.