Seven AFL Coverage

Pretty great figures. Seven and their sponsors will be stoked!

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Just out of curiosity, do you have a list of the Top 10 highest 5-city audiences?

Understand if you don’t - thanks in advance if you do

Some of those figures (Seven getting a 60% share, the Seven network getting a 65%+ share and 1.5 million watching the game in Melbourne) are just insane to wrap your head around

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Well all of Melbourne couldn’t go anywhere to watch it, hence why the numbers would be so high as everyone was at home.

I think that gets forgotten… Melbourne is still in lockdown.

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There’s a good chance the Grand Final might hit 3m metro (I mean it’s razor close), with time-corrections and 7 Day and 28 Day Consolidated (we saw a big lift in 2016, especially the presentations). I’m sure many Tigers fans will be replaying it over and over :wink:

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That’s true. Last night’s match didn’t finish until around 10.20pm AEDT due to two players knocked unconscious and having to be stretchered off (Richmond’s Nick Vlastuin in the first quarter and Geelong’s Sam Simpson in the final quarter).

Seven AFL Ratings

7.5 million tune into 2020 AFL Grand Final as Seven’s metro audience spikes by 36% YOY

  • AFL Grand Final audience peaked at 4.09 million nationally

  • Biggest TV event of 2020

  • Seven scores biggest metro commercial share ever recorded – 76%

  • Biggest commercial share since Sydney 2000

As Richmond secured an unforgettable 31-point win over Geelong in the 2020 AFL Grand Final, Seven’s coverage reached 7.5 million people across Australia, while its average national audience of 3.812 million was 30 per cent up year on year and the biggest Grand Final audience since 2016.

On a night when Dustin Martin became the first player to win three Norm Smith Medals, Seven recorded an average metro audience of 2.979 million , a whopping 36 per cent up year on year. It was also the biggest metro primetime audience on any network since Seven’s coverage of the 2017 Australian Open Men’s Final.

Seven also recorded a 76 per cent metro commercial share, the biggest ever recorded.

And on the first occasion the Grand Final had ever been held outside Victoria, Melbourne recorded a Grand Final audience of 1.583 million , up a staggering 59.8 per cent on last year’s Grand Final.

The AFL’s first ever night Grand Final saw strong audience growth right across the day on Seven, with the Grand Final Preview up 64.4 per cent year on year in metro areas, while the pre-match entertainment was up 92.3 per cent .

On a day when two of the Australia’s greatest ever sporting events – the AFL Grand Final and the Cox Plate – converged for the first time ever, Seven recorded its highest live streaming day ( 24 million minutes ) since the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, while it was Seven’s second highest total streaming day of all time ( 40.8 million minutes ).

Seven’s coverage of the 100th running of the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley and Bondi Stakes Day at Randwick was also a smash hit with viewers. The Cox Plate race averaged 600,000 nationally and 436,000 in metro areas, up 64.7 per cent and 86.6 per cent respectively year on year, while the coverage across the entire day was up 40.1 per cent nationally and 56.5 per cent in metro areas.

On 7plus, the AFL Grand Final recorded nearly 16 million streaming minutes and was up a remarkable 215 per cent year on year.

And every market’s average audience was up on last year’s Grand Final between Richmond and the GWS Giants.

In Brisbane, Seven’s audience of 383,000 was the biggest since the 2004 Grand Final between the Brisbane Lions and Port Adelaide and was up 20.7 per cent year on year.

The network’s average Sydney audience of 413,000 was up 11 per cent on last year’s Grand Final even though that featured the GWS Giants.

Rounding out a landmark night for Seven, Adelaide ( 265,000 ) was up 14.3 per cent and Perth ( 335,000 ) was up 17.3 per cent .

On a truly groundbreaking day, the highlights of Seven’s coverage included:

  • The spine-tingling opener to the Grand Final broadcast featuring Luke Hodge , which was fully integrated into the Gabba via the stadium’s big screen

  • The interactive analysis during the Grand Final preview that saw Cameron Ling step ‘inside the screen’ to demonstrate how Richmond could counter-act Cats spearhead Tom Hawkins ’ influence at forward-50 ball-ups

  • Fans at home becoming part of the Grand Final like never before via a giant Toyota Fan Zone

  • Brian Taylor ’s feel-good interview with Chris Maroni, the winner of the Toyota Finals Feeling competition and the proud owner of a brand new Toyota Hilux Rugged X

  • From the MCG, NAB AFL Auskicker Zev Roitman shared his infectious love of the game with Hamish McLachlan , before Mike Brady gave a rousing pre-game performance of Up There Cazaly

  • At Moonee Valley, Hugh Bowman set the scene for the historic 100th running of the Cox Plate with a stirring opener that looked back at some of the equine immortals who have won Australasia’s weight for age championship

  • Hamish McLachlan ’s heartfelt tribute to the stars of the Spring Racing Carnival – the horses – and the incredible connection they have with racing fans

  • AND last but certainly not least Aussie rock legend Daryl Braithwaite ’s inspired performance of The Horses that had fans at home singing along with the same gusto normally seen in the packed grandstands at Moonee Valley.

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Huge ratings for the Grand Final and 7 will be happy with the game cracking 3.81m views nationally and 1.58m in Melbourne alone. Halftime show is here to stay after it being well-recieved

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Thanks in big part to the grand final Seven and Nine are now tied for the year - weeks won and network share.

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That’s the biggest ever Melbourne audience for an AFL Grand Final.

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If I were 7Melbourne, I’d consider replaying the final quarter/half this afternoon as a lead in to tonight’s news. Nothing to lose…
Or even after the news to deflect some viewers away from the NRL GF.

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They might not have the rights to do so though.

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Who would watch that besides Richmond fans?

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Didn’t they used to replay it on 7mate the day after?

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I would think lots of Victorians would rather watch any AFL than the NRL…

I’d hope that most would want to watch their local team in a grand final.

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Maybe. I don’t know Victorians well enough obviously. I thought AFL trumped everything lol. Bad suggestion. Next topic…

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No such thing is a bad suggestion.

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I think they’ve got cricket commitments today.

Viewers in Melbourne who are Storm fans or general sports fans or regularly watch either just the NRL GFs / SOOs or entire NRL seasons, will tune-in tonight regardless as always. How high it goes in Melbourne is always unpredictable and changing.

But after last night’s AFL GF ratings, I think any of the NRL GF and SOOs will struggle to come close, even if regional is bigger (which it usually is - say 1m), they’d still need another 2.8m viewers from metro, which unless for some magical reason all of Sydney decides to wake up and turn on the TV, isn’t going to happen, regardless if Melbourne rates 200k or 600k.

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On 7mate.

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I thought this was an intriguing statement. Probably completely reading too much into it, but why need to add this sentence at all, let alone Seven’s coverage, why not just ‘since 2017’ or ‘Jan 2017* or the 2017 Australian Open Men’s Final.

I wonder if there’s still some at Seven rueing the day they let the rights go to Nine. Especially with their attitude to CA lately.

Dunno, just the way it was used and worded was surprising.

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