Thursday was a massive night for sport including the opening rounds of both AFL and NRL plus an Women’s Asian Cup game involving Australia.
Starting with Seven and AFL, Sydney had a big win over Carlton including an incredible 75-point third quarter seen on Seven’s main channel in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and 7Mate elsewhere. The game averaged 780k with the pre (302k) and post game (254k) coverage also making the top 30 helping Seven to win the night.
The result can’t be accurately compared to last year that had a delayed launch. However the first Thursday game of 2025 averaged 671k.
Brisbane and Perth viewers had Highway Patrol at 7.30 with 223k followed by the premiere of the 22nd season of Motorway Patrol (193k) plus the movie Bridesmaids that had 113k.
Round one of the NRL season and the first Thursday Night Footy saw an easy victory for the Storm over the Eels. It was live along the east coast on Nine’s main channel and 9Gem in the other markets and had 675k.
That compares to the equivalent game of 2025 that had 789k though against less competition that night. Pre (369k) and Post (263k) coverage also made the top 30 rankings.
Alternative main channel programming missed the top 30.
The Women’s Asian Cup saw another win for the Matildas against IR Iran on 10’s main channel everywhere. The Matildas 4-0 win averaged 446k after the opening game of their campaign had 635k on Sunday. The Prematch coverage averaged 189k and the Postamatch 334k. The result helped 10 to its highest share of the week.
Those looking for an alternative to sport could turn to ABC that had Back Roads visiting Shark Bay for its 12th Season Premiere to an average audience of 446k up on the last season that had 563k in January 2025.
Creative Types With Virginia Trioli’s Season 3 Premiere followed with 269k after the previous season debuted to 408k last year. Muster Dogs then had a double episode encore screening at 9pm to 114k and 108k.
The Hospital: In The Deep End had its second season premiere on SBS at 8.30pm. The rating was 125k after Season one premiered to 225k in June 2024.
Seven News won at 6pm by 100k after Tipping Point won at 5pm by a similar amount. Breakfast TV numbers remained above average especially Sunrise that had 442k.
Note: 10 News was on 10 Drama in Perth where there was no 10 News+. ACA did not air in Brisbane. H and A was on 7Two in some markets.