AFL Round 18 saw a big comeback win for Fremantle beating Sydney to average a huge 930k. The highly anticipated match was extensively promoted by Seven and given rare main channel coverage in all markets. Seven was rewarded as the ratings were the highest for a Thursday night this year and were equal with the King’s Birthday Monday Afternoon game in June.
Over on Nine, the NRL Women’s Premiership that saw the Broncos defeat the Sharks averaged an uncompetitive 255k, down from the season opener that has 279k. AFL markets on Nine had RBT and Emergency. Then later the Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Semi Finals started from 10pm AEST and had 186k.
Back Roads returned at 8pm on ABC with 480k up from the last episode that had 416k in May. Following Grand Designs averaged 392k.
10’s Taskmaster Australia reached the Season 5 Grand Final that saw Rove McManus as the winner to be up 55k to a season high 413k. 10 has reported that this season has seen the franchise’s biggest total TV audience since 2024.
For SBS, it was the first rest day of the FIFA World Cup. In primetime, Spain With Michael Portillo premiered at 7.30 but missed the listings while later the Tour de France made the rankings with 171k.
Seven News, including a 5.30pm start in Perth, was again the number one show with 1.378m to be ahead of Nine’s bulletin that had 1.288m. Earlier, Tipping Point with 861k easily beat The Chase with 717k.
At 7pm Home and Away still did well with 722k despite being shown on 7Two in some markets. That made the show the number one entertainment offering of prime time. Episodes 2 and 3 however suffered and had 467k and 465k. Also at 7pm, A Current Affair had 871k with ABC News on 835k.
Sunrise won breakfast again with 432k while Today improved to 280k for its highest result in two weeks while News Breakfast managed 225k.