Over three million tune into Fifth Test
Seven’s final day coverage of the Fifth Test between Australia and India on Sunday captured the attention of 3.1 million viewers, with average TV audiences of the second session sitting at 1.75 million.
The cricket dominated Sunday ratings, with the second session proving the most popular, drawing the aforementioned 3.1 million viewers.
The first session of Day 3 reached 2.5 million viewers, with an average audience of 1.43 million, while even the lunch break saw an average of 1.3 million watch the highlights.
The final session of the day — when it was apparent the Aussies had clinched the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade — still drew an average of 517,000 viewers.
The entire Test series reached 13.4 million viewers, with 7plus seeing a 230% jump in its audience, compared to the same days last year.
Wonderfully, for Seven, Sunday evening’s BBL bash between Hobart and Adelaide was also a ratings smash, drawing 2.2 million viewers throughout the game, with an average audience of 1.43 million.
Seven Network’s director of sport, Chris Jones, said this was “quite simply the most compelling Test series since Seven took the rights”, congratulating both teams for “captivating the country and setting new records both on TV and at venue.”
Other than Seven, Nine, and ABC’s news coverage, the only other rating challenge came from the United Cup tennis, which drew 1.68 million viewers to Nine. This, of course, bodes well for Nine in next week’s ratings, when the Australian Open begins.
When a well-timed Sunday night screening of Sonic the Hedgehog struggles to pull 800,000 viewers, you know we are deep into summer sports season…
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I was wondering how long before the “Reach” ratings quietly slipped in last year would be quoted as the actual figures!!!