Socceroos deliver big night for SBS and Fox Sports while House Rules overtakes The Block

Tim Burrowes

June 19, 2013 9:14

How SBS is reporting the Socceroos’ victory

SBS1 had one of its biggest TV audiences in recent years on Tuesday night with a metro audience of 1.117m tuning in for Australia’s match with Iraq which saw the Socceroos qualify for the World Cup.

The time delayed broadcast brought SBS a 14 per cent share of the free to air audience – putting it ahead of ABC1’s 10.3 per cent share and within touching distance of Ten’s 14.5 per cent.

And Fox Sports’ live coverage of the match on Foxtel brought in a metro and regional audience of 549,000, subscription TV’s highest rating soccer match of all time.

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.

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11 COMMENTS

Johnny 19 Jun 13

*Iraq

Although Iran did qualify as well.

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Chris 19 Jun 13

It was a great night last night, but Australia actually defeated Iraq, not Iran.

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Footballer 19 Jun 13

Australia qualified by beating Iraq, not Iran.

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mumbrella 19 Jun 13

Hi Footballer – thanks for that, my bad, now updated. (I wasn’t among the 1.1m last night..)

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

tim 19 Jun 13

Iraq

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Patrick 19 Jun 13

If you watched it on delay on SBS you are not a true fan. True fans would have Foxtel so they watch games live and the A-League. True-ish fans would at least go to the pub or club to watch live.

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Scoop 19 Jun 13

For such a massive game, I can’t see why they could not run the game live.

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mumbrella 19 Jun 13

Hi scoop,

I imagine it would be a rights issue – presumably Fox Sports had first dibs.

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

Steve 19 Jun 13

Absolutely right there Tim. While Socceroos World Cup Qualifying games are on the anti-Siphoning list, Fox Sports have the exclusive live rights, allowing SBS to show a 1 hour delayed broadcast.

This will be the same for the A-League Finals next year, which SBS will also show on a 1-hour delay, while Fox Sports retains exclusive live broadcast rights.

Even on delay, it’s great that the Socceroos are on FTA, and the figures for a delayed match are pretty phenomenal.

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Lee 19 Jun 13

I couldn’t believe how close we came to failing to qualify. We were nearly embrassed by an Iraqi side that had little to play for. I’m not overly optimistic about the World Cup – still an excuse to party.

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Spectator 19 Jun 13

@Lee. But even if Australia had lost the match, because Jordan beat Oman 1-0 a few hours later, Australia would have still gone through on goal difference (Australia would have needed to be beaten by +10 goals for Jordan to overtake Australia on aggregate, in that situation).

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