Nine claims ‘biggest ever’ audience for State of Origin I grabbing 50% of Brisbane and Sydney viewers

Last night’s State of Origin I match on Nine dominated the ratings capturing 2.487 million viewers for the match in the capital city metro market.

The result is slightly higher than the first game last year which reached a metro audience of 2.433 million, rising to 2.699 million for the final game of 2013, however Nine aired the match on Gem in Perth which it claimed picked up 109,000 viewers, taking the five city total to 2.596m, which the network claims is the highest game one audience in history. The OzTam system does not capture viewers watching out of home.

Nine easily won the night with an overall audience share of 37.4 per cent, Seven came in next with 16.8 per cent, followed by Ten on 11.5 percent.

The ABC suffered a big decline with it’s overall share dropping to 7.7 percent from 11.4 per cent on Tuesday. While it managed to get the 10th spot for ABC Evening News with 843,00 it’s main offering last night, Chris Lilley comedy Jonah From Tonga, again failed to draw a large audience with just 240,00 viewers tuning in at 9pm, after getting 317,000 viewers last week. However, the show did pick up 87,000 viewers on catch up.