• Cricket dominates viewing on TEN and Nine as Australian Open starts today
• Nine wins Sunday, TEN wins week two and posts best numbers since 2001
There are still four weeks of summer survey to go, but it already feels like we are underway in survey with networks pointing out their January ratings success stories.
Both Nine and TEN have been working hard to promote their ratings triumphs with cricket while Seven gets into its coverage of the Australian Open today.
Another critical launch today will be Nine’s new one-hour version of Millionaire Hot Seat, which will see the channel going head-to-head with Seven’s The Chase between 5-6pm.
SBS has been quick out of the blocks too with new Vikings screening last week while it premieres its new local reality series Undressed tonight.
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Nine has pointed out that all the biggest sports audiences so far this summer have been for its international cricket coverage. Nine also stressed that it is predicting its strongest January start after winning every week of January with viewers 25-54 from January 2014 to January 2016 inclusive.
Nine’s Sunday night winning share of 28.4% was driven by Pakistan’s first win in Australia in any form of cricket for many years.
However the cricket last week was not enough for Nine to win the week.
TEN finished first on 18.0% off the back of winning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
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Network Ten pointed out that it made a mess of Nine’s January record last week when it won 25-54 as its posted its best ratings result since the launch of OzTAM in 2001.
In the first two weeks of 2017, Ten has recorded its biggest total people audience since the 2001, plus its highest commercial shares in total people and 25 to 54s since 2001.
Thanks to its big television audiences last week, the KFC Big Bash League’s national season average so far this summer stands at 1.02 million people.
So far this season, the KFC Big Bash League’s commercial share in people under 55 is 34.7%, up 3.4 percentage points from 31.3% at the same point in the 2015-16 season.
Among 25 to 54s, the season-to-date commercial share is 33.1%, up from 30.4% at the same point in the 2015-16 season, and the commercial share in total people is 30.0%, up from 28.9%.
2016-17 KFC Big Bash League highlights include:
• Average game audience, national: 1.02m
• Average game audience, national, Session 2: 1,124,000
• Average game audience, national, Session 1: 940,000
• Average game audience, capital cities only: 697,000
• Average game audience, capital cities only, Session 2: 774,000
• Average game audience, capital cities only, Session 1: 638,000