The audience watching the 2019 AFL Grand Final clash between Richmond and GWS Giants was the smallest Grand Final audience in over 20 years and the lowest since OzTAM administered the TV ratings.
The metro audience was 2.19m, down from 2.6m+ for the previous two years.
The national audience was 2.93m after 3.37m a year ago. Five times in the past 19 years the national audience has been over 4m. The match however becomes the most-watched TV program of 2019 so far.
Nine won the week in primary share as Seven’s AFL Grand Final audience comes in the afternoon. The share that determines who wins the week is measured from 6pm to midnight.
Nine was also able to claim a weekly win 25-54 and 16-39 for combined channel share and primary share.
That secured Nine first place as both its NRL Preliminary Finals were played in the evening on Friday and Saturday last week. Nine’s Saturday NRL match saw the Sydney Roosters secure another Grand Final spot with 880,000 watching. On Friday Night the Canberra Raiders won its way through to the Grand Final with 770,000 watching.
Nine’s most-watched show of the week was The Block with 1.154m tuned in a week ago. The Monday and Tuesday episodes of The Block were uncharacteristically in second place in their time slots, with both episodes easily out-rated by 10’s The Masked Singer.
Seven was 0.6 of a point behind Nine in primary share, but managed to rank #1 in combined channel share. The winning margin was just 0.3 of a point.
Seven’s best audience of the week was the Grand Final with 2.197m. The Saturday news did 1.145m with a boost from the football audience.
Seven News won the 6-7pm hour every night.
The Brownlow Medal did 859,000 on Monday night, winning its timeslot, but ranking #2 in average non-news audiences that night, behind The Masked Singer.
The Grand Final of Australia’s Got Talent was on 750,000. Network 10 has found another 7.30pm format that joins its stable of programs that engage the under 50 audience. The Masked Singer launched with 1.16m on Monday and then backed up with 1.05m on Tuesday. The Monday launch was the channel’s best series debut since I’m A Celebrity back in 2015.
The new format was key to 10 claiming five of the top 10 under 50 programs.
With The Bachelorette not starting until next week, 10 lost some momentum on Wednesday and Thursday with Bondi Rescue and Jamie Oliver called on to do the best they could.
Have You Been Paying Attention? continued its run of 800,000+ audiences late on Mondays.
With a weaker lead-in last week, Gogglebox dropped to 558,000.
The cast of Beverley Hills, 90210 returned in BH90210 with 468,000 watching.
The biggest show on the ABC was Gruen, which launched with 757,000 just a little better than how the season started in 2018.
Part two of the Paul Hogan profile on Australian Story did 689,000 and the only other program over 650,000 was the final episode of Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds.
The biggest audience tuned to SBS was 225,000 for the start of Tony Robinson: Britain’s Ancient Tracks.
A repeat of Pompeii: Life Before Death did 214,000 and the Bristol episode of Britain’s Most Historic Towns did 199,000.