Nine was heading for a week 40 victory of the back of The Block being the only audience magnet on FTA TV for the first four nights of the week. It all went the way of Seven though from Thursday as very competitive AFL finals matches dominated the TV ratings.
Seven Week 40
Primary share: 21.3% (18.5%)
Network share: 31.1% (27.9%)
Multichannels: 7TWO 3.6% (3.5%) 7mate 4.3% (3.6%) 7flix 1.9% (2.3%)
Seven has now recorded two of the three biggest survey year shares with a Friday night primary share of 30.2% off the back of the Brisbane v Richmond Qualifying Final where the home side narrowly held on to win at the ground where the AFL Grand Final will be held in less than three weeks. (The other shares over 30% in survey this year belong to Seven for Fire Fight Australia with 31.0% and Nine for the MAFS final with 31.5%. If we count the Australian Open though, Nine runs away with six nights over 30%.)
The average metro audience across all four week 40 AFL finals (Thursday, Friday and two on Saturday) was 868,000 – 24% up on the opening week of the 2019 finals series.
This year’s opening two finals, Port Adelaide v Geelong on Thursday night and Brisbane Lions v Richmond on Friday night, ranked in this year’s top three highest rating games.
St Kilda’s three-point win over the Western Bulldogs was the highest rating Saturday afternoon match of the 2020 season, recording an average metro audience 25% higher than last year’s corresponding fixture between the GWS Giants and Bulldogs, while the ratings also spiked year on year in Melbourne (46%) and Brisbane (12%).
Collingwood’s one-point win over West Coast was the highest rating Saturday game of 2020, with Seven’s average metro audience up by 16% on last year’s week one Saturday night final between the Brisbane Lions and Richmond. The average audience in Perth more than doubled year on year, while Sydney was up 23% and Melbourne up 3%.
Seven’s only other 500,000+ entry in the primetime rankings this week in addition to news was the final of All New Monty on 717,000/800,000 on Sunday. Home and Away was on 481,000 for the week and Better Homes and Gardens did 461,000.
Football screening on 7mate in some markets including Perth helped push 7mate to be #1 multichannel.
Nine Week 40
Primary share: 19.7% (20.0%)
Network share: 27.9% (28.8)%
Multichannels: GO! 2.5% (2.6%) Gem 2.3% (2.6%) 9Life 2.2% (2.3%) 9Rush 1.2% (1.3%)
The Block did well for its episodes from Sunday until Wednesday. All episodes were over 800,000 and ranked in the top 15 for the week while the reveal segment of the Sunday episode was the #1 non-news show on 997,000.
Nine’s most-watched NRL final was 454,000 for Qualifying Final #2.
A Current Affair averaged 670,000 for the week and 60 Minutes was on 511,000.
Halifax: Retribution just missed half a million with 496,000 on Tuesday.
ABC Week 40
Primary share: 13.1% (13.8%)
Network share: 17.6% (18.4%)
Multichannels: Kids/Comedy 2.5% (2.6%) ME 0.5% (0.4%) News 1.6% (1.5%)
The weekday and Saturday 7pm news bulletins were over 700,000 as was Anh’s Brush with Fame (715,000) and Hard Quiz (704,000).
Australian Story was on 635,000 and the final of Further Back in Time for Dinner and the penultimate episode of Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell were both just under 600,000.
Father Brown and Four Corners were both over 500,000.
10 Week 40
Primary share 9.5% (10.9%)
Network share: 15.9% (16.8%)
Multichannels: Bold 3.5% (3.7%) Peach 2.4% (2.3%)
The channel recorded its lowest survey primary share of the year and its third-lowest on any week this year. The week started badly on Sunday with a small audience for Lindy Chamberlain: The True Story. However, the second episode on Monday recovered and the audience of 549,000 was the channel’s second-biggest for the week, behind only Have You Been Paying Attention? with 636,000 after the doco’s second night. The game show ranked top 10 for the week in all key demos.
Gogglebox was next best with 478,000 on Thursday.
The Project 7pm with 471,000 was the only other program over 400,000.
SBS Week 40
Primary share: 4.5% (5.1%)
Network share: 7.6% (8.1%)
Multichannels: Viceland 1.2% (1.3%) Food 0.9% (0.9%) NITV 0.1% (0.1%) World Movies 0.8% (0.7%)
The second episode of Every Family Has a Secret was the most-watched show of the week with 260,000 after launching with 286,000 the week prior.
Ancient Superstructures was next best on 207,000.
* Figures in brackets are Week 39 shares.