Glenn Dyer's TV Ratings: Footy's back, but where's the enthusiasm?

Footy’s back, but where’s the enthusiasm?

Last night's viewership figures for the Richmond-Hawthorn game were down more than 35% from those of the week before.

Jun 19, 2020

Normal service has resumed for the AFL. Like the NRL before it, the ratings for the second Thursday night game of the restarted AFL competition plunged — from 1.27 million for the Richmond-Collingwood game last week to 827,000 for the Richmond-Hawthorn game last night. That was a fall of more than 35%. It was a similar story on pay TV — the audience for the game on Foxtel slumped to 235,000 from 342,000 the week before, a fall of more than 30%.

The NRL audience also fell 35% from its first game (on a Thursday night) to the second Thursday night game — 951,000 to 618,000. Last night the audience for the third Thursday night NRL game fell a further 10% to 552,000.

Still the AFL audience managed to drag Seven to a big win on the night, and that will be repeated tonight with the AFL helping Seven past Nine and its NRL match. Without Masterchef Ten was very weak — the ABC’s main channel with a share of 10.5% beat Ten’s main channel with 9.6%.

ABC News Breakfast was second (304,000/192,000) and Today was third (388,00/183,00), both behind Sunrise (469,000/267,000). That was the weakest metro figure for Today since the COVID-crisis erupted and boosted viewing across the board. Thats a sure sign the interest in COVID-19 has ended and it is now just another story in the daily news cycle.

In the regions it was Seven News with 611,000, Seven News 6.30 with 578,000, The Chase Australia 5.30pm with 403,000, Home and Away with 382,000, then 7pm ABC News with 370,000.

Network channel share: