(Image: AAP/Brendon Thorne)

Winter sport is over with final, underwhelming figures for the third State of Origin game. Nine and the Rugby League mob will be very nervy about the 2021 season which will (COVID-19 willing) be back in its usual nine week slot from late May to early July. The audience didn’t crack 3 million nationally for any of the games, which is a measure of just how tuned out the core fans were.

The 2020 Origin series was most unwatched in modern history, with 2.73 million for the third and final game. That was after 2.43 million for the in Sydney game and 2.37 million in Adelaide, which was the lowest Origin audience since measuring began. Last night’s metro figure rose to 1.88 million from 1.65 million the previous Wednesday. The regional audience of 850,000 was up from the previous week’s 780,000.

It was a series for core viewers. Brisbane’s audience rose to 609,000 from 561,000 the previous week. Sydney’s audience was 739,000, well under the 780,000 for game one.

Origin meant it was Nine’s night, Seven was second, the ABC third and Ten fourth. Seven and Ten didn’t bother to compete and Seven was second only by virtue of its big margin win from its hour of news from 6pm.

Tonight don’t bother (even if you are in South Australia). Netflix, Stan, Apple, Amazon. The networks (including the ABC) program rubbish — search for satisfaction elsewhere.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (44.2%)
  2. Seven (19.5%)
  3. ABC (17.1%)
  4. Ten (12.1%)
  5. SBS (7.1%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (37.8%)
  2. Seven (13.1%)
  3. ABC (12.4%)
  4. Ten (6.4%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.4%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (3.4%)
  2. 10 Bold (3.1%)
  3. 10 Peach (2.3%)
  4. ABC Kids/Comedy (2.2%)
  5. ABC News (2.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Origin Game 2 (Nine) — 2.732 million
  2. Seven News — 1.523 million
  3. Seven News 6.30 — 1.498 million
  4. Origin – Post-Match (Nine) — 1.099 million
  5. Origin – Pore-Match (Nine) — 1.096 million
  6. Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.034 million 
  7. Nine/NBN News — 1.001 million
  8. ABC News 7-8pm  — 999,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 892,000
  10. Home and Away (Seven) — 883,000
  11. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 846,000

Top metro programs: 

  1. State of Origin – Game 2  — 1.882 million
  2. Seven News — 1.002 million

Losers:  Origin again dominant. 

Top Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.002 million
  2. Seven News 6.30 — 992,000
  3. Nine News — 782,000
  4. Nine News 6.30  — 770,000 
  5. ABC News — 686,000
  6. 7.30  — 571,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 408,000
  8. Ten News First — 342,000
  9. The Project 6.30 (Ten) — 261,000
  10. SBS World News — 162,000

 Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 440,000/254,000
  2. News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) — 311,000/204,000
  3. Today (Nine) — 303,000/205,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 204,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 142,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 47,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Paul Murray (Sky News) — 61,000
  2. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 58,000
  3. Alan Jones (Sky News) — 54,000
  4. Credlin (Sky News) — 53,000
  5. PML Later (Sky News) — 44,000