State of Origin tv ratings
(Image: AAP/CRAIG GOLDING)

The Blues and Nine won last night. The audience for the third and deciding game in 2019 Origin of 2.88 million (2 million in the metros and 879,000 in the regions) is the second wake up call for Nine and the NRL this season (the first being the weaker 2.79 million national figure for game two, after the solid 3.20 million figure for the first game). A decider should really have done much better — at least matched the audience of game one.

An extra 80,000 or so thousand viewers is simply not good enough given all the pre-publicity for this game. The Sydney audience averaged 879,000 (it should really have been much closer to a million) and the Brisbane audience of 670,000 was around 100,000 or so short of what it used to get a few years ago for big deciding matches in the series.

More impressive was the Kiwis’ win over India in the Cricket World Cup (by 18 runs in a low scoring game) on 9Gem. In regional markets Origin topped the night with 879,000 from Seven’s 6pm News with 589,000, Seven News/Today Tonight with 537,000, the Origin pre-match on 428,000 and The Chase Australia from 5.30pm with 413,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (48.3%)
  2. Seven (19.2%)
  3. Ten (13.9%)
  4. ABC (12.0%)
  5. SBS (6.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (36.7%)
  2. Seven (13.2%)
  3. Ten (8.8%)
  4. ABC (8.4%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.0%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. Gem (7.1%)
  2. 10 Bold (3.0%)
  3. 7TWO (2.4%)
  4. ABC Kids/Comedy, 10 Peach (2.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Origin 3 – Game (Nine) — 2.881 million
  2. Seven News — 1.684 million
  3. Seven News/TT —  1.549 million
  4. Origin 3-Pre Match (Nine) — 1.533 million
  5. Nine/NBN News  — 1.202 million
  6. Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.167 million
  7. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.066 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) — 968,000
  9. Origin 3 Post-Match (Nine) — 914,000
  10. 7pm ABC News (ABC)  — 913,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Origin 3 (Nine) — 2.002 million
  2. Seven News— 1.095 million
  3. Seven News/TT — 1.012 million
  4. Origin 3- Pre-match — 1.005 million

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News– 1.095 million
  2. Seven News/TT (Seven) — 1.012 million
  3. Nine News — 910,000
  4. Nine News 6.30pm  —867,000
  5. 7pm ABC News – 628,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC) — 520,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 502,000
  8. 10 News First  — 394,000
  9. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 290,000
  10. SBS World News — 137,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 468,000 (Metros: 276,000)
  2. Today (Nine) —282,000 (Metros: 186,000)
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 256,000
  4. ABC News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) —213,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 127,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 79,000