Ash Barty wimbledon
Ash Barty (Image: AAP/Tony McDonough)

Night of day two of the Australian Open did the job for Nine — or rather Ash Barty and a couple of other Australians did.

While the tennis averaged 625,000 in the session from 7pm to 10.30, Barty’s first game actually averaged 889,000 (646,000 metro, 243,000 regional) from just after 7pm to just after 8pm, and ate the opposition for the hour.

Seven’s Holey Moley Australia continued to fall into a hole of its own making (boring, boring, boring): 768,000. Ten’s The Amazing Race Australia got 712,000, but for the second night in a row easily beat Holey Moley in the metros (510,000 to 469,000). Nine won the night in total people and the main channels from Seven, Ten and the ABC.

And after a day’s delay the US Super Bowl ratings were issued: 96.4 million on CBS and a group of other outlets online (such as NFL cable). The CBS free-to-air broadcast was one of the lowest in decades — 91.6 million viewers — but was still the most watched show of the past year. It was down 8% from what Fox had on its 2020 broadcast network. That totalled just over 100 million (the 2019 Super bowl averaged 1.1 million on fewer outlets).

The 91.6 million for Super Bowl LV was the smallest network audience since the very different TV era of 2006. Remember that was pre-iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, pre-streaming (Netflix was a redboxed overnight DVD company).

Deadline pointed out though that it was the most streamed Super Bowl, so far averaging 5.7 million viewers a minute — up 69% from 2020’s previous high. The smaller broadcast audience was to be expected. The Tampa Bay and Kansas City teams are both low-drawing teams (compared with the Dallas Cowboys).

Network channel share

  1. Nine (28.3%)
  2. Seven (27.0%)
  3. Ten (20.3%)
  4. ABC (15.2%)
  5. SBS (9.2%)

Network main channels

  1. Nine (20.4%)
  2. Seven (18.2%)
  3. Ten (12.2%)
  4. ABC (10.2%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.4%)

Top five digital channels

  1. 10 Bold (4.1%)
  2. 7TWO (3.6%)
  3. 7mate (3.5%)
  4. 10 Peach (3.3%)
  5. GO (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs

  1. Seven News — 1.503 million
  2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.464 million
  3. Nine News 6.30— 1.121 million
  4. Nine News 1.107 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 976,000
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 904,000
  7. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 793,000
  8. Holey Moley Australia (Seven) — 768,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 728,000
  10. The Amazing Race Australia (Ten) — 712,000

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 963,000
  2. Seven News 6.30 — 930,000
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 870,000
  4. Nine News — 866,000
  5. 7pm ABC News — 637,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC) — 467,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 442,000
  8. Foreign Correspondent (ABC) — 368,000
  9. Ten News First —317,000
  10. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 261,000

Morning (national) TV

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 434,000/256,000
  2. News Breakfast (ABC) — 289,000/182,000
  3. Today (Nine) — 288,000/198,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 205,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — N/A (AO Tennis)
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 61,000

Top five pay TV programs

  1. The Bolt Report, Alan Jones (Sky News) — 65,000
  2. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 60,000
  3. Credlin (Sky News) — 57,000
  4. Below Deck (Fox Arena) — 38,000