Sports Week: Nine’s NRL record start, 10’s F1 success, Triple M Footy

• Nine has reported small FTA growth for its live coverage of the first NRL match of the season

Nine’s NRL year reports growth for round one start

Nine has reported small FTA growth for its live coverage of the first NRL match of the season last Thursday.

The NRL figures for round one are:

Thursday

Storm v Broncos 1,183,000

• Nine: 849,000 (Metro 524,000, Regional 325,000)
• Fox League: 334,000

Friday

Roosters v Rabbitohs 955,000

• Nine: 703,000 (Metro 436,000, Regional 267,000)
• Fox League: 252,000

Saturday (all on Fox League only)

• Warriors v Bulldogs 181,000
• Tigers v Manly 262,000
• Cowboys v Dragons 278,000

Sunday

Panthers v Eels 714,000

• Nine 481,000 (Metro 305,000, Regional 176,000)
• Fox League 233,000
• Titans v Raiders 244,000 (Fox League only)

Australian Grand Prix: Live crowd and TV audience grows

10’s coverage of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix covered three days across 10 Bold and 10 with the race late on Sunday afternoon pulling the channel’s biggest overnight TV audience since the finale of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!

The event organisers also reported record crowds at the Albert Park track across the weekend.

The race didn’t have too much action for Daniel Ricciardo fans as he damaged his new Renault car badly just seconds after starting and then retired after a few laps.

The race audience was 964,000 nationally with a peak of 1.14m. The metro audience was 689,000 with 10 able to report its under 50 audience watching was up 8% on the 2018 Australian GP.

10 also reports the race was #1 in its timeslot across the capital cities, #4 program on Sunday in under 50s and all key demos plus it was #6 program on Sunday.

Triple M Football focusing on footy timeslots around network

Triple M won’t be featuring as much football talk on its breakfast shows as it has done in the past.

Triple M’s national head of content Mike Fitzpatrick told Mediaweek:

“There is less of a focus on football on Triple M breakfast in Sydney. We have MG’s sports show at 6pm nightly, but football will be confined to football timeslots.

“We will touch on it [in breakfast] when there is a big issue, but we really don’t want to drive football through the program. Our audience was telling us they’d had enough. They want to hear the footy when it is on, they don’t want to hear it all the time.

“That is the same in Melbourne too. The audience loves AFL, but they don’t want it non-stop. You only have to look at the sports stations ratings to see that non-stop AFL doesn’t work.

“We really need to have a balance of entertainment, connecting with the community and talking about football.”

Fitzgerald also noted there were no major team changes to the Triple M footy teams this year. However he did note former Demon Bernie Vince is joining the Triple M team in Adelaide.

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