2026 TV Ratings

[Gizmo]

New season, new TV ratings thread.

Good ratings for the season opener.




2025 season opener ratings (Friday night, Thursday game postponed):

Swans/Hawks
Average 651,000 (BVOD 53,000)
Reach 2.036m

5 city ratings from mediaspy.



7 press release

Seven wins Thursday, AFL #1 program in all demos

• Seven #1 nationally in all demos
• National total TV audience share, 6.00pm to midnight: 43.2%
• National total TV audience share, 6.00am to midnight: 43.3%
• 7plus: soars 56% year-on-year
• Seven’s AFL: Thursday Night Football: #1 program in all demos, reaches 2.25 million
• 7NEWS: #1 news program, reaches 2.24 million
• Sunrise: #1 at breakfast, 37% more viewers than Today

Seven Network reaches 6.13 million Australians nationally.

7plus: #1 in streaming with a 47.7% commercial share; 42.1% commercial BVOD share; reach up 56% year-on-year.

Seven’s AFL: Thursday Night Football: #1 program in all people, 25 to 54s, 16 to 39s and grocery shoppers. National reach 2.25 million, national audience 780,000.

 

[Gizmo]

Considering it was a blowout and featured the Suns, the ratings were solid for Friday night footy's return.

 

[qlderlions]

Considering it was a blowout and featured the Suns, the ratings were solid for Friday night footy's return.

Agree. This is a great result. Considering it was also head to head with some of the biggest NRL clubs (think of equivalent of Collingwood playing Hawthorn), and the GC vs. Cats in overall numbers (including BVOD) was larger than Swans vs. Hawks from last year.

 

[The_Wookie]

 

[Gizmo]

Blues/Tigers
Average: 675k (BVOD 114k)
Reach: 1.875m

Not bad for two bottom 8 teams.

 

[Cmarsh]

Fair to say opening round, despite all the criticism, was a success from a tv audience standpoint.

 

[Gizmo]

Bombers/Hawks
Average: 557k (BVOD 96k)
Reach: 1.697m

Not great ratings, but not surprising due to the result.

 

[shammersting]

Essendon used to be a massive draw, last year they had low numbers especially by their standards. Granted an ordinary season...

 

[Strings]

Essendon used to be a massive draw, last year they had low numbers especially by their standards. Granted an ordinary season...

Haven't made it past week 1 finals in decades. Lots of fans found stuff to do other than watch.

 

[Gizmo]

Dees/Saints, Roos/Power & Suns/Eagles
Seven
Average: 297k (BVOD 40k)
Reach: 934k

Disappointing ratings considering how good the Dees/Saints game was.

Edit: there was also this:

SEVEN’S AFL: SUNDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL - GAME 2

SEVEN

147,000

 

[le dominateur]

Dees/Saints, Roos/Power & Suns/Eagles
Seven
Average: 297k (BVOD 40k)
Reach: 934k

Disappointing ratings considering how good the Dees/Saints game was.

Edit: there was also this:

SEVEN’S AFL: SUNDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL - GAME 2

SEVEN

147,000

Yep, rubbish ratings.
Demons/Saints was a belter.

 

[Gizmo]

Hawks/Swans
Seven
Average: 727k (BVOD 122k)
Reach: 2,118m

 

[Bjo187]

Hawks/Swans
Seven
Average: 727k (BVOD 122k)
Reach: 2,118m

Cracking 2 million is impressive it's amazing what happens when you put footy on the main channel in any of the 3 of the 4 biggest cities in Australia that usually don't get main channel coverage (Sydney, Brisbane and Perth).

Good numbers last night too pipping the NRL that was on in Australia's 3 biggest cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane) on the main channel compared to footy as usual only being on main in Melbourne and Adelaide.

 

[Cmarsh]

Cracking 2 million is impressive it's amazing what happens when you put footy on the main channel in any of the 3 of the 4 biggest cities in Australia that usually don't get main channel coverage (Sydney, Brisbane and Perth).

Good numbers last night too pipping the NRL that was on in Australia's 3 biggest cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane) on the main channel compared to footy as usual only being on main in Melbourne and Adelaide.

View attachment 2557323

Back on the main channel in Perth needs to be on the agenda for this AFL administration. So does getting back to live games on FTA on Saturdays and getting rid of 80's and 90's style delayed coverage.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Back on the main channel in Perth needs to be on the agenda for this AFL administration. So does getting back to live games on FTA on Saturdays and getting rid of 80's and 90's style delayed coverage.

That ship has sailed - Kayo/Foxtel takeup has always been historically lower in Adelaide and Perth than the rest of the country for this reason, and they're paying more of the TV deal this time round. C7 just see no value in it.

While I agree access to FTA and reinforcing national size is important, have to understand AFL is effectively subsidising that to the tune of millions of $ for that to happen. It's more of an issue that Sydney v Brisbane last week was on delay imo. Got to keep fan interest of those two teams strong because the drop-off will be worse when they're bad again.