NRL final scores 2.41m
The 2009 NRL Grand Final topped 2.41m but avoiding the Presentation in Melbourne furthers the Pay TV argument to give sports more comprehensive coverage.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
The 2009 NRL Grand Final topped 2.41m last night pushing Nine to a big win for Sunday.
The match was significantly higher than the 2008 final of 2.07m. In Sydney 1.11m viewers watched on, while Melbourne had 650,000 -more than Brisbane’s 535,000.
Nine says it peaked at 3.09m viewers.
But in Melbourne, talkback callers today were angry over Nine’s switch to Nine News before the Presentation to the Storm team. In reality, the Presentation was never scheduled in that city. But at a time when the Anti-Siphoning List is being reviewed, it furthers the arguments in the Pay TV camp to give sports more comprehensive coverage.
The match gave Nine’s other shows a big boost including Nine News 1.84m and 60 Minutes 1.4m. But Nine needs to look closely at the drop for Rescue: Special Ops, down to 956,000 after a solid lead in. Either the timeslot is wrong or people haven’t warmed to the show. Or both.
Also strong was Midsomer Murders 1.35m for the ABC while Who Do You think You Are? held most of its 402,000 at SBS.
TEN had a tough night, fending off the NRL and the impact of daylight saving. Australian Idol sat at 926,000. Once again the first solo singer didn’t take to the stage until 8pm. Considering the softer lead in Rove‘s retention of 712,000 was not too bad. The 16.4% share for the night must be one of its lowest Sundays all year -well behind the ABC.
With a public holiday in NSW on Monday figures were generally down across the board. They will be huge tonight as the city settles in early for the working week.
Seven had different movies in different cities but it did best with Seven News at 1.26m.
Wipeout was well down this week on GO! at 164,000, no doubt with sports fans watching NRL.
With another Hey Hey special this week, Nine will be the one to beat this week.
35 Responses
being from melbourne, am not sure how Ray Warren is seen in NRL fans eyes, what do NRL fans think of him?
he seemed obsessed with the fact that it was showing live on ESPN 22 (or whatever) in the US and on ‘GTV Nine Melbourne,’ yet he was still so irritating and biased.
like most melbourne people, happy to see a good game with a storm win, happy to gloat, happy to say the name Fuifui Moimoi, but dont really care…
I always question official viewing figures for major sports events. Many, many people watch these events at their friend’s place as part of a bbq or at clubs and pubs.
To the obviously halfwit AFL supporters here who are asking why the NRL isn’t put on Foxtel exclusively or played on Saturday, well considering the NRL final outrated the AFL final nationwide (on the released viewing figures), I’d say it would be an extremely brave politician that denied those people the chance to watch the NRL final on free to air TV.
@Paul Maybe you could record it and watch it the following Saturday?
@Jed What a pity that 95% of their sport is utter ****
End the anti-siphoning laws and send the NRL to Foxtel for the next TV rights. The corporate stakeholders in the comp, News Corp (and to some extent) Telstra, should make this happen.
Only 1.1 million people watching the biggest day in NRL means most of Sydney wouldn’t be too concerned if club Rugby league went all Pay TV.
NRL fans should accept that NRL exists in this country because of News Corp, and because of pay-TV.
Deal with it. If you dont like it follow another sport or another level of rugby league.
Loved the game and it got the ratings it deserved.
I’m surprised only 1.1 million Syndeysiders watched it. I was messaging my friend at work during the game and she said there was only 1 person in the supermarket the whole time. We usually do $6000 on Sunday and we did $4000 only.
Good so see the great numbers in Melbourne, maybe they’re finally getting into the best sport :P. Nine should give the game more coverage, I wonder how it would go showing Melbourne Storm games live in Melbourne during the regular season … can’t rate much worse than Ten broadcasting Sydney Swan games in Sydney …
I watched the live coverage last night and then watched a replay today. How can Nine justify such bias commentary for the big NRL showcase. If they want to pamper to the Sydney crowd then why even bother broadcasting it in Melbourne. The NRL wanted a fully national competition, but obviously the Sydney commentators are yet to deal with it!
Loved the tight finish, although it was hard to work out when the game officially ended…once again the commentators didn’t seem to have a clue…too busy mourning another Melbourne premiership!
I was happy to watch Channel 9 news instead of the thugby.This is certainly another example where paytv has a very good point
Great game.
Ryano just stick to watching AFL.
this is where tru multi channeling comes into it, and it appears that networks still have failed to grasp what multi channeling is. Foxtel will do it for the Winter olympics they will insert new channels to cover more sports.
Yet the networks are still restricted by the government and spectrum to have any chance of doing this. I mean looks it’s taken 2 years for 9 to get go up and running and 7 still have not come to the party. In the networks to just flick a switch and it was there maybe we would get better coverage.
However with anti siphoning list under review it was stupid of 9 to cut short, maybe this will teach them a lesson.
@damo
I was referring to a part where they were introducing past players who played over 300 games, that sort of thing. Certainly not the music and the dancing. The NRL might have to get some Chinese help. They certainly know how to put on a good show.
@spud
channel 9 not showing the pre game entertainment isnt a bad thing. especially some of the rubbish that has been produced for the pregame entertainment over the past 10 years
@Ryano: Clearly an AFL fan. If NRL went to Pay tv, I would be so angry, as would nsw, act and Qld. No one forces you to watch channel 9, there are other channels like 7, 10, and even GO! so why not watch them when a sport you don’t like is on? That’s what I did during the afl grand final (not that I don’t like afl though, it’s a good game but I’m just not heaps into it sorry).
Paul,
The NRL grand final is on Sunday because that is the tradition but you have to have been following the game for more than 5 minutes to appreciate that.. The question you should be asking is why there isn’t a 3.00pm kick off but that can only be answered by Channel 9. The current 5.15pm kick off is a load of crap as is the Channel 9 coverage which misses out important bits of the pre-match entertainment and goes to an ad break immediately after a try is scored.
Yours sincerely,
One extremely dissappointed Parra fan
@Paul…clearly an AFL fan… The NRL would never put the Grand Final on a Saturday arvo for many reasons.. one reason in perticular is the NRL during a regular season doesn’t even have a game on Saturday arvos…why would they do so for the biggest game of the year…
Sunday is the biggest ratings night..so it makes sense!
I doubt the after-game presentations would be covered by the anti-siphoning list. They could have easily have put it on the HD channel only while SD went to the news.
They could have even done what One did and gone on for another hour or two on the HD channel.
But then, Nine aren’t exactly known for thinking outside the box.
@Ryano, Nobody has to watch the NRL if they don’t want to. There are alternatives.
Clearly not everybody thinks like you.
I think Rescue has had it and I’m getting sick of all the excuses trotted out for Rove’s poor ratings.
Why do we continually have to put up with the NRL Grand Final being on a Sunday? Why can’t it be on a Saturday afternoon, like the AFL? It’s ok for Sydney, as they have a public holiday the next day, but what about Brisbane and Melbourne? It is called the National Rugby League for a reason!! I’m sure the NRL would benefit by this.. More viewers for a saturday arvo!!!
@jed, agree that ten does a great job, as far as i know they showed the afl gf live into every state, and on onehd they had 2 and a half hours of post match coverage and that after about half on hour on ten(medals, trophy etc) compared to nine 0 minutes, plus they are the only fta that constantly makes requests to the afl to show games live, which seven never does.
It’s not often I get counted in the flawed AusTam ratings but to get counted twice in one day, 1 Parra v Storm and Midsomer, Im totally gob-smacked, but that didn’t last long because the ratings don’t give a true representation of who’s watching what and when
it funny how in the city of the loosing team, the trophey, medals etc. are shown, but it the winning city it is not, then in nine news their talking about what a great game it was, all while the post match celebrations are still going. this couldn’t have been a rating decision cause the post match would obviously rated just as well as the game itself.
next time the nrl should not give nine tv rights, cause all they are doing is hurting the games popularity in melbourne. i would think that next to no one would stay up till the early hour to watch a game delayed by several hours
@ Jed…. I couldn’t agree more. You have to give TEN/ONE HD credit where it is due. The coverage of the AFL grand Final and other major sport is not beaten by any other FTA station.
Give all NRL games, including the Grand Final to Foxtel. Most NRL fans have pay tv anyway fans cant see their team anywhere else most weeks.
Plust News Corp has a hand in NRL and Im sure would love to play all games on Pay TV.
Just give the NRL to Foxtel so the rest of the population doesnt have to put up with this vile game.
I’m sure Nine will win again but it will be close.
David what is the tally so far as in number of weeks won by Seven v Nine?
Does Nine stand a chance of winning the year?
The substantial increase on last year’s NRL GF ratings is unsurprising, since the 2008 GF was a snoozefest between two generally unloved teams. Quite a good figure for Melbourne this year as well.
Meanwhile, I suspect the reason Rescue Special Ops is underperforming is because it’s crap. I’d like to like it, but it’s just a festival of cliched characters, mediocre dialogue and uninteresting or unrealistic plots – and after the first couple of eps the action scenes and flashy cinematography vanished as well. I watched the first few episodes but I can’t get through an hour of it now.
How bout give Ten/ONE HD all sport. They seem to be the only one who can do any justice to sports coverage.