Racy Footy Show finale drives Nine to win Thursday
It had wigs, skirts, shirtless players and controversy -and the crowd just loved The (AFL) Footy Show's Grand Final edition, helping Nine to win Thursday night.
- Published by David Knox
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On Grand Final eve, more or less, Thursday was all about the AFL Footy Show.
Broadcasting its annual shindig from Rod Laver Arena the show was full of raucous entertainment, wigs, skirts, shirtless players and controversy -and the crowd loved it. Even with its questionable inclusion of an “I Don’t Like Monday’s” parody of the St. Kilda schoolgirl and Ricky Nixon scandal (and Nixon was in the venue) it was cheered by the audience. At home it pulled a big, fat 507,000 viewers in Melbourne, much greater than the NRL Footy Show Grand Final edition in Sydney on just 152,000.
There is little doubt that the AFL Footy Show helped Nine to win the night nationally, the show stretched for some three hours across the night. The two shows combined stumped up with 973,000 nationally, enough to win their timeslot.
Elsewhere for Nine last night Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year was 883,000. The season final played at 7:30pm in Melbourne with 258,000 viewers, 57,000 more than it had in that market at 8:30pm last week.
As usual Seven’s early evening dominated proceedings with Seven News (1.21m), Today Tonight (1.11m) and Home and Away (991,000) all winning their slots. Four Weddings was 759,000 but it lifted for Beauty & the Geek Australia ( 804,000). Still one of Seven’s trickier nights, numbers dropped at 9:30pm with How I Met Your Mother on 417,000.
The 7pm Project (750,000) was best for TEN with The Renovators on 695,000. Disappointingly Rush slipped to 665,000, against the might of The Footy Show. The first Law And Order: SVU replay was 564,000.
ABC News was 918,000 for ABC1. The season final of Catalyst was 663,000, but on a bad night for Aussie drama Crownies fell to 489,000. Next week it moves to 9:30pm.
Gourmet Farmer was best for SBS ONE on 337,000 while Neighbours topped multichannels on 340,000.
15 Responses
I really hope crownies and Rush improve in numbers.
@CD – I cringed more and more as that segment went on, I eventually turned off after nothing being able to stand it anymore.
the nrl footy show need an overhaul. the afl needs some tinkering as well. with the nrl, they need to get rid of fatty, darryl, freddy and beau. beau is about as funny as i am. the afl footy show needs less of billy and crawf
I went to The Footy Show last night. It was really great being there watching it unfold live.
Hopefully Rush can pick up in numbers in the coming weeks. Brilliant this season.
AFL Footy Show continues to save the NRL Footy Show from getting the axe.As previously mentioned Channel 9 needs to axe the NRL Show and allow the AFL Footy Show be shown all over Australia.The numbers the NRL are getting now would see the AFL version get just as many.Networks are always looking to cut costs this would be perfect for Channel 9
@ted- totally agree. In Sydney we have to sit through the amateurish, NRL footy Show (poor Michele Mahone, Today’s entertainment gossip, looked totally bemused at what she was made to be part of last night) to watch the professionally produced and presented AFL counterpart.
It reached a new low a couple of weeks ago when Mario Fenech (the butt of all jokes) was ridiculed and taunted while trying to create awareness of the RUOK Day depression initiative.
The NRL footy show is made by bogans, for bogans.
Found the AFL Footy show quite entertaining last night, as it has pretty much bored me into slumber the rest of the year. Did anyone else catch the winning video on Almost Football Legends where the old man retrieves the football and insists on kicking it over the fence? Funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Cracked me up.
A lot of “chattering leftie types” bag the afl footy show for the way it is. But the presenters seem to have the same sort of natural chemistry as the UK Top Gear mob and the show itself is general entetainment with a footy theme. Well Done ch9 on keeping this long running show alive
I really believe the AFL grand Final footy show would of got as good figures in Sydney as the NRL. They could of saved on production costs. I have watched both shows but find AFL show to be very relaxed and natural. I just love it when Sam finds something funny he snorts. He did it a couple of times last night. I like Fatty, he should stay on the NRL show but they need a professional tv host like a Dave Hughes type to steer it.
The opening of the show was far classier and cleverer than the player revue which did nothing for the already tarnished AFL reputation (especially St Kilda).
The NRL footy show is a joke but rest assured it will be back so as to stroke the egos of the main cast , why do they bother.
I’m watching the afl footy show right now which i tape last night I just wanna say i’m a nrl fan and the afl footy is way better than the nrl .They know how to entertain the audience with all the music, guest and many other things Wow!
I stopped watching the horrible NRL Footy Show around a year and a half ago. Hopefully if 9 gets less games it will be taken out back & shot.
if they put the afl footy show on in sydney at 8.30pm it would probably get more than the shocking NRL borefest………
“Numbers dropped at 9:30pm” for HIMYM as they are repeats. If Seven fast-tracked shows at the same rate as TEN and Nine then we could be up to the second episode of the season (with the third episode just airing and fast-tracking currently being a weeks delay). If they wanted to win the slot then they need to drop repeats and bring on new content.