TV RATINGS: GOLD COAST 600
BATHURST DRAMA gives ratings a spike on Saturday, while MotoGP clash splits Audiences on Sunday..
WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Mark Walker
A BIG leap in the Saturday Audience of the Gold Coast 600 proves the power of having a lead-up filled with people talking about Supercars.
The big Bathurst TV audience and a fortnight of news in between saw the Saturday coverage of the Gold Coast 600 up 14% (to 419,000) year on year, with 235,000 watching on Channel 10 and 184,000 on FOX Sports 506.
156,000 viewed in regional areas on Saturday.
The 10 Number is up 4% on the same race last year while the Saturday Audience on FOX Sports was a massive 32% up on the same race in 2018.
Sunday proved a different story with the massive choice on hand splitting audiences.
The prospect of another thrilling Australian Motorcycle GP potentially drew audiences from the Supercars, especially as both events were shown by the same two networks.
503,000 watched Sunday’s Red Bull 1-2, down slightly – 5% – on the same race last year. That loss was driven by 10’s audience of 286,000 which was down from 320,000 last year. FOX Sports was up 2%.
The MotoGP topped multichannel audiences on Sunday with 156,000 watching on 10Bold and another 74,000 on FOX Sports at the same time as the Supercars race.
Still, much like the Bathurst-Japanese Grand Prix clash two weeks ago it proves a substantial audience for Motorsport on TV remains with more than a million watching the sport on Sunday afternoon when regional audiences are taken into account.
Total Supercars audiences remain up 13% year on year with the Gold Coast races the fifth (Sunday) and Seventh (Saturday) most watched races of 2019 to date.
The Sandown 500 is next which will again feature coverage on Channel 10 and FOX Sports – 10 hoping to capitalise on their first attempt at broadcasting the popular Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne to drive more audiences to their coverage from the other Home of Horsepower.
Ratings Watch Archive – Click Here
SOURCES: TV Tonight, Mediaweek, TV Black Box.
(NOTE: Numbers are overnight metro (5 capital city) and Foxtel ratings supplied by the ratings agency to media outlets and do not include any additional reporting including time shifted content, regional ratings or broader reach, unless released by the sport. They also do not include streaming numbers on Kayo or SuperView, etc).
Richard Craill (administrator)
Working full time in the motorsport industry since 2004, Richard has established himself within the group of Australia’s core motorsport broadcasters, covering the support card at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix for Channel 10, the Bathurst 12 Hour for Channel 7 and Porsche Carrera Cup & Touring Car Masters for FOX Sports’ Supercars coverage. Pretends to be a PR guy / Journalist and sometimes photographer to make ends meet when not yelling at a television in a padded room.
