RATINGS WATCH: ADELAIDE
ONE UP, one down when it comes to the first two races of the 2020 Supercars championship on Aussie TV.
WORDS: Richard Craill
FOX SPORTS up, Channel 10 down has been a theme of Supercars TV ratings for a majority of the last season and much was the same at the season opening Superloop Adelaide 500.
The Subscription TV numbers rose slightly across Saturday and Sunday combined, while Channel 10 lost numbers compared to the 2019 race see the overall total down slightly year-on-year.
Saturday’s season opener was seen by 401,000, up from 397,000 in 2019.
223,000 watched on Channel 10, down slightly on last year, while Fox Sports’ 178,000-strong audience was up from 152,000 in 2019.
495,000 saw (the much more exciting) second race on Sunday, down 16% on the 2019 total with the losses led by free-to-air.
273,000 (down from 347,000 last year) watched on 10 while Fox Sports drew 222,000 – only 5,000 less than last year.
THREE YEAR TREND:
SATURDAY’S audience was the largest for Adelaide in the last three years and of the current TV deal overall, indicating a strong lead-in drove interest to the season kick-off.
Sunday’s race was down on 2019’s high (it was the second most-watched race of the season last year) but higher than 2018.
| Adelaide 500 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | ||||||||
| 10 | FOX | Total | 10 | FOX | Total | 10 | FOX | Total | |||
| VASC R1 | 223,000 | 188,000 | 401,000 | 245,000 | 152,000 | 397,000 | 231,000 | 105,000 | 336,000 | ||
| VASC R2 | 273,000 | 222,000 | 495,000 | 347,000 | 227,000 | 574,000 | 344,000 | 126,000 | 470,000 |
OTHER NUMBERS
SOME data is not yet available, however we do know that 164,000 watched Saturday’s race in regional areas, taking the tally to over 550k. We’ll only report on these numbers if we get them.
Friday’s coverage of the final practice session was shown on 10 Bold alongside the Fox Sports coverage, and drew 73,000 in metro areas on 10’s secondary channel, plus 70,000 on Fox Sports for a total of 143,000.
It’s a strong result for what was a glorified practice session: Friday’s race coverage from the Australian Grand Prix last year drew 184,000 on 10’s primary channel and Fox Sports.
Supercars again dominated Subscription TV: 9 of the top-10 shows on Saturday were all Adelaide 500 programming (The NRL All-Stars game on Fox League was second behind the main race), while Sunday was a top-11 lockout for the motorsport.
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 ratings agency OzTam to media outlets. They do not include any additional reporting, including time shifted content, regional ratings or broader reach, unless released and freely available. 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.
