THE FOURTH round of the BP Supercars AllStars eSeries has seen the first week-to-week ratings drop of the series so far.

WORDS: Richard Craill

An average audience of 44,000 watched the North American swing to Montreal and Watkins Glen on Fox Sports 506 last night, down substantially from the 76,000 who saw the Bathurst show last week.

It’s the first time in the four weeks of the eSeries campaign to date that ratings have not increased week-to-week; the first three rounds each showing incremental gains.

FOX SPORTS COVERAGE: WEEK BY WEEK

Week 1: 70,000
Week 2: 74,000
Week 3: 76,000
Week 4: 44,000
(Average audience watching on Fox Sports 506)

It was also the first time that the stand-alone one-hour qualifying show did not make the top-20 programs on the night since it’s introduction in week 2 of the series.

The average audience across four weeks is 66,000 people – comfortably making the eSeries the highest rated show on Fox Sports for the last month.

Wednesday was an oddly quiet night on Foxtel in general with all bar the top two programs (Gogglebox and Selling Houses Australia) showing significant week-on-week drops on Wednesday.

The digital space also seemed quieter on Wednesday night, though it was great to see #VASC within the top five trending topics on Twitter nationally for the entire broadcast last night.

For the past four weeks now we’ve checked the Supercars Facebook live feed from the night prior at 10AM each Thursday to see how the numbers stack up.

Week 1: 330,000
Week 2: 604,000
Week 3: 353,000
Week 4: 250,000

Our weekly like-for-like comparison shows that Week 4’s numbers were down on previous weeks.

It’s worth noting how people are re-watching earlier coverage, or using the saved Facebook live feed to re-watch the action.

Week 3 coverage from Bathurst has added a further 70,000 views in a week while week 2 – which featured Max Verstappen – has added more than 150,000 views in a fortnight.

Supercars should and will be justifiably pleased to showcase more than two million digital video views in a month to their sponsors and teams – again proving the value of the eSeries exercise.

As we explained last week, it’s not a precise science but it is a like-for-like comparison with the numbers made public on Facebook.

As always, numbers for Kayo, 10Play and other streaming outlets are not available.

This post will update as further information becomes available.

Ratings Watch Archive – Click Here

SOURCES: TV Tonight, Mediaweek, TV Black Box, Twitter, Facebook.

(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).