THE SEVEN Network’s massive reach has continued to pay dividends for Supercars with a massive audience tuning into the NTI Townsville 500 at the weekend.

Both Seven and Fox Sports both recorded improved ratings year-on-year for the North Queensland event.

More than 2.1 million people watched the coverage on Seven on Saturday and Sunday, with Seven’s total weekend audience a remarkable 78% larger than the one attracted by Channel 10 last year.

Race 15 on Saturday was up an enormous 82% year on year, with an average audience of 574,000 watching the battle of the Red Bulls, compared to the average audience of 316,000 that watched the Saturday Townsville race on 10 and Fox in 2020.

It’s the biggest year-on-year change we’ve yet tracked here on TRT’s Ratings Watch and makes it the third-most watched race of the year to date – behind only the pair of Bathurst season openers.

Seven’s Race 15 audience of 453,000 more than doubled 10’s 210,000 for the same race (though it was a shorter sprint affair in 2020) one year ago, while Fox Sports’ 121,000 was also up 15% on the 106,000 they drew in 2020.

Sunday’s Race 16 started and finished earlier, however still drew a hugely improved audience over the similarly-timed 2020 race.

A total audience of 455,000 watched Sunday’s affair, with Seven’s 331,000 up more than 50% on the equivalent 10 number. 124,000 watched on Fox Sports, meaning the Sunday race in total was up more than 30% on the same race last year.

Seven confirmed that audiences consumed more than 1.3 million minutes of coverage on 7Plus across the weekend.

The return of Seven to Supercars has seen the sports free-to-air audience soar this year, our numbers showing an increase of nearly 45% when compared to the same point last year – a massive gain.

Fox Sports’ average race audience of 130,000 this season is up 1% to the same point of the championship last year.

Taking into account the number of races broadcast only on Fox Sports, Supercars average race audiences have increased by 18% this year.

Seven’s next planned live event is the Sydney SuperNight this August, which would have featured prime-time Supercars racing on Saturday night just a week following the conclusion of the Tokyo Olympic Games – what is likely to be the most-watched Television event of the year.

However the current Sydney lockdown makes that event uncertain, with potential backup plans yet to be confirmed by Supercars.

SOURCES: 7PR, TV Tonight, Mediaweek, TV Black Box.

(NOTE: Numbers are overnight metro (5 capital city), Regional and Foxtel ratings supplied by ratings agency OzTam to media outlets. They do not include any additional reporting, including time shifted content or broader reach, unless released and / or freely available. They also do not include streaming numbers on Kayo or SuperView, etc).