SUPERCARS first foray into Sunday night prime-time racing has been an overwhelming success, with Race 25 of the championship drawing huge numbers to subscription TV broadcaster Fox Sports.

In fact, Motorsport programming set a new record on Sunday as Fox Sports 506 dominated the entire top order of the ratings chart for Sunday, November 7.

An average audience of 180,000 tuned in to Race 25 of the championship, which was one of the most dramatic in recent memory thanks to heavy rain that fell just as the race begun.

That audience is the largest for a Fox-only race in 2021, eclipsing the 172,000 who watched Race 5 from Sandown – also a wet affair – earlier this year.

Excluding the Bathurst 1000, it’s the biggest Fox Sports audience for a Supercars race since the Sunday leg of the 2020 Adelaide 500 (222,000)

In what we understand to be a Subscription TV ratings first for the sport, every single show making up the Top 20 most-viewed programs on Sunday were motorsport-related programming.

Supercars-related programming filled the top 17 positions, while the early-morning qualifying session for the Mexico City Grand Prix drew a substantial 79,000.

Ratings for the F1 race itself will be included in Monday’s numbers, released Tuesday morning.

On Saturday night, Race 23 of the championship pulled 142,000 to Fox Sports 506.

That number was 7,000 less than the same timeslot last week (149,000), though that race was also shown on Channel 7.

However, it continued motorsport’s dominant week over the other form of horsepower: The Paramount+ Stakes from Flemington, the final day of the Melbourne Cup carnival, drawing just 135,000 to free-to-air broadcaster Channel 10.

The first session of the critical T20 World Cup match between Australia and the West Indies, which started just before the finish of the Supercars race, drew an audience of 191,000 to Fox Cricket on Saturday night.

UPDATE: Monday morning’s Mexico City Grand Prix drew 74,000 to Fox Sports 506 at 6am in the morning.

It ensured that for the second day in a row motorsport topped the Subscription TV rankings, with the early morning race comfortably out-rating every one of Foxtel / Sky News’ ‘After Dark’ programs run in prime time.

LEAD IMAGE: Andrew Hall

SOURCES: 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).