TV RATINGS: Great Race Greater Than Grand Final
THE REPCO Bathurst 1000 has drawn its largest TV audience in five years, with the conclusion of the race and the podium celebrations drawing a larger national audience than the NRL Grand Final.
Fox Sports released their total audience number today, confirming a record average audience of 524,000 watched the race across their platforms.
This includes 346,000 on Fox Sports’ linear channel and a further 178,000 on streaming platforms, including Kayo Sports.
This, combined with the 1,360,000 who watched nationally on Channel 7, takes the average audience for the entire race – all 6 hours 41 minutes of it – to 1,884,000.
This is the largest national audience for the Bathurst 1000 since 2017.
Furthermore, the audience swelled with the conclusion of the race, with a national audience of 2.501 million people watching the podium celebrations.
This included 1.89 million watching on Channel 7 nationally, making it the second most-viewed show on free-to-air on Sunday.
When added with the Foxtel group numbers, this means the conclusion of the Great Race out-rated the NRL Grand Final for the first time in history.
Aired on the Nine network, the NRL finale’ drew an average national TV audience of 2.37 million people, its lowest on record.
A national audience of 2.96 million watched the AFL Grand Final on the Seven Network.
Only that, and Ash Barty’s victory in the Australian Open this year (3.074m) have drawn larger audiences on national TV this year.
The 2022 Bathurst 1000 was a massive success for broadcasters, with Channel 7 recording the largest free-to-air ratings since 2018 and Fox Sports their largest Bathurst audience ever.
More than 270,000 people streamed the race on digital platforms this year, on Kayo and 7plus, with Kayo alone claiming more than 100 million hours streamed across the race week.
RATINGS BREAKDOWN: 2022 BATHURST 1000
Channel 7 5-city Metro: 774,000
Channel 7 Regional: 586,000
Fox Sports Linear: 346,000
Fox Sports Stream: 178,000
Total Audience: 1,884,000
NATIONAL TV AUDIENCES – LAST 6 BATHURST 1000 RACES
Includes Channel 7/10 5 City Metro, Regional, Fox Sports, Kayo
2017: 1,897,000
2022: 1,884,000
2018: 1,877,000
2019: 1,858,000
2021: 1,762,000
2020: 1,554,000
KAYO / FOXTEL STREAMING AUDIENCES – BATHURST 1000 RACE
*Data taken from average total audience number, minus reported linear Fox Sports channel number
2019: 33,000
2020: 77,000
2021: 111,000
2022: 178,000
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.
