Australia’s rugby loss a ratings winner

Tuesday 18 Oct 2011
THE Wallabies might have been defeated by the All Blacks in Sunday night’s Rugby World Cup semi-final but the match proved a ratings winner, the Brisbane Times reports.

The semi-final, which New Zealand won 20-6, broke records as the most watched programme in Australian pay television history and also winning its free-to-air timeslot.

A cumulative total of 3,234,000 people tuned in to see New Zealand progress to the final for the first time since 1995, with 719,000 of those viewers watching the game on Fox Sports and the remainder tuned into Channel Nine.

The match was the most watched of its free-to-air timeslot in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and was the second most watched Australian rugby match of all time, behind the 2003 World Cup final between Australia and England, which drew 4 million viewers.

Rugby now holds the four most watched programmes in the history of Australian pay television, with Sunday’s match followed by this year’s Super Rugby final, the Wallabies’ quarter-final win over South Africa last week and this year’s Bledisloe Cup and Tri Nations clash with the All Blacks in Brisbane.