2007 AFL TV Ratings

The following information is sourced from the 2007 AFL Annual Report

On February 8, 2007, the AFL’s new domestic broadcasting rights agreement with Network Ten, the Seven Network and Foxtel was announced. As a result, more people in more locations throughout Australia than ever before had the opportunity to watch AFL matches live or on short turnaround. Under the agreement, Ten and Seven broadcast four Toyota AFL Premiership Season matches per round and had exclusive rights to the Toyota AFL Finals Series and Brownlow Medal count

Season

On average, 4.97 million people watched the broadcasts of premiership season matches each week on Network Ten, the Seven Network and Fox Sports

The five most watched matches during the premiership season involved Essendon, Collingwood, Sydney, West Coast Eagles, St Kilda and Adelaide, as follows:

■ Essendon v Collingwood (round 5): average national audience of 1.57 million people.
■ Sydney Swans v Collingwood (round 12): average national audience, 1.3 million.
■ West Coast Eagles v Sydney (round 16): average national audience, 1.2 million.
■ St. Kilda v West Coast Eagles (round 21): average national audience, 1.2 million.
■ Essendon v West Coast Eagles (round 11): average national audience, 1.23 million.
■ Collingwood v Adelaide (round 22): average national audience, 1.18 million.

Finals

On average, 3.29 million people watched AFL finals matches during each week of September in the five mainland capital cities. Another 1.04 million people on average watched each week of the
finals in regional Australia.

A feature of the finals series was the national audience for the Geelong v Collingwood preliminary final which, excluding Grand Finals, was the second most-watched match since the introduction
of a new ratings system in 2001. The match attracted an average audience of 1.88 million people in the five mainland capital cities and another 525,000 people in regional markets.

Network Ten’s telecast of the 2007 Toyota AFL Grand Final between Geelong and Port Adelaide was the most watched television program of any kind in the past year, with an average
national audience of 2.572 million people.

Radio

For the first time every match of each club was broadcast live on radio into respective home markets to provide an improved service to supporters. The cumulative average audience for AFL matches on radio each week of the premiership season was 937,000 people

Online

The AFL/Telstra Network continued to be the most popular sports website in Australia with an average of 2.046 million unique browsers per month during the season, an increase of 12 per cent on 2006.

The official Collingwood website was again the most popular AFL/Telstra BigPond club website with an average of more than\ 70,000 unique browsers per month