Live sport still most watched TV in Oz, data confirms

Over the past 15 years, live sport has dominated as Australia's highest ranked programs on free-to-air TV, according to data released this week by Nielsen.

OzTAM data that ranked the top most-watched programs on Australian metro TV in 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015, shows that 16 of the top 20 TV programs were live sport.

Whether it be AFL, rugby league, cricket, tennis or the race that stops the nation – The Melbourne Cup –  Australia is characterised and united by our love of sport.

According to Nielsen’s Consumer & Media View insights, in the past 12 months, over 10 million Aussies watched sport on TV.

Nielsen Social Content Ratings shows that seven out of the top 10 most Tweeted episodes in 2015 were live sport, with multiple events such as the Cricket World Cup picking up over 100,000 related Tweets. And, close to one in every two Tweets sent about television was about sport-related content.

Twitter fans that joined the conversation for live grandstand sport events were also more likely than average to engage with the advertisers. For example, close to 90% of Authors who tweeted about the Super Bowl (2015) also talked about the brands advertised.

According to OzTAM’s TV data from quarter 2, 2016, 95% of total sports viewing happened live. In comparison, 79% of general drama viewers watched live.