TV Guide: Will Second Ashes Test at Lords beat last week’s ratings?

Nine Ashes Tour coverage

Hosting Nine’s coverage is Australian sporting legend Todd Woodbridge, alongside former Australian men’s captain Mark Taylor, former Australian women’s captains Melanie Jones and Lisa Sthalekar, and Aussie wicket-keeping great, Ian Healy.

“Like most Australians, I grew up watching the cricket on our screens every year”, said Woodbridge. “Hosting something as iconic as The Ashes is a real privilege, and I can’t wait to work with some of the legends of Aussie cricket.”

Commentary will be provided by a collection of heavyweights of world cricket, such as Aussie and English stars Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting, Michael Atherton, David Lloyd, Isa Guha and more.

Mark Taylor, an Ashes-winning former captain of the Australian side, feels the series will be tight in 2019. “Both sides are filled with match winners, but I think the Aussies could have enough firepower to get them over the line this year and retain The Urn”, said Taylor. “It’s shaping up to be a brilliant series.”

Former Australian women’s captain Mel Jones – also no stranger to Ashes success – said, “Justin Langer’s first Ashes series as coach, Tim Paine’s as captain. Fresh, new faces for the oldest of competitions. This series will uncover new Australian heroes and reaffirm old ones as they take on the old foe on away soil.”

The first Test was broadcast across both Nine and 9GEM in different states, and those totals have been combined below

NATIONAL REACH

A total of 4.244 million viewers (Metro: 2.343m / Regional: 1.901m) tuned into Nine’s broadcast of the First Test between Australia and England (National cume reach), live from Edgbaston, England.

SESSION AVERAGES

The highest rating session of the First Test was Session One on Day Five (Monday, August 8th) with a national average audience of 1.064 million viewers, as the Australians bowled out England to clinch victory.

SESSION ONE (average timeslot – 8:00 pm – 10:00pm AEST)

Each of the first sessions of play achieved an average national audience of 853,000 across the five sessions (Thursday to Monday).

SESSION TWO (average timeslot – 10:40pm – 12:40am AEST)

Each of the second sessions of play achieved an average national audience of 615,000 across the five sessions (Thursday to Monday).

DIGITAL VIEWING ON 9NOW

Live Average VPM of 30,000 during live play
Live VPM Streams of 3 million
Live VPM minutes of 52 million

Day Five was the biggest day with 12 million minutes streamed.

Day Five - Session One of the First Test achieved the highest Live VPM of 47,000 and is the 4th highest Live VPM for a sporting event to date for 2019 (behind State of Origin Games I, II and III)

300,000 Australians watched some part of the First Test on 9NOW

31,500 new sign ups to 9NOW had the First Test as the first content they watched

Nine’s director of sport Tom Malone said:

“These are fantastic results across our linear and digital platforms which further vindicates Nine’s strategy to pursue premium sport on an exclusive basis, so we can aggregate big audiences for advertisers to engage with.”

“Of course, the players deserve all the credit for putting on a gripping five-day Test match. Bring on Lords!”

Nine’s director of sales, sport, Matthew Granger said:

“We have seen a fantastic response from advertisers for Nine’s exclusive coverage of the Ashes series. The First test delivered an amazing audience platform for our national partners Ford, McDonalds, Chemist Warehouse, REA and TAB. Like the Aussie cricket team, Nine and our partners can’t wait for the second test in Lords to begin on Wednesday.”