Bathurst 12 Hour pulls strong FTA TV ratings

This year’s key sessions, including the Top 10 Shootout and Sunday’s once-around-the-clock marathon, were again simulcast on free-to-air as well as subscription network Fox Sports (including via Kayo Sports).

Seven’s race day telecast began on 7mate or 7two before switching to the primary channel at 12:00 in all markets.

According to official ratings figures, the latter element of the telecast finished seventh for the day (Sunday, February 18) for total people in terms of national TV ‘reach’ at 1,311,000 people.

‘Reach’ is a new metric which has been introduced to the official ratings system this year, and is defined as the number of viewers who watch at least one minute of linear television or 15 seconds on streaming services.

The national average TV audience was far lower at just 298,000 but that stands to reason considering the telecast ran for as much as six hours, in the biggest markets in the country (New South Wales, Victoria).

Reach, therefore, arguably provides a fairer indication of viewer interest when a programme runs so long.

The national BVOD average audience for that primary channel component of the telecast was 11,000.

For context, the top-rating programme of the day, Nine’s reality powerhouse Married At First Sight, pulled total TV reach of 2,663,000, national average TV audience of 1,576,000 (for a significantly shorter programme, in primetime), and national BVOD average audience of 338,000.

The multi-channel portion of the race day Bathurst 12 Hour telecast pulled reach of 667,000 – making it the 20th most popular programme in the country on that metric – with an average TV audience of 112,000 and average BVOD of 5000.

In Western Australia, that includes viewers who switched on as early as 02:30, given the three-hour time difference relative to Bathurst.

Those who lasted the distance were rewarded with an exciting conclusion to the race, although whether that would have been the case if the weather stayed dry remains to be seen, considering the restrictive sporting regulations for this year.

The above figures do not include viewers on Fox Sports through Foxtel or Kayo, which have not been published at this point in time.

This year’s Bathurst 12 Hour was a first in so much that practice sessions were streamed for the first time with vision (TV-style, as opposed to audio only).