The following information comes from the AFL 2009 Annual Report.
The 2009 Toyota AFL Premiership Season was the third under the current domestic broadcast rights agreement. The AFL consolidated the relationships with its television broadcast partners, the
Seven Network, Network Ten and Foxtel, and achieved a number of outstanding audience results.The Seven and Ten networks continued to share the terrestrial free-to-air rights, embracing
innovation and technological opportunities in their broadcasts of four Toyota AFL Premiership Season matches per round, the Toyota AFL Finals Series and the Brownlow Medal count.
Foxtel continued its partnership with the AFL in 2009, broadcasting the remaining four matches per round on subscription channel Fox Sports and achieving a 1.2 per cent increase in its average AFL match audience compared to 2008. As in 2008, the four matches were broadcast live nationally in the Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, early Sunday afternoon and Sunday twilight timeslots.
Season
The average audience per round for the premiership season of 4.5 million viewers on Network Ten, the Seven Network and Fox Sports.
The five most-watched matches during the Toyota AFL Premiership Season involved Essendon, Collingwood, Carlton, Richmond, the Sydney Swans, St Kilda and the Geelong Cats, with an average
national audience as follows:
» Essendon v Collingwood, Anzac Day (round five) – 1.44 million viewers.
» Richmond v Carlton,Thursday night (round one) – 1.3 million viewers.
» Sydney Swans v Collingwood, Saturday night (round 12) – 1.22 million viewers.
» St Kilda v Geelong Cats, Sunday (round 14) – 1.18 million viewers.
» Carlton v St Kilda, Friday night (round 12) – 1.15 million viewers
Finals
TV ratings for the 2009 Toyota AFL Finals Series increased 13.8 per cent on 2008
The 2009 Toyota AFL Grand Final was the highest-rating sports
program for the year and second highest-rating program for the year
after the fi nal of MasterChef. The 2009 Grand Final was watched by
an average national audience of 3.8 million people on Network Ten,
an 18.5 per cent increase on the 2008 Toyota AFL Grand Final.
Draft and Brownlow
Fox Sports’ live telecast of the 2009 NAB AFL Draft was watched by an average of 139,929 viewers nationally. This represented an 84 per cent increase on the audience for a delayed
telecast in 2008.
Seven Network’s broadcast of the 2009 Brownlow Medal count attracted more than one million viewers nationally.
Radio
AFL radio audiences continued to grow in 2009, increasing by 8.9 per cent across the five mainland capital cities, with an average 1.48 million radio listeners per week across the five surveyed AFL match timeslots
Online
The AFL/Telstra Network was again Australia’s most popular sports website in season 2009, with an average of more than 2.8 million unique visits per month – an increase of 24 per cent
on the 2008 season.
The official Collingwood website was again the most popular network club website during the 2009 season, averaging 182,000 unique visits per month. Seven other club websites also drew well
over 100,000 unique visits per month in-season.