Uncategorized

Test cricket lives! and dominates early summer

Jason Lassey2 days ago2 hours ago06 mins

Rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated

The Australia v India Test series has delivered big crowds and big ratings both here and in India. Seven reports the 5 match test series reached 13.4 million people across Seven and 7plus.

The series attracted a total tv audience (linear+Bvod) of just over 1 million per session, up 39% on the previous summers West Indies and Pakistan series. Shown on 7plus for the first time, the series reached 1.29 million exclusively on the streaming service, attracting 120,000 new user registrations.

Aggregate average viewers came to 52.028m for the series over 20 sessions of match play.

Top rating sessions

Fifth Test, Day 3, Session 2 – 1.757 million
Fifth Test, Day 2, Session 3 – 1.66 million
Fourth test, Day 5, Session 3 – 1.642 million

The First Test in Perth had an average session audience of 718,000. Adelaides short Test delivered an average audience of 828,000 while Brisbanes rain affected match attracted an average audience of 711,000.

In India, the first test reached a record-breaking 70.8 million viewers, while the second test reached 49 million viewers. The first two Tests of the series have combined to reach 86 million viewers on television – a 55 per cent increase compared to the 2020 series. The total watch time came to an impressive 12.8 billion minutes, up 75 per cent rise from the last edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

The Fourth Test was the only one that went the full journey without rain affecting it, attracting an average audience per play session of 1.303 million and was the only Test match in the series to rate audiences over a million for every single game play session.

The 2024 Boxing Day Test reached record audiences to become the highest performing Boxing Day Test in the history of the Foxtel Group. Across Foxtel Group platforms Kayo Sports and Foxtel, the Fourth Test Day 1 achieved an audience of 685,000 viewers making it the highest performing individual Test Day and the most streamed individual Test Day ever for the Foxtel Group.

The Fifth Test attracted an average audience of 1.297 million (yet to be consolidated) on Seven, including half a million people who kept watching after play finished on day 3.

The Five Test series between Australia and India for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy was the most watched Test series of all-time across Foxtel Group platforms Foxtel, Kayo Sports, Foxtel Go and Foxtel Now.

The series was up 47% on the 2023/24 ‘Summer of Cricket’ Tests, and up 20% on the last Australia-India Test series in Australia in 2020/21.

The growth was driven by the New Years Test in Sydney which was the most watched individual Test of all-time, as well as record streaming audiences which were up 73% on the 2023/24 ‘Summer of Cricket’ Tests and 121% up on the 2020/21 series vs India.

Across the 2024/25 Test series, more than 1.4 billion minutes were streamed on Kayo Sports, Foxtel Go and Foxtel Now, making it the most streamed of all time.

Other Foxtel record-breaking highlights from the series include:

Most watched individual Test Day ever – Day 3 of the Sydney Test
Most streamed Test Day ever – Melbourne Test Day 1
Most watched session ever – Sydney Test Day 3 Session 2
Most streamed session ever – Sydney Test Day 3 Session 2
Four of the Top 5 most watched sessions ever

The five test series drew 837,879 punters through the gates at a record 41,894 per day. It was the fourth best attended in History – which isnt bad given there were two three day tests and a rain affected third. The average per day is the highest ever in Australia for Test Cricket.