With a horse tragically euthanised and a jockey fined for whipping his horse too much, the 2020 Melbourne Cup numbers were once again slightly down year on year.
According to OzTAM metro numbers, 1.410 million people tuned in to watch the race, which is down from 1.44 million last year. Last year OzTAM originally reported the final tally to be 1.324 million viewers, but according to Network 10, the race finished later than programmed, so the final numbers were actually 1.44 million.
Meanwhile, 971,000 watched the presentation, which is down from 1.113m last year. Some 829,000 watched the jockeys and horses in the mounting yard prior to the race, which is on par with last year’s 830,000.
As always, these numbers don’t take into account the number of people who watched the Cup in pubs or clubs. However, pubs and clubs numbers are likely to be down due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Melbourne Cup numbers over the last few years show a steady decline in metro viewers. In 2015, the race attracted 2.07 million viewers, 2016 had two million, 2017 had 1.8 million, 2018 pulled 1.84 million and 2019 did 1.44 million.
It was, however, up 8 per cent in the key advertising demo of 25 to 54s. Live streaming audiences on 10 Play also increased by 47 per cent.
In September 2018, Network 10 took the rights away from Seven in a five-year, $100 million sports rights contract.
While the Cup still pulled big numbers, it wasn’t enough to see 10 take out the primary channel share win, with the honours going to Nine on 20.7 per cent. Seven came in second with 18.5 per cent, while 10 trailed behind on 12.1 per cent. ABC came a close fourth on 11.5 per cent, while SBS came a distant last on 5.4 per cent.
Here’s how the rest of Tuesday ran:
Nine
News did 896,000, The Block did 816,000, A Current Affair did 682,000, and Hot Seat did 450,000.
10
The Project did 553,000, Junior Masterchef did 485,000 and Melbourne Cup – Late did 432,000.
Seven
News did 954,000, SAS did 654,000 The Chase did 499,000, and Home and Away did 535,000.
ABC
Over at the ABC, news did 751,000, Outback Ringer did 357,000, and 7.30 did 577,000 and Brock: Over the Top did 369,000.
