Source : THE AGE NEWS
The four election debates between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have bucked a trend of declining live broadcast audiences as Australians prepare to head to the polls this Saturday.
An average national audience of 973,000 watched the final leaders’ debate across the Seven Network, with the audience of 60 undecided voters handing the PM a convincing victory.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the audience’s winner from the final leaders debate.Credit: AAPIMAGE
Audiences have been significantly more engaged with the debates this election based on viewing numbers across Seven, Nine, the ABC and Sky News Australia, which held one debate each. Nine is the owner of this masthead.
Nine’s The Great Debate was the highest rating, with a national average audience of 1,097,000 and a total reach of 2,128,000. Reach is a tally of the number of people who viewed the program for at least one minute on a metro or regional broadcast, or 15 seconds on a live-streaming platform.
The ABC’s debate had an average audience of 1.01 million and a reach of 1.77 million, while the national reach of Seven’s debate on Sunday was 1.68 million.
Seven’s debate audience was up 20 per cent compared with 2022, when Albanese faced off against incumbent Scott Morrison and Labor ultimately swept the Coalition aside after nine years in government. Nine lifted the audience of its debate by 15 per cent compared with 2022.
Viewership figures were at their highest since 2013.
Election debates have had waning audiences for some time, alongside long-term declines in live television viewership, as younger audiences in particular move towards social media and online consumption for news and entertainment.
The format was re-energised by the second US presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in September 2024, which attracted an audience of 67 million Americans or about 20 per cent of the US population. About 7 per cent of Australians tuned into Nine’s debate, and 1.5 per cent watched Sky’s broadcast on Foxtel or regional television.
Sky said its debate reached a combined overnight audience of 410,000 unique viewers, which included 200,000 unique viewers on pay TV platform Foxtel, plus 210,000 viewers on its Sky News Regional service. This was the highest-ever rated program on Sky News Regional, the network said.
Sky did not provide the average audience figures for the event.
Peter Dutton makes his point during Seven’s The Final Showdown leaders’ debate. Credit: AAPIMAGE
The political impact of the debates remains unknown, however. Harris was deemed the winner of her face-off with Trump, but was convincingly beaten at the polls two months later. Sky and Seven’s undecided audiences handed the prime minister victory this time around, which appears to be in line with the direction of most public polling.
A raft of News Corp commentators and journalists questioned the independence of the Sky audience, provided by Q&A Market Analytics, before and after the result was delivered on its live broadcast.
And Sky News presenter Sharri Markson last week questioned the independence of News Corp’s own Newspoll, which has been exclusively published by The Australian since 1985.
Markson called polling a “thumb in the wind” more generally, noting that Newspoll pollsters, Pyxis Polling and Insights, were also on the Labor Party’s payroll.
Donald Trump last week labelled Fox News’ own pollster “fake” and “Trump-hating” after it found his approval ratings were worse than Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even his own in 2017 at the 100-day point in their presidencies.
Fox News is controlled by the Murdoch family, which also controls News Corp.
“This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social last week.
The latest Newspoll figures show Labor holding a slim lead of 52-48 in a two-party preferred vote ahead of the final week of the campaign, with 62 per cent of voters unconvinced that a Dutton-led Liberal-Nationals Coalition is ready to govern, up from 55 per cent in February.
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
