Ben Cousins, AFL and reality TV makes Channel 7 Perth Australia’s top rating station 15 years in a row

Ben Cousins, AFL and reality blockbusters like SAS Australia and Big Brother have helped Channel 7 Perth continue its reign as Australia’s top rating television station for a 15th consecutive year.

When the official ratings year comes to an end tonight, 7 Perth’s expected audience share of 33.0% (7, 7two, 7mate and 7flix combined) will have made it the highest rating metropolitan TV network in Australia for 2020.

Nine Network Perth will end up in a distant second place, with a combined share of 23.4 per cent, while ABC will come third on 18 per cent followed by 10 Network Perth (16.6 per cent) and SBS Network Perth (9 per cent).

Channel 7 Perth will have won every week of the 40-week official television survey year, while one of its digital stations, 7mate Perth, will be the top rating multi-channel in Australia.

These rating reports are based on the official survey year and do not include summer or Easter weeks.

“In 2020, where COVID affected everything — from how we actually broadcast the news, to working with a constantly moving AFL season, to putting on hold a worldwide event such as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, to making the tough decisions to halt production on some of Australia’s favourite shows — Seven Perth has once again shown that the best in the business can accomplish anything, no matter what’s thrown at them,” said Seven West Media WA CEO Maryna Fewster.

“As the 2020 ratings survey results demonstrate, we’re thrilled to have had so many shows resonate with our Perth audiences throughout the year.”

Despite the season being disrupted by COVID-19, Seven’s AFL coverage dominated Perth’s most watched programs of the year, taking out the entire top five.

The Richmond v Geelong grand final, held for the first time at night at Brisbane’s Gabba while Melbourne was in lockdown, was Perth’s number one show with a mammoth audience of 337,349 viewers.

7NEWS’s exclusive prime time interview with disgraced former West Coast Eagles star Ben Cousins was the tenth most watched program for the year, with 181,154 tuning in to see Cousins speak about his drug-affected life to Basil Zempilas.

Elsewhere, 7NEWS Perth ruled the majority of regular programming, taking out four slots in the top ten.

Seven’s highly-addictive new reality program SAS Australia had both its weekly episodes feature in the top 10 for regular programming along with the network’s popular reboot of Farmer Wants a Wife coming in tenth.

Perth audiences also lapped up big budget reality series with Seven’s All New Monty: Guys and Gals performing strongly for the year, followed by Nine’s Married at First Sight and Seven’s high octane Big Brother Reboot.

The 2021 ratings year will kick off on Sunday, February 7.