Australia's Fox Footy, The Seven Network Drawing Record Audiences

The Seven Network and Fox Footy's Australian Football League are "kicking goals with another Monday night success" after the biggest Friday night AFL audience ever, according to Michael Bodey of THE AUSTRALIAN. Monday night's broadcast of St. Kilda's victory over Carlton "was well up on last year's average audience in Melbourne," with 371,000 viewers on Seven beating last year's audience of 327,000. The match, "broadcast nationally on 7mate, had an average national audience" of 1.1 million. That audience followed Friday night's "top-of-the-table clash between Geelong and Essendon," which was the fifth-most-watched home-and-away match ever and the "highest-rating Friday night AFL match since the introduction of the OzTAM ratings system in 2001" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 5/15).