Queensland State of Origin victory breaks live-streaming records

Queensland’s extraordinary State of Origin win against NSW broke television records on Wednesday night, becoming the highest rating live-streamed program in Australian history.

Nearly half a million viewers watched the Origin decider on Nine’s online video platform 9Now, an increase of 74 per cent compared to the third match of the series in 2021. The 463,000 people made up 15 per cent of the 3 million viewers that watched the Suncorp Stadium decider, which is being hailed as one of the best Origin matches of all time.

Nine Entertainment Co chief executive Mike Sneesby said the match demonstrated how quickly people were transitioning to watching free-to-air television online.

“The growth is accelerating,” Sneesby said. “Pretty soon [broadcast video on demand] will overtake regional Australia’s contribution and within several years it will be more than half of what we see coming out of that total audience number. It’s material.”

Nine owns television, radio and streaming assets, and The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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Data from measurement providers OzTAM and Regional TAM show most viewers – 2.6 million – watched Queensland’s 22-12 victory on Nine’s linear television network. Almost 800,000 of these were in Sydney, while about 567,000 watched the game from Brisbane.

When including the 463,000 who watched the game via 9Now and 793,000 viewers in regional Australia, the match was watched by 3.05 million. It was the highest rating Origin match for Nine since the first clash in 2019 and the highest rating series in three years.

The total audience was smaller than Ash Barty’s historic Australian Open win in January, which was watched by 3.6 million nationally. About 240,000 viewers watched her match through 9Now.