Seven and Nine have both claimed to be the most-watched television network in 2025, in what is becoming a fun yearly tradition.

Seven has the most legitimate claim to the crown, but Nine’s argument isn’t without merit.

A release sent out by Seven on the weekend notes that it is “Australia’s most watched television network for the 2025 ratings survey year”, and that 7plus cemented its position “as the fastest growing BVOD platform”.

For Seven’s calculations, it uses the official Oztam ratings survey year, which started on February 9 and ended on Saturday, November 29. It also opts to count the entire day’s programming (6am – midnight), rather than just primetime programming (6pm-midnight) which is handy considering Sunrise and The Morning Show provide six hours of high ratings each weekday morning for the network. (Within the ratings period, it also won the prime-time rankings, albeit by less of a margin.)

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It also excludes two weeks around Easter, which isn’t included in the ratings period — as people are presumably too busy baking hot cross buns and hunting for chocolate eggs to flick on the telly during this time.

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Both Nine and Seven also compare the three purely commercial free-to-air networks, meaning that ABC and SBS are removed from the percentage share make-up of these calculations.

Therefore, with all these caveats, Seven is claiming 41.6% of the total audience, compared to Nine’s 40.5%, and Ten’s 17.9%.

It was pipped by Nine in the 25-54 demo, with Nine taking 41.7% against Seven’s 38.4% (and Ten’s 19.8%), but won the “grocery shoppers” demographic: 41.7% to 40.6% (and 17.7% for Ten).

During the 6pm to midnight primetime slot, Seven won 40.6% of audiences, just pipping Nine’s 40.2%.

Seven said close to 1.4 million new users have registered for 7plus this year, with “average live minutes” watched every day up 73% year-on-year, with daily minutes (including catch-up viewing) up 24%, and daily active users up 34% year-on-year.

Seven was also the most watched network in 24 of the 40 rating survey weeks.

As mentioned, Nine claimed the victory as well, choosing to focus on how it “dominated the metro market in 2025”.

Nine’s calculations are for primetime only, which manages to neatly wipe out Sunrise’s 20-year ratings domination over Nine’s Today. They also started on January 1 rather than February 9, which allows them to include the Australian Open, and the 2.07 million Aussies who watched the men’s final, plus the 1.54m who watched the women’s final. As mentioned, it also focuses on the five capital cities only.

Nine also skipped the final three days of ratings season, presumably so they could get the release out the door before the weekend.

Using Nine’s maths it is, indeed, still the one, with 42.1% of the commercial free-to-air audience, compared to Seven’s 38.5%, and Ten’s 19.4%.

According to Nine, it topped all categories, including 16-39, 25-54, and grocery shoppers.

Where Nine doesn’t need to fudge the numbers is in BVOD, where it trumped the other two commercial networks. 9Now took 43.3% of the total audience, beating 7plus on 41.1%, and Ten on 15.6%.

Nine also had the year’s top-rating program, with the NRL grand final reaching 4.56m Australians — beating Seven’s AFL final with 4.19m. The NRL grand final was also the highest-rating BVOD show since Oztam started measuring streaming, with 1.377m tuning in through 9Now.

Following the two footy grand finals, The State of Origin series took out the next three highest-ratings spots, with Game 3 reaching 3.96m, Game 1 with 3.8m, and Game 2 watched by 3.78m.

Nine had the top non-sports program of 2025 in The Block finale, which was watched by 2.69m people.

Nine also dominated the 6pm news race, celebrating that win back in July, when it sent out media releases claiming victory for the entire year across the five capital cities in total, and in the Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane markets.

Nine’s Sydney news director Michael Best sent an email to his team in July, writing “9News Sydney has claimed the 6pm ratings for 2025 – just over halfway through the survey year! Last night, we reached 21 weekly wins. So far, our competitors have zero.”

Nine has won the 6pm ratings in Sydney for 15 straight years.

Despite Nine’s dominance in news, Seven is still claiming to have “Australia’s most watched news service, reaching 12 million Australians every month across all bulletins.”

It continues: “The 6.00pm bulletin is the #1 news service in Australia, with an average of 1.3 million viewers each night during the ratings survey year.” Not surprisingly, it did not offer up a state-by-state breakdown.

As for Ten, its claims of 2025 victory are a little more humble.

Positioning itself as “TV’s youngest network” — echoing both its 2023 release which led with “10: Younger Than Our Competitors”, and last year’s “10 remains Australia’s youngest network in 2024”– Ten is claiming to have the most ‘entertainment’ programs of the top ten shows in the 25 to 54s and 16 to 39s brackets.

Both series of Survivor, Big Brother, and Have You Been Paying Attention made up four of the ten spots in those demographics, in the ‘entertainment’ genre — which nicely removes the older Block/MAFS audiences, as well as any talk of sport.

Ten is also claiming a year of “record-breaking streaming” with its 10 streaming platform up 31% year-on-year.

As for SBS and ABC: a spokesperson for SBS told Mumbrella they don’t provide a neat end-of-year ratings wrap, but luckily Oztam has been tracking these numbers throughout the ratings-period.

When all five free-to-air networks are included in the 6am to midnight timeframe for the 2025 ratings period, Seven just beats Nine, with 29.4% compared to 28.7%.

The ABC’s 21.5% is far ahead of Ten’s share, which falls to 12.6%, while SBS managed 7.7%.

It’s all in how you crunch the numbers.

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