26 May 2025
This year is the second year of a new television ratings system in Australia. It was changed in 2024 to include the entire country and a new figure called “Reach”. Previously, the ratings figure only represented the five mainland state capital cities known as “5 Metro” (regional areas and Tasmania were excluded), and instead of a peak rating (the highest number of people that watched at a particular point in time), we get Reach, which is anyone that watched at least one minute at any time. This figure will be significantly higher than Peak, as will the Average due to more people recorded – approximately 20% more. Therefore, be wary of claims about record ratings, especially if referring to millions, because that would be the accumulated Reach figure of six shows (3 live and 3 repeats) over the week.
A third change is that figures for video on demand are included. This is roughly 5% to 10% of all viewers, depending on the desirability of the show.
With the same ratings system for two years now, at least we can make a direct comparison on last year, especially as Australia failed to reach either of the grand finals. There’s good news and bad news for 2025. Focusing on the grand final, the live broadcast rated much better with 75,000 extra viewers. The bad news is the repeat rated worse with 57,000 fewer viewers. Combining both the live and repeat figures, 2025 attracted 18,000 extra people (453k vs 435k), so there wasn’t much in it.
On Reach, a similar trend. The live broadcast saw an extra 107,000 viewers in 2025 while the repeat saw 122,000 fewer viewers. Combined, again, only a small difference at 15,000 viewers, and this time 2025 produced the inferior figure (1420k vs 1435k).
For Australia’s broadcaster, SBS, they would much prefer the 2024 figures because the repeat is Sunday night prime time from 7.30pm, so it’s a far more important figure for advertisers and the overall prime time performance of the network. For context between shows on other networks, the grand final repeat was the 14th highest rated show on Sunday night based on Reach (the figure used to rank the shows). Seven News at 6pm with 2.400m viewers almost tripled Eurovision’s 805k viewers. Travel Guides at 7pm on the 9 Network (2.211m) and 9 News at 6pm (2.159m) also exceeded 2 million viewers. Just ahead of Eurovision in 13th spot was Insiders, a political news and talk show on the ABC at 9am, with 849k viewers.
Grand Final Average 2025 vs 2024
Live: 284k vs 209k
Repeat: 169k vs 226k
Combined Average: 453k vs 435k
Grand Final Reach 2025 vs 2024
Live: 615k vs 508k
Repeat: 805k vs 927k
Combined Reach: 1420k vs 1435k
For a historical perspective, the Malmö 2013 grand final in prime time rated 595k on the 5 Metro figure, which is 200k directly more than the combined live and repeat figure of 2023 (the last figures on the old ratings system) and probably 300k more than 2025 on the combined live and repeat national figures (estimating at least 750k was the full national figure in 2013). Before 2015 and Australia’s first appearance at ESC, there was no live broadcast of Eurovision in Australia so these prime time delayed broadcasts were the only opportunity to watch Eurovision on television. While the 5 Metro combined figures of 2015 and 2016 were higher than Malmö 2013’s solitary figure of 595k, the more important prime time figures were lower at 592k and 476k, respectively, and the combined figures began to collapse in 2017 with just 456k combined (148k and 308k) and hit a record low of 288k combined (123k and 165k) in 2021.
Semi Finals Average 2025 vs 2024
We can only compare the repeats because the live semi finals rarely rate high enough to show in the top 20 (old ratings system) or 30 shows (new system) for the week.
SF1 Repeat: 165k vs 187k
SF2 Repeat: 195k vs 221k
Semi Finals Reach 2025 vs 2024
SF1 Repeat: 663k vs 727k
SF2 Repeat: 678k vs 671k
The semi finals of 2025 rated lower than 2024 on all figures except for the Reach for SF2 (by just 7k). That was Australia’s semi final. In 2024, Australia performed in SF1, which explains the superior ratings there.
Commentators
SBS sent new commentators for 2025 after Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasey, whose first Eurovision was in 2017, were announced last December as “now ready to step out of the commentary booth”. No actual reasons given, and I suspect it was their loathing of Israel in the competition. Creasy was clearly miffed at the need to talk about Israel in their semi final last year and the pair were made to stay neutral in the grand final. After starting well in their first few years, they became very annoying by making Eurovision almost entirely about themselves. Too many inane jokes, too much giggling, and spoiling the performances about to be seen by revealing too much during the postcard segments.
Courtney Act and Tony Armstrong were the new commentators and did quite well. While Armstrong was prone to spoilers during the postcards and some comments were banal things “what a great crowd”, they were decent, respectful and offered enough of their personalities without becoming intrusive. While Act (a drag queen) referring to Kyle Alessandro of Norway as a “twink” in both the semi final and grand final was unnecessary, that was still much tamer than some of the perverted stuff from the openly gay Creasey. Armstrong, as a former footballer and now a TV presenter, mostly commentated as a fan, as did Act, which was a pleasant change from the previous pattern of sending a “comedian” and a gigging, and often ignorant, counterpart as the commentary team.
Basel 2025: It’s JJ with Wasted Love for Austria – Grand Final Review
Mr Eurovision Australia 