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Series win delivers ratings boom for Nine

Millions tune into Channel 9 to see Aussies triumph over South Africa

Nearly 1.5 million Australians tuned in to watch Steve Smith and James Faulkner lift their country to a series-clinching victory over South Africa last night, according to ratings figures from the Nine Network.

The television audience for last night's thrilling three-wicket victory in Melbourne, which gave Nine's Wide World of Sports an audience share close to 50 per cent of the free-to-air television market, helped offset concerns about a low crowd figure. There were 14,177 fans at the MCG to witness Smith's second one-day international century.

Nine's Head of Sport Steve Crawley said while the numbers were pleasing, he was excited by the more than 50 per cent share of audience figure achieved nationwide in the key demographic of viewers aged 16 to 39. 

"To put that into context, that's the sort of level we'd expect to see around State of Origin in Brisbane and Sydney, but this is around the country," said Crawley.

"The share figure in that 16-39 demographic is really exciting.

"Cricket in that younger demographic is really growing. Cricket Australia have being saying it for a while and now we have physical evidence of it in the figures."

The figures for the fourth ODI continued cricket's strong early-season ratings for the Nine Network, with total national viewership around the 1.3 million mark for each game of the Carlton Mid ODI Series, as well as the three KFC T20 Internationals.

"India is coming, England is coming for the tri-series, then the world is coming," said Crawley. "It doesn't get any bigger than this."

The impressive television viewership figures lend credence to early indications that lower than expected crowds are a symptom of the unusually early start to the international summer.

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Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland yesterday said CA would conduct its own research into why crowd numbers have been down for the ongoing series of limited-overs matches.

The fact that Australia is hosting its biggest summer of cricket – including the 2015 ICC World Cup in February and March – meant fans might have opted to watch on television and instead have tickets for games later in the season, Sutherland said.

But he added that CA would wait until it had a chance to conduct its own research into why crowd numbers might have failed to reach expectations at a time of year when workers, school children and university students have yet to begin their annual holidays.

"It's fine to say that it's an unconventional time of year for us to be playing but at the same time there's a lot more to it and we'll do our own assessments to understand that," said Sutherland.

"But we also know that we've got a huge summer of cricket coming on and we know at the MCG for example we have already literally sold hundreds of thousands of tickets for matches to be played from Boxing Day onwards."