Day one of First Test reaches 2.87 million

The highly-anticipated battle for the Ashes exploded into life at the Gabba yesterday, with the Seven Network’s live and free coverage reaching 2.87 million people and peaking at 1.74 million.
On an historic opening day when aggressive spells led by Aussie quicks Patrick Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood reduced England to their lowest Test score (147) on day one of an Ashes series for 63 years, the second session delivered 686,000 viewers nationally and 459,000 in the capital cities.
The first session had 586,000 viewers nationally and 386,000 in the capital cities. All sessions dominated their timeslots ranking #1 in 25 to 54s, 16 to 39s and total people.
The Seven Network delivered 75% of the Ashes broadcast audience on Wednesday across the capital cities, with Channel 7 up 98% year-on-year in total people during day time.