Nearly two million Australians across the country turned to the ABC at midnight to celebrate the biggest night of the year, New Year’s Eve.
An evening filled with music and celebration highlighted the ABC’s commitment to not only entertaining Australian audiences but also supporting the wider community.
Celebrations kicked off with The Early Night Show, hosted by Rhys Nicholson, Casey Donovan and Gemma Driscoll, bringing all the family-friendly fun in the lead up to 9pm Calling Country Fireworks.
From 9:15pm, hosts Charlie Pickering and Zan Rowe presented the live concert from the Northern Broadwalk of the Sydney Opera House, featuring a stellar line-up of performances from Tones and I, Ball Park Music, Vika & Linda, Dami Im, Morgan Evans and Tasman Keith.
The perfect soundtrack for New Year’s Eve was amplified at 11pm, as we celebrated the upcoming 2023 Sydney WorldPride Festival with a special segment hosted by Jeremy Fernandez, followed by show stopping performances from Electric Fields, Courtney Act and Casey Donovan.
As the clock struck midnight, Sydney’s iconic fireworks beamed around Australia and the world.
Director of ABC Regional & Local, Judith Whelan said:
“It’s been wonderful to bring all Australians – and people all over the world – the iconic images of our New Year’s Eve celebrations on Sydney Harbour. No-one does NYE like we do – with live music, children’s entertainment and of course coverage of the magnificent fireworks display.
“I’d like to thank all the ABC staff who worked through the night to bring everyone every moment of the celebrations – across ABC TV, ABC iview, on social media and on ABC Radio – and once again, provided audio description of the fireworks for people who are blind or vision-impaired.”
ABC’s NYE TV broadcast coverage peaked with over 1.7 million tuning into either ABC or ABC NEWS for the midnight fireworks last night. A total of 685K live streams were recorded via ABC iview.
TV and ABC iview Audiences
- The Midnight Fireworks averaged 1.7m viewers, making the Midnight Fireworks again the top ranked program of the day across all channels.
- The total ABC iview live stream results of NYE coverage increased again year-on-year, achieving a record NYE result of 685K.
- The ABC TV channel on iview also delivered its strongest daily result ever of 563K.
- The ABC was also the leading network in metro markets for NYE, with a 5-city prime-time share of 27% (flat on 2021).
- 3rd Party platforms drove strong levels of off-platform live viewing, with TikTok generating the most engagement this year.
Social Audiences
ABC’s New Year’s Eve 2022 coverage was live streamed directly to ABC TV + iview’s Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter accounts and shared with more than 77 ABC and partner accounts.
This included more than 49 of the ABC’s location-based regional and capital city Facebook pages, giving viewers right across Australia the ability to join in the live coverage and bringing the ABC’s vast audience into the New Year’s Eve conversation.
- On Facebook, overnight the live streams, highlights and NYE 2022 packages amassed a combined total of 683K views on ABC and partner pages.
- On YouTube, ABC TV’s live streams, highlights and NYE 2022 packages reached 338K views at the time of reporting.
- On TikTok, ABC iview’s live stream amassed 525K views and 7.0m engagements, earning over 8,000 new followers.
- Audience engagement was strong throughout the night, with over 745K engagements across the live streams, highlights, NYE 2022 packages and event stills.
- #NYEABC trended number two on Twitter during the broadcast, holding its position as of 9am January 1.
(Sources: Khoros, Facebook Insights, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok Analytics; Numbers correct at 9am January 1, 2023.)
