Roy Morgan Update September 23, 2025: Federal Vote, AFL Supporter Ladder and Subscription video on demand

In this week's Market Research Update, we present the latest data on Federal Vote, AFL Supporter Ladder, Subscription video on demand and more.

Welcome to the Roy Morgan Weekly update – in the Australian spirit of Grand Final week – let’s look at football.

Roy Morgan interviews Australians all year round asking whether they play football, watch it on TV, or attend matches, and which team they support.

For the 20^th straight year the Sydney Swans have the largest supporter base – 1,297,000, 300,000 ahead of Defending Premier the Brisbane Lions on 954,000. Of course, the Lions are defending their title this week in the Grand Final.

In third place, and once again the most widely supported Victorian club, is Collingwood with 873,000 supporters. Unfortunately for Pies fans, they won’t be contesting this year’s Grand Final after losing to the Lions on the weekend.

A look at the AFL Supporter Ladder shows the Gold Coast Suns have the fewest fans with only 141,000, however the club can this week celebrate its second Brownlow Medallist, Matt Rowell.

Back to more serious things, the latest Roy Morgan Poll conducted in September with an Australia-wide cross-section of 5,084 electors – found;

Two-party preferred support for the ALP was at 55.5% well ahead of the Coalition on only 44.5% - however, this shows a swing of 1% to the Coalition in September in two-party preferred terms.

Interestingly, primary support for both major parties was unchanged with the ALP at 34% ahead of the Coalition on 30%.

Support for the Greens was also unchanged at 12%, One Nation was up 0.5% to 9.5%, and Independents/Other Parties were down 0.5% to 14.5%.

The rise in support for One Nation came in the second half of September as protests about the level of immigration to Australia were held all around Australia – this is definitely something to watch.

And the latest Roy Morgan’s Government Confidence (whether people think the country is going in the right or wrong direction) shows not everything is going well for the Government and was down in September, by 6 points to 79.5.

53.5% of Australians say the country is ‘going in the wrong direction’ compared to only 32.5% that say the country is ‘going in the right direction’.

The ALP leads the Coalition in five States – however there was a swing to the L-NP in four States: Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.

The ALP’s largest two-party preferred leads are again in the two smallest States of South Australia (ALP: 58.5% cf. L-NP 41.5%) and Tasmania (ALP: 68.5% cf. L-NP 31.5%).

In Queensland the LNP has a narrow two-party preferred lead: LNP 51.5% cf. ALP 48.5%.

The ALP has maintained a large lead amongst women and is now on 59% ahead of the Coalition on 41%.

The gap is far closer amongst men – with the ALP on 51.5% only holding a narrow lead over the Coalition on 48.5%.

Analysis by Age shows a clear split between those aged under 50 versus those aged over 50.

Under 50 – the ALP holds large two-party preferred leads amongst both 18-34 year olds and 35-49 year olds.

The vote is almost evenly split for 50-64 year olds and for those aged 65+, Coalition leads on 56% compared to the ALP on 44%.

The weekly indicators went in the wrong direction this week, ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence down 1.3 points to 84.6.

Driving the fall was less confidence that now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items.

Looking forward, next week’s Reserve Bank decision on interest rates is set to have a big impact on Consumer Confidence. The Federal Reserve dropped interest rates in the US last week, but will the RBA follow suit?

And ANZ-Roy Morgan Inflation Expectations increased 0.1% to 5%.

And now, turning to the moving arts – film and video…

New data from Roy Morgan shows streaming video service Home Box Office (HBO) Max, which launched in Australia in March has captured an impressive audience of 851,000 Australians in its first full quarter online (April – June 2025).

A look at the broader market for subscription video on demand (also known as SVOD) shows 17.6 million Australians (76.9%) watched a streaming video service in the 12 months to June 2025, up 452,000 (+3%) from a year ago.

The leading streaming video service is Netflix with 14,339,000 viewers (63% of Australians) – more than double any single other streaming video service.

The contest for second is tight between Disney Plus with 6,474,000 viewers (28%) just ahead of Amazon Prime Video with 6,464,000 viewers (28%) and Stan on 5,097,000 (22%).

In fifth place is DAZN’s streaming video service Binge with 2,754,000 viewers (12%).

For more information about just who is watching HBO Max head over to the Roy Morgan website.

When it comes to how Australians watch their favourite streaming services, new Roy Morgan research shows 43% of Australians prefer to watch Films, Videos and TV shows with captions or subtitles on, 13% prefer their news/ entertainment in a language other than English.

Interestingly, it is younger Australians who are far more likely to have this preference than their older counterparts.

A majority of Australians under 35 prefer to watch films, videos and TV shows with the subtitles or captions on (54% aged under 25 and 58% aged 25-34), as do 48% of those aged 35-49.

Among Australians aged 50 and above far fewer prefer captions and subtitles including just 28% of 50-64 year olds and 30% of people aged 65+.

This finding is part of a larger program of research exploring ‘Diversity and Inclusion in Media’.

Learn more about this new research on the Roy Morgan website.