The Front Bar as Carlton Draught’s spiritual home was the inspiration behind the creation of our panel show, The Front Bar, where every week during the AFL season three mates (two comedians and a journalist) sit at a bar, drinking Carlton Draught and discussing the lighter side of our local football code (AFL). Our product is integrated into the show heavily, not just in the beer that our team and guests are drinking and the Carlton Draught Tank the beer is poured from, but also in the set design that incorporates important items from our history pulled from the brewery archives. The brand and product integration into this exclusive programme property, reinforces both our ownership of the pub occasion and Carlton Draught’s long-standing association with AFL football, in a cost effective and engaging way.

Carlton Draught Front Bar is a live prime-time television series airing on Australia’s highest-rating free-to-air channel (Ch.7) every week of the AFL season, on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The series aired over 29 weeks in 2017 and, based on its success, the run has been extended to 31 episodes in 2018, including special feature shows for the Commonwealth Games & Winter Olympics. This live content is amplified beyond the program through digital amplification on catch up TV, bespoke shorter form content delivered via programmatic video, YouTube and tailored content for social. The Front Bar was launched in 2015 as a web series and in under 3 years, the show became one of the fastest growing free-to-air sporting programs in Australia - beating the long standing #1 AFL program in ratings multiple times.

In 2017, we delivered 29 instalments of The Front Bar, equating to approximately 25 hours of content.

Average audience = 275k per week

The highest rating football program 6 times in 2017

Viewers +39% YOY

Reaching +7.6m viewers

Estimated Viewing Minutes 2016: 117M vs. 2017: 439M

Media Value ROI = Over 600%