The Western Bulldogs semi-final win over Hawthorn on Friday night attracted the biggest televison audience of the 2016 season so far.

The Dogs' 23-point win over the Hawks attracted a season-high combined peak audience of 1.942 million people, and an average of 1.359 million on Channel 7 and 7mate.

The five city metro average was 1.009 million and peaked at 1.421 million.

The previous high was last Friday night’s Geelong vs. Hawthorn match-up which peaked at 1.919 million and averaged 1.023 million across the capital cities.

The Dogs were awarded three games in the AFL’s marquee timeslot this season on the back of the meteoric rise up the standings in 2015, and the Club’s round six clash with North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium was its first Friday night fixture since 2012.

While 87,232 fans packed into the MCG to watch the young Dogs advance to a preliminary final against GWS in Sydney next Saturday night, an average audience of 644,000 watched on television in Melbourne alone, with a record peak of 878,000.

Over two million and a half million people saw the game, nationally.