0/5

TEN loses week to Seven

After MasterChef took a glorious 3.7m the week became not so much Seven's to win, but TEN's to lose. And it was a week when all three commercial networks unveiled new shows.

mcfThere isn’t really any other way to put it. This week was TEN’s to lose.

After it set record television records with the MasterChef Australia finale its lead was superb, almost double Seven. While it was never going to maintain that distance it was left to face the reality of its core programming. Nine generally wins weeks with State of Origin’s 2m+ but TEN couldn’t take the week with a show on 3.7m.

Instead it was Seven that quietly strode through on 27.3% beating TEN’s 25.0% and Nine’s 23.4%. ABC had 16.5% and SBS 7.8%.

But in those all important key demographics, there was better news for TEN, which won 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54.

Seven won Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and tied Thursday with Nine. Monday was Nine’s and TEN famously took Sunday. Seven won all cities except Melbourne, which fell to TEN.

Packed to the Rafters was again Seven’s best with 1.85m while other raters included Seven News, Today Tonight, Airways, All Saints and Better Homes and Gardens. World’s Strictest Parents had a big debut on 1.54m as did Surf Patrol on 1.48m. Seven also improved its Thursday line up thanks to The Amazing Race, Double Take and TV Burp. Home and Away has rebounded quickly after the end of TEN’s reality contest, which also gave Dancing with the Stars a tough time this week too. It was the same for Bones. Problems continue with Mondays How I Met Your Mother/ Scrubs (the latter is already cut).

MasterChef’s finale went straight into the history books as out biggest non-sporting rater since OzTAM people meters began in 2001. Its mammoth 3.74m audience surprised everybody and failing a big news event will surely finish as the year’s #1 show. Aside from some division over the judge’s choice, the show ends with extraordinary good will with the audience.  Merlin, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, NCIS, Recruits,  Glee, The Simpsons and Rush (which held its audience) followed. The drama would benefit from a stronger lead in than Rules of Engagement. Neighbours had another good week as it bid a character farewell. From Monday all the attention was on The 7PM Project which enjoyed a curious 1.28m on Monday but had slipped to 656,000 by Friday (the night overall was a disaster). So far it is also struggling in key demographics. In contrast TEN News at Five takes about 1m each day.

For the third week in a row Nine landed third. Sunday’s Nine News was its best with 1.47m while Sea Patrol, Random Acts of Kindness, A Current Affair and Getaway all performed. Today’s weekend edition is closing on Sunrise. But there were disaster stories with Dance Your Ass Off and Australia’s Perfect Couple at just 797,000 / 798,000 respectively. If the latter doesn’t improve this week look for another show to vanish. Nine surely needs to stop trying to recapture the couples from The Block. As with Seven, Sunday’s line-up suffered after 7:30pm with 60 Minutes at 900,000 despite a publicised interview. The network was fourth on Saturday.

Spicks and Specks sixties special soared to 1.49m. Elsewhere The Chaser’s War on Everything, ABC News, Australian Story, Grand Designs, Trial and Retribution, and The New Inventors did good business. East of Everything managed 794,000, respectable but less than UK shows in the timeslot, while Q & A‘s return at 464,000 was modest. Scrapheap Challenge continues to be ABC2’s best. ABC1 beat TEN on Friday and Nine on Saturday.

The Ashes Series 2009 hit as high as 710,000 for SBS, al ong way ahead of Liberal Rule’s disappointing 243,000 against Rafters and NCIS. It doesn’t bode well for the return of East West 101 to the same timeslot. Mythbusters moon landing episode was strong at 430,000. SBS managed a 10.0% share on Monday.

Week 30

22 Responses

  1. It’s well known The Australian and other mainstream press are put of touch when it comes to understanding and printing ratings information.
    however, that is the mainstream press targeted at consumers. TVTonight is targeted at the industry, or at least people with a deeper interest and understaing of the industry. We need to get past this mentality of the headline or the news being who won the week in total viewers. It is not what the networks measure success by.
    At the very least equal importance should be given to demo wins as total people wins. “Ten wins the week in 18-49 and 25-54, while Seven wins in total people” should be the headline!

  2. @Nick: The Chaser’s parody wasn’t about popup ads, but rather the abomination that is pop-up lotto results in the middle of programs.

    In this age of the internet, pop-up gambling results are an insult to the intelligence – but then, the networks get paid to show them, now don’t they…

  3. Hey David – “strided” (3rd para)?? 😀

    Seriously though, thanks for all your work in keeping this blog so fresh and current. Don’t know what I’d do without it.

  4. Bittersweet week for Ten. After a phenomenal Sunday, they were left vying for third with the abc by the end of the week. Even those demo wins are just a result of Masterchef, on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday Ten were either second or third in their target 18-49 demo.

    If The 7pm Project doesn’t pick up, or at the very least stop dropping, Ten could be in for a rough couple of months.

  5. How does OzTam provide the figures? When calculating the figures from this website I do not get the same percent as reported in the post. For example you give channel 10 average 25% in this article, but taking the daily figures from the raring pages on gives an average of 24.4%.

  6. Thought TEN would milk MasterChef a bit more. Show us Julie’s family dinner cooking thing, do an hour “Behind the Scenes”, a “best of” hour, or something. It would probably have put TEN over the hump to get #1, but, TEN’s advertisers would be happy seeing TEN come in #1 16-54 & #1 overall in Melbourne.

  7. How is it a loss when the whole commercial televison industry is based on demographics, and Ten won 18-49 25-54 and 16-39.
    Whichever network wins 18-49 and 25-54 should be heralded as the winner, as that’s the winning finish line the networks are chasing. That should be the headline. Winning overall viewers is supplementary and very secondary in importance.

  8. Jh

    I’m pretty sure they had the 7pm Project banner running across the bottom of the screen at every opportunity. The Chaser also did a parody of pop up ads on Wednesday.

  9. Did the masterchef finale have any programs for other shows pop up during the program?

    I don’t recall it occurring. Any other network would have for sure.
    I wouldn’t have expected it, but does that mid-program on screen cross-promotion actually have an affect?

  10. This sentence of yours sums it up well..

    “For the third week in a row Nine landed third. ”
    Ouch !!
    Seems Seven listens to the public and puts on shows we want to watch.
    Nine ignores everybody bar their mates and puts on trash (that most here on TV tonight say won’t last). then asks why won’t people watch us anymore ??
    Ten has a few hits but the supporting cast is very weak.

  11. I wouldn’t say that Ten lost the week when they won in everyone under the age of 55. That doesn’t sound like a loss to me.
    With Ten’s total people figures from 6pm-7pm every night being around 600,000-800,000 less than Seven…that’s a lot of ground to make up for the rest of each night. I don’t think Ten would have expected to win the week…and didn’t Mott say that he didn’t care about total people anyway?

    1. He did. But I don’t write for David Mott, or any other network exec. The demo wins are noted and are most certainly a major part of the weekly landscape (frankly with 3.7m kickstart they should have been higher). But as a commentator I’m looking at the overall picture and the final OzTAM shares. Hard to see how anything other than having a 20% lead and 3.7m, eroded by week’s end, is anything other than a loss. I don’t think this is a surprise to TEN but I have to call it how I see it.

  12. Yes good points but IMO there was little chance of TEN winning the week given the rest of it’s current lineup. Maybe they could have put in a few MC special, best of or broadcasting that dinner the winner did for a lucky family, I’m sure a few of thos would have help out Seven.

    Now they are counting the days for the next MC to air.

    BTW I do like the fact Nine was left in 3rd place again.

  13. “Nine generally wins weeks with State of Origin’s 2m+ but TEN couldn’t take the week with a show on 3.7m.”

    That’s a really good point, and something for all the networks to think about.

  14. It was embarrassing for Ten to have (probably) the most-watched program of 2009 and yet lost the week overall. It just shows how weak Ten’s line-up was after Tuesday.

Leave a Reply