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SBS sinks to 3.4%

Without Insight to support its 7:30pm slot, SBS sank to a disappointing 3.4% share on Tuesday, making life very difficult for East West 101.

ew7Tuesday night was a rude awakening for SBS with the network’s nightly share sinking to a disappointing 3.4% (SBS ONE 3.0% and SBS TWO 0.4%). Digital channel GO! was not far behind with 2.3%.

Without Insight to support SBS’ 7:30pm slot East West 101 slipped to just 138,000 viewers. How could it ever compete against Packed to the Rafters and NCIS – the two top shows of the night? Luckily, it will get a repeat screening over summe,

Rafters was again the night’s top show on 1.8m viewers, helping Seven to a 31.8% share. Seven won all its slots from 6 – 9:30pm with the exception of Home and Away -beaten by Two and a Half Men.

NCIS pulled a cool 1.3m and nudged Lie to Me over the 1m mark to win its slot.

The debut of Jail Birds on the ABC was a modest 632,000. Nine didn’t gain much traction after 8:30pm.

The breakfast brawl has tightened with Sunrise and Today just 20,000 apart yesterday -in Seven’s favour. Both were dead even in Sydney on 112,000.

The top title on digital channels was Seinfeld with GO!’s 132,000.

Week 47

20 Responses

  1. Michael says:
    November 19, 2009 at 10:22 am
    [“Sell sbs and make it the fourth commercial network”]

    I don’t think they should sell it as a fourth commercial network.

    At the moment SBS offers a different type of programming even in its hybrid state. If it is sold as a full commercial network, I think the programming will become very similiar to the existing commercial networks.

    I like how they acquire documentaries, tv series, sport and foreign movies that would never be acquired by any of the other networks, even the ABC the other public broadcaster.

    Though I don’t like what Shaun Brown has been trying to do with the station. I think it has been a success as a public broadcaster because it offers unique content.

  2. Pimpernel Red
    1) Have you heard of the mainly non-English SBS TWO?
    2) All ABC channels watermark too.
    3) David & Margaret left them, not the other way around.

    Just because you personally have a problem with SBS doesn’t make it a bad network. They’ve had in-program ads for more than five years now. It’s time for you to build a bridge & get over it!

  3. I quite like the show and generally tape it. And here is the issue I have with a lot of comments on these blogs. Everyone says that it should be on another day, or time or channel. Do people not have PVR or VCR? The average house nowadays has about 3 TV and possibly 2 recorders. Surely amongst all that, people can tape it to watch it at some other time if they want to watch something else! If a 50 year old can master and manage taping a number of shows every day – then surely you youngans can do it.

    If it is a question of the ratings, then there is little than most of us can do about that. That lies in the remotes of the selected few.

    On a side note, I think Susie Porter long languish looks are becoming a bit too much in this show. What I like about this show is the way they build dramatic story lines within an obviously constrained budget and the direction of Peter A (the man is a genius).

  4. There is another factor that could be influencing East West 101’s viewers. For some silly reason, the DVD of the second season was out before it began airing. East West 101 is one of my favourite shows, but I haven’t watched it – I’ve already watched the whole thing on DVD.

  5. SBS has been going downhill for years now, what with “mainstream english programming”, commercial breaks inside programs and the “the average viewers an idiot so we have to put up an SBS watermark on everything except the commercials” watermark. (And they dumped David & Margaret). The station was introduced at a time when it’s (original sytle of) content was largely unavailable in Australia. That’s not the case now, so perhaps it’s time to sell it off to the highest bidder or shut it down. Personally I’d like to see it back the way it once was.

  6. A crying shame. By far the best local production in years, EW 101 deserves a huge audience. The problem is, it’s just too smart and SBS is too dumb serving it up against Rafters and NCIS.

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