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X Factor beats down Power Games & The Bachelor

Ratings: Very disappointing numbers for Power Games on Nine while The Bachelor also has its work cut out.

Power GamesIt was always going to be a heated competition but Seven won the Sunday night ratings battle with The X Factor at 1.56m viewers.

It was nearly twice the numbers of Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story, 793,000 albeit in a different timeslot and more than double the premiere for The Bachelor Australia on TEN (669,000).

The numbers for Power Games are particularly disappointing given Howzat pulled over 2 million viewers a year ago. It also dropped from its 60 Minutes lead in. But it seems Australians don’t share the same fascination for Frank Packer as they do for Kerry.

Seven network share was 35.4% then Nine 28.7%, TEN 16.2%, ABC 15.2% and SBS 4.5%.

Seven News was #1 for Seven with 1.58m viewers followed by X Factor (1.56m), Sunday Night which didn’t start until 9pm (1.08m). Castle at 10pm was 628,000 / 381,000. AFL helped drive big numbers to Seven’s primetime platform, especially in Melbourne.

Nine News (1.34m) was best for Nine then Australia’s Got Talent (1.11m), 60 Minutes (1.07m), Power Games (793,000) and CSI: Miami (330,000).

The Bachelor‘s launch at 669,000 is not about to turn around the network yet, but it was always going to be a tough call against serious artillery from Seven and Nine. At least it fared better in the demos and there was plenty of buzz on Twitter (it’s still trending this morning). But the show will need to lift pretty quickly. Elsewhere Modern Family was 549,000 / 411,000, TEN News was 422,000 and Graham Norton was 365,000.

ABC News (812,000) topped ABC1 followed by Grand Designs (722,000), The Time of our Lives finale (660,000) and Compass (484,000). Rebirth flopped with 134,000 viewers.

The Easter Island Enigma (303,000) was best for SBS ONE then World News Australia (249,000), The Woman Who Wasn’t There (120,000) and The Observer Effect (111,000).

ABC2’s Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom (270,000) led multichannels.

Insiders: 260,000 / 158,000
The Bolt Report: 134,000 / 113,000.

OzTAM Overnights: Sunday 8 September 2013

23 Responses

  1. I am so over Murdoch and his biased reporting untrue reporting and blatant lies and those disgusting biased front pages filled with untruths when it came to reporting on this election. That’s why I didn’t watch the packer Murdoch story. Plus I am a big fan of the X factor oh and slam just a footnote for you every one at my work watches X factor . There is three hundred workers in our call centre. Well love it the talent this year is brilliant ,outstanding.

  2. How can anyone not know that the show was going to be on, it has been advertised for weeks on end. What I didn’t like was the preview before the program, what is the point of having a preview. Also it started 12 minutes late.

  3. Howzat was just as much about the birth of One Day Cricket as it was about Kerry and to be honest I watched it for the cricket aspect, so I suspect Power Games didn’t have the same attraction to many. Still, I was so impressed with Lachy Hume in Howzat, I’m interested to see how he plays Frank in Power Games, so I’ve recorded it. I didn’t want to watch it live, it was on to late and you just know that anything following on from a talent show is never going to start on time, so i’ll take a look at one night this week.

  4. My favouirte character. If this is as sharply written as Ja’mie’s parts on Summer Heights High it will be stellar.

    ‘They don’t have any grass on their oval!’

  5. Thanks David, appreciate the info. There’s just a lot of chatter and disbelief about who watches what at the moment- what gets talked about doesn’t necessarily equate to a ratings result. It’s interesting to note the absence of a link between top trending twitter/facebook #’s and top rating programs.

  6. Wednesdays would have been the better spot for The Bachelor. Less competition and it would have given Wonderland a better lead in than Modern Family repeats. The later this month they could fasttrack new Modern Family for Sundays which is more of an alternative and a proven performer and they have heaps of New Girl episodes left on the shelf.

  7. I am pretty interested in Australia television and I am shocked that I was not aware the Power Games was on. I didn’t even know the title of it. It must have been a few days with the election since I checked this site and I don’t remember reading anything in the papers about it. Perhaps I just missed the articles. Was the publicity poor in your opinion David? I think there is Murdoch/Packer fatigue. I wonder how Matchbox’s 6 hour Keith Murdoch at Gallipoli will go.
    As for the Bachelor ten should have learned that they need to go for quality not for car crash tv. They need to get people who aren’t watching to watch not just the people who are watching to stay on their channel.

  8. I watch so little of Nine that I didn’t realise Power Games was on last night until around 6pm when I was flicking through the EPG. I have PVRd it, but I don’t know if I can be bothered with it. I never realised until reading another post a few moments ago that Underbelly had finished its season.

  9. I really enjoyed Power Games – But only because I have a media interest. It was never going to attract the large numbers of cricket followers like Howzat!

  10. I was hoping The Bachelor would perform better. Im sick of all of these talent, renovating, singing and cooking shows that I am supporting anything different at this point. I honestly thought the show was very, very well produced and was entertaining. I hope it is able to improve.

  11. I only watched the Packer Murdoch thing because I’m >70 and was there in the day. Some facts incorrect. Seven wasn’t running Bridge on the River Kwai, Nine actually had it at that time. The WIN4 logo was totally wrong. So what else was not fact-checked? I don’t know anyone who’s remotely interested in Sir Frank Packer, and anything Murdoch is a real turn off.

  12. I know a lot of people who watch a lot of television and none of them seem to watch xfactor. How they obtain these numbers baffles me. Coincidentally, I don’t know of one single person under the age of 40 who still has a fixed phone line which precludes them from being a part of the Oztam panel.

    Can someone explain the statistical validity of a panel which precludes people on the basis they are more inclined to adopt technology? I think the panel tips towards Seven & ABC’s more traditional base (not talking age here) and disproportionately disadvantages 9 & 10. Thoughts?

    1. Slam: There are mobile-only households in the OzTAM panel too. Australia has more households participating in TV ratings than the US per capita. Don’t forget it is owned by Seven, Nine and TEN, so they can effect change if they are unhappy.

  13. Nothing to do with which packer it was to do with
    1. Marketing (wasnt as strong)
    2. Timing (after 60 mins) was a poor choice, they should have entered in at 7.30pm

  14. Someone should be sacked at Ten for putting The Bachelor up against The X Factor. It never stood a chance. Wednesday and Thursday would have been prime for the picking…their super sunday concept has never really fired. Makes me very nervous for SYTYCD – I’m predicting 750k tops.

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