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When Gogglebox faces the ratings

Ratings: On Pay TV one night, and Free to Air the next.... so how does this experiment impact your ratings?

2015-02-13_1002What sort of numbers can you expect when a show premieres on Pay TV one day and Free to Air the next?

With the debut of Gogglebox we have our first such example.

On Wednesday night the show won its Pay TV timeslot with 146,000 viewers in OzTAM’s ratings release. 24 hours later it was third in its timeslot on Free to Air with 495,000. The total of 641,000 for a 9pm show would be good if things were that simple. The Foxtel numbers include Regional audience while TEN’s does not. In a 5 city metro Foxtel’s numbers drop to 95,000. Nationally, the total of both climbs to 779,000.

But this experiment is a first, so it would be rash to make quick comparisons. Reactions to the show seem to polarise viewers amongst those who instantly loved it, and others who rejected it outright, but it did trend on Twitter on both nights. Numbers for the show will also rise with Consolidated numbers in a week’s time. Will that episode show Gogglebox families judging other Gogglebox families….? And do any of them have an OzTAM people meter?

Seven Network was 34.9% then Nine 22.7%, TEN 19.5%, ABC 17.8%, SBS 5.2%.

My Kitchen Rules (1.49m) was the only show over the magic million. Next for Seven were Seven News (951,000 / 926,000), Home and Away (859,000), Movie: Safe House (480,000) and Million Dollar Minute (405,000).

Nine barely cleared the 900,000 mark with Nine News (918,000 / 900,000), A Current Affair (816,000), the premiere of The Block’s Open House (620,000), Inside Story (539,000), Hot Seat (481,000) and CSI (328,000).

TEN Eyewitness News was 536,000 for TEN. The Project was 505,000 / 404,000. Gogglebox was 495,000, and a Law and Order: SVU repeat was 256,000.

ABC News (794,000) was best for ABC then 7:30 (724,000), Outback ER (601,000), Hiding (530,000), Louis Theroux’s LA Stories (354,000) and Antiques Roadshow (289,000).

On SBS ONE it was Made in Italy with Silvia Colloca (192,000), Heston’s Fantastical Food (172,000), Destination Flavour Down Under (131,000) SBS World News (128,000) and Sons of Liberty (104,000).

Lewis was 306,000 as the best on multichannels.

Simulcast: Family Feud, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!

OzTAM Overnights: Thursday 12 February 2015

Updated.

51 Responses

    1. Honestly, does anybody actually watch this stupid gogglebox? I have asked several of my friends and they all seem to think the whole concept is ridiculous, which it is of course.
      That’s what leads me to believe that all of the positive comments are put here by channel ten staff.
      TV in general has been deteriorating badly in the last ten years with these awful shows such as Australian Idol and other karaoke shows as well as rubbish such as survivor.
      But honestly, this gogglebox really is rock bottom.
      Did the studio executives really think this through?
      Didn’t anybody on the board of directors have the sense to say, “This is a totally stupid idea”?

  1. One more point from Foxtel’s Facebook page:

    163,000 people watched Gogglebox Australia on Foxtel this week – our 3rd highest series launch ever. Wednesdays 9.30pm EDT on The LifeStyle Channel

    3rd highest series premiere ever on Pay TV

    That should be a story in itself. That is huge.

  2. Should be noted the show won it’s timeslot in 25-54 (the demo 7, Ten and 9 programme to win) as well as 18-49 and 16-39.

    Coming 1st in the slot is all a show can do really!

  3. I gave Gogglebox a go…I guess I was sucked in by the promos featuring media quotes. It cant be TV gold surely!
    I was not expecting much and thinking it would not last 3 weeks. The concept appears awful. Amazingly the first segment… everybody was watching was MKR…a show on another network. I was ready to turn off then and there. Then came a SBS doco about child birth…..and the reaction of babies poping out kinda sucked me in for more. It is brainless TV. I would rather be watching something I can get something out of….and It would probably be better if it was only 30 mins. I will probably give it another go if I have an hour to waste!!!

  4. Ratings wise it was very much a grower in the UK. The first series was barely over the million mark, but it was given a chance and a couple of years later getting 3-4m viewers.

  5. The comments on here are always so unbelievably snide and negative, ripping shows apart ten seconds after they debut. I wonder why anyone bothers to make TV in Oz anymore, Reading this site reminds me why I left, nothing is ever given a chance to grow. Ten try new shows and are condemned for it. Well enjoy your future of zero local content and illegal torrenting, you earned it.

    1. Negative comments about television shows and programming (for all networks) are not the exclusive domain of TV Tonight. They can be found on the website of any media publisher in the country, Twitter, Facebook and assorted social media. Indeed they even are found on the messageboards of those run by networks themselves. People do use anonymity to unleash their criticism, just as you have done here.

      But it’s not an Either / Or situation. There are thousands of comments on this site with praise and compliments over the 8 years it has been online. When it comes to Ratings, yes everybody is a much smarter backseat Programmer. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

      The irony of your comment of course, is that Gogglebox itself consists of people sitting on their couch firing off against television shows: criticising, questioning, scoffing, and sometimes moved by its content. Readers here are divided over its artistic merit. We have come full circle.

      1. I didn’t say it was exclusively your website that was negative, it’s a very Australian thing. I lived there long enough and worked in the TV industry there long enough to know just how negative the atmosphere is there toward anything new. Of course criticism is a vital part of any creative process but the constant barrage in Oz, I found, tends to snuff out creativity and certainly persuaded me nothing I ever did would be good enough for an Aussie audience that constantly compares their local content to the overseas versions. Just look at what’s being said on this thread about Googlebox. Then in the next breath commenters will suggest it’s an outrage that UK producers are being employed here to make Aussie shows. See any connection with those two things?

          1. I agree with Jazzhands. I’m an Aussie living and working in US TV for 10 years now. Americans critique their shows and content based on merits.

            Aussie rip their shows apart because they are Australian. “our version must/will/does suck because it’s Australian”

            It’s odd to watch from afar.

        1. IMO you’re overreacting. If you think this is bad I highly recommend you stay away from comments section of sites like TVLine, Variety, TvBytheNumbers and EW. They are ten times worse.

          A lot of people here really like and support Ten’s new shows. I am one that enjoys both I’m A Celebrity and Gogglebox. Think both are well done productions and there are many others who have said the same on this website

          1. David, no disrespect to you, you’re someone who clearly supports the Aussie TV industry, but if you think Australian content is winning any kind of ratings war you are wrong. The industry is in a clear and possibly fatal decline when channel 9 can barely scrape together 800,000 viewers on any given night. Think back to 10 years ago and Idol’s ratings, 15 years ago to Comedy Company. MKR gets 1.6 and it’s a triumph??? I’m also not saying that people shouldn’t be honest with their criticism of shows but these days the criticism and also the industry is different. The networks are understandably worried when they invest huge amounts of money into a show but with instant feedback on twitter etc shows are made or more often broken in one night by the army of armchair critics who may or not have an axe to grind – which, of course, means no chance of growth for the show or producers…

          2. Sorry but to equate the landscape today with that of ten years ago is problematic. We did not have Multichannels, catch-up, high speed internet, etc. The audience has fragmented. Look at Friday night with Dr. Blake at #1 with a million viewers, that will climb with consolidated, iview, and multichannel numbers. Look at the number of hours per month in ACMA reports that viewers watch. It remains huge, albeit slipping. Twitter does also not make or break shows (Ben Elton is maybe an exception). OzTAM people meters do. I’m A Celebrity and Gogglebox have trended at #1 but the ratings tell another story. Mabo was #1 on Twitter but it averaged 400,000. Industry convention will tell you Twitter is elitist and niche. Facebook is actually closer to middle Australia. But neither have the science of OzTAM in sampling.

    2. I remember hearing a story a long time ago that if someone goes to the shops and receives good customer service they might tell 1 person but if they receive bad customer service they will tell everyone. You can kind of apply the same logic to the internet. What one might see as negativity another might see as frustration. Free to air networks are very slow at moving with the times.

    3. Well jazzhands, (probably channel ten staff), todays TV shows are so easy to tear apart. Most of these pointless “reality” shows are copies of either American or European shows.
      It used to be that you could watch TV and get shows that required writing and imagination and sometimes even good acting skills to get some entertainment out to the masses.
      I would love to see more Australian content on Australian TV, but instead of giving us something worth watching, you get rid of the writers and the actors and give us karaoke shows such as “Australian” Idol or similar.
      Either that or you put a bunch of unknown “celebrities” together in a pathetic copy of Survivor or do the same thing inside a house on the Gold coast and call it big brother.
      When are you TV people going to get the point?
      We don’t want this sort of shallow, pathetic rubbish on our TV.
      You wonder why so many people…

  6. Gogglebox was inspired by the old Beavis and Butthead cartoons where the guys watched TV and made snide comments. Anyone disagree ? Gogglebox was over produced and the participants were obviously regurgitating lines and playing to be top of the class. I hope this is a cheap show to produce, because there ain’t much to it! Oops it’s Shine so GB obviously cost a bomb…as for Network TEN giving MKR so much free publicity ??? And the way that the producers made the participant sit was unnatural…did anyone else notice the way that teenage girl was leaning on her dad…well that was just a little creepy…

  7. I couldn’t sit through the whole ep. I wanted to see more than just reactions. More criticism or praise of shows and deeper family discussions about the issues. Disappointing.

  8. Gogglebox AU was terrible, they tried to clone the UK cast, but it didn’t work, and they were all so bogan and their accents so annoying. I couldn’t tolerate any more than 15 mins. Thankfully the UK version is back next week.

  9. Gogglebox was enjoyable, but nowhere near as good or funny as the original (BAFTA award winning!) British version. The Aussie version felt a lot more produced and the editing was heavy handed in comparison. The inclusion of some of the participants watching shows they would very obviously never watch gave the show an unnatural, staged, produced feel – which is the opposite of what it needed to be. But hey, it’s a Shine production and overdone is what they do best.

  10. Wasn’t expecting much from Gogglebox but was pleasantly surprised.
    Really liked it and found it pretty entertaining.
    Amazingly, my partner who rarely watches anything I watch, lasted all the way through and actually admitted to enjoying it.
    Will definitely be watching again.

  11. The promotion of Gogglebox was absolutely abysmal.
    For the longest while all we saw was it’s name, and to be honest I thought it was a new Ch.10 online streaming/viewing platform or something… I didn’t even know it was a show.
    And then we got those ad’s calling it the television event of the year or whatever… and it turned out to be this???

    I also gave it 5mins last night but couldn’t stand it… the only way this would work was if it felt natural… not people sitting there unnaturally and playing it up for the cameras.

  12. Well I have Googlebox a go. It’s not terrible, but the novelty factor only lasts one episode – I won’t watch next week. Interesting that they did include those comments that were critical of I’m A Celebrity, but they also had MKR.

  13. Kinda cool to see I’m a celeb beating the block (open house). Nothing too against the block but I just got the feeling 9 is obsessed with it and treated big brother badly because of their obsession with the block.

    Anyway really liked last nights I’m a celeb. Thought the secret task, Andrew was given for the other males was good too (and great that now everyone has done a trial). Though what was with Tim? Did he just totally doze off and forget, or just didn’t know how to get away from Anna? Anyway not sure how I feel just yet about the double eviction (pretty much like everyone there) though do wonder who the two new celebs arriving will be.

      1. Hi David, Didn’t the simulcast give viewers an increased ability to watch The Block?? As I’m a Celeb was on 2 of the 3 Network 10 platforms, there was a reduced choice of alternate viewing available to those that didn’t want to watch I’m a celeb, thus increasing the ability of The Block to gain some viewers. To my eye, people chose to watch I’m a celeb, and at the end of the day, people chose not to watch the Block.

    1. Yeah, good to see. Couldn’t be bothered with THe Block this year – same old, same old.
      Agree that last night’s ep was a lot better than previous eps.
      Andrew is a real sweetie but he isn’t one of the dominant personalities there and hasn’t been given much to do up till now so really hope he gets enough votes to save him from elimination.

  14. I gave Gogglebox five minutes to see if it was something other than a dumb idea. Sadly, not. Watching TV, watching people watching TV and reacting to shows I’d already watched, is just far too metaphysical for me.

  15. I didn’t know the world cup cricket opening ceremony was on gem last night. Starting watching it about mid way through but turned it off after they came back from a commercial break mid way through someone singing on the stage which they showed at a distance so couldn’t see who they were and instead just commentated unnecessarily. I wonder how much it rated because it didn’t seem to make the multichannel top 20?

  16. Last nights home and away was a Braxton free zone only until next weeks promo. What are 7 going to do when Brax leaves?

    Chose not to watch the 2nd ep of hiding. It didn’t keep my attention all the way through the first episode and I don’t want to watch Lincoln Younes play a teenager again. Surely he is old enough to play adult roles.

  17. Pretty poor night for Nine, 7 romped it in.
    David, do you know why 7 has stopped providing accurate times in their EPG? All the other stations give precise times, but 7’s don’t move from their 7:30 9:00pm ‘advertising’ times, which as everyone knows are not particularly truthful.

    1. Seven haven’t been doing updates with accurate run times since ratings started in Sydney. Since MKR is starting at 7:30pm and what’s following at 9pm they aren’t much different, in fact they are more accurate than Ten’s with I’m A… running late because its live. I have adjusted my DVR’s allowances and haven’t missed anything.

      I guess it keeps Nine and Ten guessing.

    2. I have noticed this over the last couple of days too!! It used to be fine, you’d just set it on the day (obviously if you set it a few days before they wouldn’t be as accurate) and it’d record perfectly – now the times just reflect the official tv guide which can sometimes be as different as 17 minutes!!

  18. Looking forward to spin-offs “Readingbox” where you watch people read books, and “Politicalbox” where you watch people fall asleep on the lounge while watching Question Time.

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