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Bathurst 1000, The Block drive Sunday audiences.

Ratings: Bathurst overrun pulls viewers away from News, but there was no stopping The Block.

TEN’s Bathurst 1000 coverage pulled a big audience on Sunday, stretching to 6:45pm and impacting News coverage on Nine & Seven.

TEN has confirmed 1.02m watched the Podium following 905,000 for the Race, in metro audiences. That sent Nine & Seven news numbers under the 900,000 mark, but the event was lower than 2016’s 1.41m (podium).

The Block still topped the night at a cool 1.57m, still topping the demos, way in front of Little Big Shots for Seven on 881,000.

60 Minutes pulled a timeslot win with 1.09m viewers ahead of Sunday Night (albeit in an earlier timeslot), The Doctor Blake Mysteries and Wake in Fright. TEN’s miniseries drew mostly good reviews and a lot of social media but an adjusted figure of 386,000 is disappointing and well down on the Brock miniseries a year ago, at 828,000.

Nine network won Sunday with 36.4% then Seven 22.9%, TEN 17.7%, ABC 17.4% and SBS 5.6%.

The Block was #1 with 1.57m for Nine then 60 Minutes (1.09m), Nine News (824,000) and P!nk Live in Australia (444,000).

Little Big Shots (881,000) was best for Seven then Seven News (886,000), Sunday Night (637,000) and Heists That Shook the World (259,000).

Bathurst 1000 topped TEN’s night, running overtime but confirmed as 1.02m for the Podium following 905,000 for the Race. The Sunday Project is confirmed at 459,000 / 422,000 and Wake in Fright at just 386,000. Family Feud did not run.

Doc Martin (832,000), ABC News (828,000), The Doctor Blake Mysteries (793,000), Fearless (290,000) and Classic Countdown (246,000) comprised ABC’s night.

On SBS it was The Greeks (158,000), Robert Redford’s The West (157,000) and SBS World News (154,000).

7TWO’s Border Security (167,000) checked the multichannels.

OzTAM Overnights: Sunday 8 October 2017

37 Responses

  1. Poor figures for SBS’s ‘The Greeks’-would normally see over 200,000 or even 300,000 for their Sunday archaeological slot-‘The West’ thing was pretty dire-bring back the Ken Burns version!

  2. I really wish Ten in 2018 will give it’s reality shows a better chance against the comp by finally moving them back to 7pm I mean lest be honest Ten was most successful when it had reality stripped week nightly at 7pm

  3. Found Wake in Fright last night a bit disappointing.
    Reading various reviews, I have to agree with the Guardian’s ,”TV remake of classic outback thriller lacks bite”. Sums up my thoughts on this reboot pretty well. David’s review is spot on as well.
    Tended to drag on in parts and agree with the Guardian’s comment that the characters of the butch female boxer and her standover man were almost cartoonish and detracted from the original story.
    Agree that it did manage to capture the desolation and oppressive atmosphere of certain remote outback backwater towns like “Bundanyabba”.
    Parts were really well done, like the endless, nightmarish Two-up game in the pub.
    Sean Keenan, David Wenham and Alex Dimitreides in particular were excellent as usual.
    So far nowhere near as confronting and disturbing as the original …just hasn’t managed to fully capture the all-pervading menace…

  4. Also logging in to throw my support beimhind Tens programming last night. Surprised it missed the mark tbh, even with Little Big Shots and the Block.
    Survivor was a good twist, but should’ve been earlier IMO. Tonight’s episode will be missed because it looks like filler (from the promos).
    Wake In Fright was brilliant. Haven’t seen the movie; but knew the premise was to make the audience squirm. Definitely felt uncomfortable, but couldn’t stop watching! Here in Perth, it was aired on time. Reports of ads every 6min from friends over East; yet we had solid blocks of viewing. Interesting that TenPerth made that decision?

    1. Every 6 mins does not sound right (although I didn’t watch the actual playout). Normally they weight these things with longer segments earlier to hook you in, but shorter later on. Rules allow them to do this per hour. It was structured with hooks for set breaks, I doubt they threw that aside.

  5. I thought Wake In Fright was very good. The casting was really good too. Although it’s a dark story, I enjoyed and will be tuning in again this Sunday

  6. Oh man, I really wanted to like ‘Waking In Fright’… I even broke my rule for it… usually if a program doesn’t start when the EPG says, then I switch off…
    Well at 8.37 last night I switched over, only to have to sit through the end of ‘AusSurvivor’ for umpteen minutes… but I did it because I wanted to support the show, and unfortunately it wasn’t great…
    A movie like that relies solely on suspense and tension… when it has neither, you just end up with boredom… that seems to be the general response to it online and with friends, although some people have liked it… don’t think it looks good for pt2 though.

      1. So all the slaughtering of feral pigs doesn’t elevate it? The kangaroo ‘murder’ scene in the original is one of the most brutal things I’ve ever seen on film.

  7. Wake in Fright was a lot better than I expected. It was a bit glum and slow in spots (adapting a 174 page book into 3 hours of TV is always going to be a stretch), but it did manage to capture the oppressive, menacing tone of the original movie. David Wenham was especially good.

    I’m just not sure what Ten thought the audience was for such fare. It’s not exactly light, fluffy entertainment for the masses. Anyway, I’m glad commercial networks are investing in original content (by original I mean not soap operas or interminable biopics).

  8. Was anyone else clever enough to notice the editing failure on survivor last night? The aerial shot of the wall challenge clearly showed Jericho walking off last and the others coming to congratulate him before the challenge even started.

  9. Was going to watch Wake in Fright but I turned the TV on at the advertised time and Survivor was still going. If networks can’t/won’t start shows on time, I don’t watch.

    Watched the Adverts 1000 on Foxtel. Seven minutes of race, 3½ minutes of ads, 7 minutes race, another 3½ minutes of ads. I assume that was forced on them by Ten. Disgraceful.

    Good race tho’. Bathurst City Council should fire up the sprinklers next year if it doesn’t rain again.

  10. Ten really wasted away its Bathurst lead in. Its highest audience in sometime and they were going to feed it into Family Feud and Sunday Project? Why not run straight into Australian Survivor or use it as a launch pad for a new show. Wake in Fright could have got a big lead in but viewers fled much earlier and didn’t bother coming back.

    1. But that’s the thing, they did come back, for Survivor, then took off again. I’m guessing a few late changes over the week to squeeze in multiple wake in fright encores. Eleven has a few scheduling holes due to the Fox contract ATM, so plenty of encore space there too 😉

      1. No the usual Survivor crowd tuned in. They potentially could have picked up some new viewers straight out of 1m watching Bathurst. Survivor was barely up on last Sunday.

        1. It wasn’t on last Sunday. Was just under 100k up on the last Sunday ep. Bathurst wasn’t a lead in to Survivor, and was on hours after it ended in Perth so there were multiple programs between them.

  11. Last night’s ep of Survivor was a complete waste of time. I have no issue with the contestants left in the game, but the format seems even more drawn out than 2016. I’d be disappointed to see it cancelled, but the format needs some major tightening up if it returns in 2018.

    1. I believe last year’s show had as many non-elim episodes as this year’s Survivor, with both seasons having 4 non-eliminations. So it is not more drawn out than last year but I do agree that it does need to get rid of the non-elimination episodes (or at least make them worthwhile).

    2. Can’t stand non-eliminations on any elimination based reality – the whole point of each episode is working towards getting / voting / eliminating someone off. Feels like a waste of time watching. I love Survivor but these non-elims and weird twists (and even “the new car” reward) I find annoying.

      Maybe I’m just too used to the US version where non-elims only happen when a contestant is medically evacuated.

    3. It was a shame no elimination, although it was a twist I don’t think I have seen the US attempt. If I was Jericho I would have asked his mate “Luke who should I vote out from the jury?” After all he has been hanging with them, it would have been good insider knowledge. Fans will be more satisfied with tonight’s ep.

      1. The US did this twist last year. The person who won the advantage in the US version also won the whole thing. I think the same will happen in our version.

  12. Yes I enjoyed Wake In Fright too but these are disastrous figures. I wonder if its place in Australian writing / cinema means anything to most viewers. Perhaps a classic one step too far removed from today’s audiences.
    Certainly not the kind of thing to interest a Bathurst viewer anyway. I reckon a repeat of Brock would have done bigger numbers than this.

  13. Having not seen the original or knowing what it was about, I watched Wake in Fright. Pleasantly surprised, I thought it was outstanding. The casting was spot on! Will watch again.

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