The FINA Bellyflop

There really isn’t any easy way to say this.

Nine’s FINA Swimming Championships have bellyflopped with the viewing audience.

Last night the telecast slipped under one million viewers and put Nine into third position for the night behind TEN.

The figures for Monday and Sunday evenings were also disappointing.

The audience is biggest in Melbourne, where the events are held, but even here it is a middling success. On Tuesday it won from 7.15pm to 7.30, and ran second until 8.15pm. It had moved to third an hour later. But in Sydney it started out in third place at 7pm and stayed there.

Without Thorpie, who was a likely starter when Nine signed on, there seems to be limited support for this. Organisers have also had trouble selling tickets to the games.

In TV terms, Nine’s commitment to FINA has given Seven a huge free kick -something the network really didn’t need to do. Seven is already a huge 10 points up on Nine for the week so far. It also means Nine has fewer chances to promote some of its newer programmes.

If Nine was hoping to mirror the success of the 2006 Commonwealth Games it’s bombed straight into the shallow end of the pool.