Politics sinks Nine’s Friday
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Keep away from politics.
That was the message from Channel Nine’s Friday night ratings after it came third behind the ABC for the evening.
Nine’s 1 hr Current Affair Election special sank beyond all recognition against the might of regular programming by Seven, TEN and even the ABC.
Categorising into two 30 minute programmes resulted in two figures for Nine:
6:30pm ACA 613,000
7:00pm ACA Election Special 644,000
Meanwhile Today Tonight was streets ahead with 1.27m, and even Neighbours beat ACA with 711,000.
Nine’s mistake was in programming the show as 2 halves. However you look at it, the reality is viewers were turned off by the idea of more politics -a poor omen for tonights coverage.
In a week when Nine actually had a shot at taking Seven down, Seven had a big win for Friday:
Seven 33.3%
ABC 22.1%
Nine 21.1%
Ten 18.1%
SBS 5.5%
Ray Martin, who co-hosted the ACA special, this week was baying for his own show. This will hardly further that idea.
Also interesting to see Funniest Home Videos got none of its big Saturday audience when aired on a Friday. There were lessons all round last night.
Figures for individual shows were as follows:
Better Homes 1.403
Seven News 1.364
Today Tonight 1.275
Home and Away 1.227
The Brief 1.063
Nine News 1.002
ABC News 0.994
Shall We Dance 0.912
Rose and Maloney 0.900
Collectors 0.857
Ten News 0.781
Stateline 0.737
Friday Night Download 0.724
Neighbours 0.711
Be Cool 0.708
Futurama 0.676
ACA Election Special (7pm) 0.644
Biggest Loser 0.636
Funniest Home Videos 0.630
A Current Affair 0.613
Simpsons 0.583
5 Responses
This is a worry for Nine on lots of levels. first to finish 3rd when you really had a chance to take on Seven, but it also shows just how out of touch Nine is with the audience and the TV landscape.
10 years ago, such a move would have paid off but this election has been going for months not just the 6 weeks and people are over it and just wanting the Election Day to come.
The question that needs to be asked is what was a 1 hour special going to achieve. One would expect by the night before an election, the voters (read audience) has heard everything they need to hear. There was never going to be any amazing revelations so what was the point – and going by the figures it looks like that what the viewers thought as well
Futurama deserves to beat most if not all of the shows it’s up against, but wow… these have got to be ACA’s lowest figures ever. 😐 I mean, getting clobbered by Neighbours is pretty bad. 😛
what a shocker for nine! ACA beaten by neighbours and futurama!
I believe Nine is looking to reassert its position and the return of the balls (which it has subtly had since mid year) is to make everyone believe the old Nine is coming back.
Surprised they didn’t hold off until the 2008 launch for more impact.
Woah! I wonder if people will tune away tonight. Hey David, did u see the Herald Sun today, the whole back page was advertising Channel Nine’s coverage, but why was the old symbol used? Do have any idea?