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Ratings brawl down to the last detail

They haven’t even boarded the planes back from Beijing yet and another brawl is looming between Seven and Nine over the games.

It’s all to do with whether the games are to be included or excluded in the end of year figures. Historically, advertisers look at a year excluding abnormal events such as Olympics and Commonwealth Games, because they are not annual events.

The situation is amplified because the 17 days from Opening to Closing days falls across 4 ratings weeks. Last night’s Closing Ceremony in Week 35, is a major factor in Nine holding off some it its new shows until next week. The Opening fell on a Friday, in Week 32.

Both Seven and Nine say they will issue results in two forms: one including the games and one without. So does “without” mean two weeks or four?

Mitchell Communications Group founder Harold Mitchell said it would be “appropriate” to exclude the full 17-day effect given the audience measurement system was flexible enough to accommodate the change.

“It’s always two weeks,” Mr Mitchell told The Australian. “(Seven and Nine) won’t agree (to exclude three or more). It’s now possible to change the survey dates on a daily basis, so it doesn’t have to be a complete week,” Mr Mitchell said. “It’s appropriate to break out the unusually big events so we can have year-on-year comparisons.”

Seven spokesman Simon Francis said the TV year was “a 40-week season regardless of events. We’re sure millions of Australians would find it perplexing that the Nine Network chooses to believe that the Olympic Games did not occur this year.”

However, TV Tonight can confirm that in 2006 Seven Network Press Releases detailed a year for “Survey Weeks 7-48, excluding Commonwealth Games for 6:00pm-10:30pm, 6:00pm-midnight and 6:00am-midnight.” So when Nine had the Commonwealth Games, Seven was happy to exclude them.

Seven also had the Winter Olympics in February 2006. Its highest audience was 1.5m.

Nonetheless, Francis admitted to The Australian that Seven was equally likely to provide two sets of figures, one excluding most of the Games period. “We will be reporting weeks 7-48 including and excluding the 16 days of the Olympic Games and quite possibly the Rugby League World Cup on Nine.”

Oh boy. We might as well just take out everything, guys…

Source: The Australian

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