Three way brawl for ratings week
In the tightest ratings week all year, Nine, Seven and TEN were in a three way brawl for Saturday night and the week's crown. So who took glory?
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Week 26 was the tightest ratings race all year.
TEN was riding high on MasterChef, Nine had the State of Origin and Seven… well, Seven really just had another week of regular programming. By Saturday we had ourselves a three way tie.
But a cleverly timed Michael Jackson tribute helped Nine take the final night and all three had to contend with ABC programming too.
Nine won Week 26 with a 26.3% share ahead of TEN’s 25.8% and Seven’s 25.5%. The ABC had 17.6% and SBS 4.8%.
TEN again won key demos 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54.
The week also saw a major shake up in the nation’s city-based wins too. TEN won Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Sydney and Brisbane.
Nine won Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday while Seven won Monday and Friday and TEN won Sunday and Tuesday.
The second State of Origin match fell over the line as the #1 show of the week with 2.09m and a peak of 2.54m viewers. Nine’s other strong performers included Nine News on Sunday night, 60 Minutes, Sea Patrol, Random Acts of Kindness, A Current Affair, Getaway. Australia’s Funniest Home Videos and Michael Jackson The King of Pop. The premiere of Trouble in Paradise did fair business on 1.1m but homeMADE continues to peter out, taking just 831,000 for its earliest edition. You Saved My Life was even lower and yanked by the network for a sitcom this week. Two and a Half Men repeats are now 200,000 down on where they were a year ago -still, Nine has done well to milk it for so long. Friday’s extended Today edition covering the death of Michael Jackson pulled a crowd three times the size of Kerri-Anne‘s usual audience.
MasterChef‘s challenge cooked up another 1.93m on Sunday night, with bumper audiences across the week for its photogenic week in Hong Kong. Still proving strong are Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, Merlin, Recruits and repeats of NCIS. TEN blitzed the competition on Tuesday night, its best of the year. Both Good News Week and Rove passed the 1.1m mark. Neighbours topped 900,000 on three nights. TEN’s Michael Jackson special took a cool 724,000 viewers at 10pm on a Friday. FIA took 189,000 on ONE. The usual suspects were no help: The Biggest Loser US and Out of the Blue.
A rare third place for Seven this week as Seven News topped its shows with 1.66m for its Sunday edition. Other top performers included Today Tonight, Sunday Night, Bones, The Zoo, Find My Family and Better Homes and Gardens -rarely, the latter was beaten this week, by MasterChef Australia. Desperate Housewives‘ death of Edie episodes lifted its figures to 1.3m. The Morning Show, which recently celebrated two years, continually and convincingly defeats Mornings with Kerri Anne and thrashes 9AM with David and Kim. Lucky How I Met Your Mother is finishing soon, with underperforming figures on Monday. Seven’s strategic splitting of Thank God You’re Here on different nights in various cities because of the State of Origin was an astute ploy that paid off. Castle has now bedded in as a good performer at 9:30pm. After a humiliating week (including fourth on Saturday), Seven has Packed to the Rafters returning and Dancing with the Stars waiting in the wings.
A new winner for the ABC in Australian Story with a story on a woman killed by her son netting 1.22m. Particular interest was focussed on the return of The Chaser’s War on Everything, which at 1.16m against State of Origin was perfectly respectable. Other top performers were New Tricks, Spicks and Specks, ABC News, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Silent Witness, The 7:30 Report and Nature’s Great Events. The return of Grand Designs was very strong picking up another 30% over its lead in, Foreign Correspondent. Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union took a fall in shifting nights and timeslots. ABC’s 6 – 7 pm timeslot shows no sign of change -half its audience for the 7pm News.
Monday tied with Saturday as the best for SBS’ week with Top Gear Australia, Flight of the Conchords and Mythbusters amongst its biggest shows.
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- Tagged with 60 Minutes, 9AM with David and Kim, A Current Affair, ABC News, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, Australia's Funniest Home Videos, Australian Story, Better Homes and Gardens, Bones, Castle, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Find my Family, Flight of the Conchords, Foreign Correspondent, Getaway, Good News Week, Grand Designs, homeMADE, How I Met Your Mother, MasterChef Australia, Merlin, Michael Jackson The King of Pop, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Nature’s Great Events, NCIS, Neighbours, New Tricks, Nine News, Out of the Blue, Packed to the Rafters, Random Acts of Kindness, Recruits, Rove, Sea Patrol, Seven News, Silent Witness, Spicks and Specks, State of Origin, Sunday Night, Talkin 'Bout Your Generation, Thank God You're Here, The 7.30 Report, The Biggest Loser, The Chaser's War on Everything, The Morning Show, The Zoo, Today, Today Tonight, Top Gear Australia, Tracey Ullman's State of the Union, Trouble in Paradise, Two and a Half Men, You Saved My Life
29 Responses
David, of the few figures that I see from time to time, ABC2 prime-time programming such as the Thursday encores of The Chasers War and Spicks & Specks as well as The Scrapheap Challenge usually get around 100-120,000 viewers across the five metro markets.
I noted Scrapheap Challenge gaining 112,000 on ABC2 on Tuesday. I try to include secondary channels from time to time in ratings breakdown.
Sheesh, your a bitter lot. This “nine only won because…..” is rubbish. They won & thats it. Granted there is little for them to look forward to but they did enough to win this week.
I don’t understand the appeal Nine fanboys have in Channel 9, why would anyone watch it. If there’s someone reading who honestly thinks Nine is better than Seven could you, out of curiosity, explain how they’re better.
@Lex – Seven are in a far better position atm than they were same time last year. Last year Seven had 9 weekly wins, Nine had 8 weekly wins with one tie between them. Now, Seven have 14 weekly wins to Nine’s 4. And it’s quite interesting actually, it was the event programs last year that helped Nine get those weekly wins, im looking now and there’s your State of Origin, Logies in fact, week 26 last year, the same week that just passed, Nine had the Shapelle Corby special, isn’t it weird that Nine had the MJ story the same week this year which in effect got them over the line.
But yeh, when it comes down to it, Nine have sh** programming and can’t win off of it so goodbye to weekly wins for Nine.
@angelsgal – I was worried about the MJ parody in scary movie 3 and was hoping they’d cut it out, but, whoops. Don’t think that bigger fuss was made, it was on fairly late anyway.
Awesome to see Seven come third this week, hopefully it shows the networks that each week is anyone’s game and to get competitive and to invest in local production.
lol, i couldnt laugh any harder!! sucked in loser 7!! go ten!! now pttr just has to bomb next week and i will be happy!!
@angelsgal – I was wondering if that was the MJ scary movie (I didn’t watch it last night) yeah bad timing, wonder if they just forgot?
I’m not a Seven fan boy it’s just right now Nine is battling to win weeks what is it so far 3 weeks out of the year and they are fudging the figures and saying they are winning in the demographics, they just have a long way to go to beat Seven right now and even TEN is giving them a hard time some nights.
Did sevens ratings lift on Friday morning or did people switch to nine for no ads? ( and better coverage)
Lex, in 6-10.30pm commercial shares for the Ratings year till week 25, Seven and Nine are both down in 16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s against last year with Ten gaining audience shares from both networks in these demos with Ten leading in 16-39s and 18-49s leaving Nine second in 16-39s and Seven second in 18-49s while Seven is first in 25-54s followed by Nine then Ten.
David, Do you have ratings for the digital channels. I’m curious as the total ratings for Spicks and Specks and other ‘time shifted’ programs on ABC-ABC2
@ Lex. Seven are actually up in all measures (16-39, 18-49, 25-54 and Total people) versus the same point last year. Ten are also up quite markedly in all measures, with Nine’s portion of the pie down considerably.
No bias intended, just stating facts.
Sucked in 7. Well Done TEN and Nine! Glad to see tight competition and glad that TEN took second, not Seven.
Has this site been hijacked by Seven fanboys or something? There’s nothing that great about Seven – in fact people should take notice of how far down Seven is from last years results.
It is so funny how there are about twenty comments below going on about Nine fanboys and how unfortunate it is Nine won – they’re all written by Seven fan boys who are equally as bad. Get over yourselves! Nine and Seven are just as good/bad as each other.
Nine should be thanking there lucky stars that Michael Jackson Died. because if he didnt they probably would of lost to Ten. The MJ special even beat the AFL in Melbourne, quite rare for ten to lose melbourne on a Saturaday night. However in saying that the MJ special on Friday night was what kept ten up there with the 3 way tie we had comming into sat night. By far the best ratings week, with Fridays events obviously turned the race on it head.
On another note, Scary Movie 3 was played in here in Melbourne by 7. For those who havent seen it, it has a MJ impresinator in it and is accused of kidnapping a young girl to which MJ replies…”ew i didnt touch her, shes a girl”, before he is dangeld of a balcony getting asked by Charlie Sheen…”how do u like that?”. Just thought with the events of Friday it was very poorly timed by 7 and the scene should of been cut. It has no relevance to the movie, my sister was like thats really bad he only died yesterday and i had to agree. The scene was funny when the movie was made, and still is, it was more about the timing, we just finished watching the tribute on Nine, then turned on to see that. anywyas, just a littkle side rant. Tipping Seven to win next week, with ten second
And its obvious that Gerry is a Nine fanboy. I will wait till Nine wins the year in both shares and weekly wins (not to mention a news service without any BS) before giving Nine a pat in the back and the way Nine are currently going it will be a many years before this happens again. The thing that Gerry has to understand is that Nine is bagged because they currently deserve to be third place. Seven isn’t bagged as often because at least they know how to program shows and treat their audience with at least some respect. Can you say the same about Nine? I dont think so. Nine had the chance to be #1 again since last year but they stuffed up.
Good on TEN winning all key demos and 3 markets this week! Very deserved result. Nine only won on the back of State of Origin and the Michael Jackson “Tribute” (or as I like to call it: slap in the face), whereas TEN had a very powerful lineup for the mostpart this week.
As I’ve been saying lately, I reckon TEN will become the #2 network very soon at this rate. Nearly everything TEN have been serving up this year has rated well, and their handling of shows has drastically improved to last year (with a couple of exceptions). TEN are no longer the ‘network for the kids’ and they’re starting to appeal to most people now.
Seven should probably cannibilise the rest of the year, and maybe TEN might win a week or two, but nearly all will go to Seven I reckon.
I am a Seven supporter through and through and it hurts Seven came third but they only came third because Nine aired a really bad “tribute” for MJ and they had SOO. Um David i think you have the nights mixed up Seven won Monday not Wednesday. Seven would have loved a Wednesday win but they came third that night.
You know what though this shows just how competitive this ratings race is. MC is going great guns for TEN and Seven will have PTTR and DWTS back on the box in the next 2 weeks but they will lose a few shows to finale’s to. I am petrified about the Grey’s Finale going against Rush. At first i thought no chance but then TEN goes and schedules MC 90 Min special.
Still last week was all over the place. I think things might start to settle down a bit now and i doubt it very much that Nine will win anymore weeks, maybe 1 or 2 but i think Seven and TEN will be fighting the next few weeks out.
there is a good chance that 9 will come 3rd on sun, mon, tues, and wed this week and the next, some nights quite significantly. and it could get quite embarrasing for them. all good news for 10 though if they were having these sucesses any other year 9 would be too strong and it might not be enough to bring them to 2nd.
9 are very lucky with their events; SOO, t20 cricket, logies ect. it makes their year look much better.
Yeah agree with you Dino, the nine fanboys will saying how great of win it is but if it was up to nine’s regular progamming, then they would have come a distant third.
I don’t regard myself as a fan of any particular network but nine and the D grade presenters they force upon us is just so irritating of late, it’s great when they don’t do so well. Even though they won this week, I doubt they will be celebrating that much but then again it is nine and they will probably make a mountain out of a molehill.
Nine the home of 2.5 men, 20 to 1 and great presenters such as Leila Mckinnon, Kark Sefanovic and Peter Overton, plus let’s not mention such hits as HomeMade and the Find My Family rip off, Missing Pieces! as well as so many more great achievements in TV this year. Just think of how great TV would be if none of these shows or presenters were ever shown. Click!!!!
Poor gerry another 9 fanboy who just wanted to help the crap a**e network that has fallen to the bottom of the sewerage to get them over the line for the wk only for the state of origin and mj special theres over 1 more orgin match then no more shows to rate hope they fall back to 3rd as year progresses, seven will be back at no.1 and big shows dwts,rafters,homicide and new comedy shows and factual shows coming up as well as the big us import flash forward, go 7 nine sucks like a bad egg!
9 only wins on event programming now. Never regular programming.
Well done TEN. Nine didn’t deserve it and was only due to State of Origin and that aweful Michael Jackson thing. Also well done Seven. Less than 1% behind #1 with no “special” programming. Poor Gerry. I’m not a fan of any network, but Nine deserves to be #3 for the trash they now run. TEN deserves #1.
so true. as david said “and Seven… well, Seven really just had another week of regular programming”. With another week of ‘regular programming’, to come third by just .3 is great. Nine should be worried, if it take special events to win weeks id say thats a network in trouble. As far as i can remember, the last week nine won was the logies week? I dont think nine will be so lucky with the next SOO though.
If TEN’s friday nights continue to stay strong, and its thursday improves, i think it may have a great chance to win a week when the masterchef finale comes around. Apart from that, i dont see why seven shouldnt keep winning every remaining week this year! Maybe it could do like last year, a clean sweep from august to november!
Oh Gerry, take comfort in the fact your beloved Nine fell over the line in a State of Origin week to barely snatch a win. Next week Nine will be in big trouble without this special programming to buoy their schedule. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came third quite regularly for the remainder of 2009.
Nine only won the week with State of Origin and the MJ special last night, but even with normal programing it was a close battle for 2&3 place.
Seven will be back on top next week with the Rafters returning home.
Haha. Seven fans are going to be upset. Last week they were all bagging Nine for coming third, and lets now see if all the Seven fanboys will remain quiet this week. Seven sucks! And I am not looking forward to Dancing or Rafters. Both very “cheesy,” tieing in with Seven’s other shows.
Well done Nine and TEN.