Top Gear drives up 1.68m viewers
Nine's reputedly big fee in hijacking Top Gear from SBS appears to have paid off with a huge 1.68m viewers tuning in for the new episode last night.
- Published by David Knox
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Nine’s reputedly big fee in hijacking Top Gear from SBS appears to have paid off with a huge 1.68m viewers tuning in for the new episode last night.
The show was the #1 programme for Tuesday, driving right across My Kitchen Rules (1.21m) and The Biggest Loser / Bondi Rescue (722,000 / 966,000).
With all the advertisements Top Gear fans are questioning whether the episode had been trimmed. The BBC delivers a 52 minute international version to its clients. Nine maintains it didn’t edit the show, but it certainly dumped the credits as it shifted gears to the Winter Olympics special which had already run twice on SBS. That episode drove home with 1.24m. Nine will need to be aware it could jeopardise the brand in moving it into the broad, middle lane of television’s highway. Attention to detail is one of the reasons the show became a hit in the first place.
Together with Vancouver Gold highlights (905,000) the night was easily won by Nine.
But TEN had cause to smile with NCIS winning its hour on 1.36m viewers although Bondi Rescue was seemingly dragged down from Loser’s lukewarm lead-in. Grey’s Anatomy sunk to 888,000 for Seven.
Hot Seat (620,000) had a comfy lead over Deal or No Deal (523,000) while Today (370,000) again beat Sunrise (344,000).
Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour travelled with 746,000 for ABC1, much bigger than its Foreign Correspondent lead-in of 559,000. The highly-underrated Big Love was left with 139,000 on SBS ONE, but next week Insight returns.
54 Responses
Well, if as reported, Channel 9 is saying they didn’t edit the 50 minute international version down to just under 42 minutes, then either the credits, which they didn’t show, ran for over 8 minutes or 1.6 million TV viewers had a very long “flash forward”.
Either way it’s time to call Ripleys
When do last weeks time shift ratings come out so I know when to do the time shift again, it’s just a jump to the left !!!!!!
Sorry got carried away, i guess i really do like show tunes, lol..
@timothy
The international version was edited by the BBC. SBS never edited it. It was over 52 minutes for some of the earlier series and when it was, SBS scheduled it in for 1 hour and 5 minutes.
Put it on 9 and they will sit there and watch it. You only have to look at the continued mesmerising sucess of 2.5 Men and anything that has Bert in it !!!!
@Johnson: I don’t think SBS can justify spending $20m of (predominantly) taxpayer funds just to get the show back. And if SBS offers $20m then Nine (or others) will just offer $21m so there’s no point in SBS trying to outbid anyone. A commercial network might get the ad dollars to justify such an expense but SBS surely can not.
“Grey’s Anatomy sunk to 888,000 for Seven”. Whatever happened to Fast tracking?
This current series is a great watch – very little of Issy.
The US are due to air Episode 15 and I am sure many Australians have already viewed Episodes 1 – 14. No wonder the numbers are down.
Jed says: Did 800,000 people just get televisions? I don’t get that, they all had access to SBS.
– Lasy people who havent got digital often get terrible SBS on analogue. Before I got digital (8yrs ago), I watched South Park through snow, random high pitched noise and the occasional drop out. Every other station was fine.
Gary says: You say the International version is 52 minutes long. Well I have copies taped from SBS that are only 49 – 50 minutes long, so they must have done some editing as well.
-The international version would be 52min maximum if this is the case. The standard one hour drama is 42 mins and 1/2 hour is 22 mins. If you are a fan of ‘obtaning from other sources’ you may notice that some shows actually often go for 39mins and 20 mins even with credits. It is more than likely that SBS didnt often have to edit if at all.
How can they say it was not edited, many people have recorded it and report it being around 10 minutes short of the 52 the BBC sends out.
The high numbers are understand able with the amount of promoting Nine has done in the last few weeks/months, will they hold? Also with the season being only 7 shows long will it make a huge difference for 2010 and how long will it take Nine to air the next series after the BBC airs it, and will we care?
I just checked out the comments on the Nine site and most hate the cuts and what Nine has done to TG.
Also next week no TG because of the cricket and Nine is promoting the new season in 2 weeks time, wasn’t last night’s show the 14th series opener? I hate when they bend the truth almost as much as the butcher job Nine did last night.
Sorry I will not be back in 2 weeks time!
The 1.68 million audience figure for Top Gear indicates there was a large number of people who tuned in just to find out how much editing Nine has done to the program. The real test will be in two weeks’ time (next week is Twenty/20 cricket from Sydney).
Herald Sun’s Colin Vickery writes in his TG review today that Nine paid $19 million for a two-year deal for the format. So if SBS can fork out at least $20 million it may be able to get the rights back.
SBS is the forgotten channel. If Top Gear had aired on ABC first it would have pulled in about 1.2 million viewers IMHO.
I doubt Nine will hold that many viewers, but it’ll always pull 1 million +
Now Top Gear Australia – that’ll bomb big time. Can’t wait.
“Last nights episode on Nine was only 41 minutes long. It was a full one-third ads”
What is the current limit of advertising that they are allowed in an hour? Although I guess that limit is irrelevant now that the networks can re-work advertising to disguise it as “non-program matter” so they will say “yes we comply with x limit of advertising” but ignore the elaborate sponsor boards and station IDs that are basically just ad content now. (Another free kick allowed to the networks by the government just quietly before Christmas)
At the end it said “back in two weeks” Anyone know why?
I’m a fan of Top Gear but as a matter of principle I won’t watch it on Channel 9.
Well done 9!
From what I remember of last night’s Top Gear episode when I saw it on the BBC, the “news” segment was chopped and I’m sure some of the banter between segments was gone too.
The length of the international versions has varied between 50 and 55 minutes depending on the series. Last nights episode on Nine was only 41 minutes long. It was a full one-third ads. Nine better not keep this up!
I think an extra 800,000 tuned into Top Gear last night to see what all the hoo-haa was about because I dont think many people knew Top Gear existed until Nine claimed it from SBS. SBS is known for showing absolute TV gems without the majority of us knowing.
I’m no fan of cars, but Ill be interested if Nine can sustain the ratings, and if they stay true to the show’s fans.
It did feel choppy in places – during the challenge there was one section where both myself and Mr Beckala said “definite edit there”. I thought it was supposed to be the latest special though (Bolivia? Some country beginning with B – sorry for lack of attention to detail but i’ve been at my computer writing reports since 6am…) so we were surprised (and annoyed) when the Winter Olympics came on – most people I know who watch TG have it on dvd…I get the cross promotion idea, but still, it was a bit shabby to already throw a repeat in.
“Grey’s Anatomy sunk to 888,000 for Seven”
Getting rid of All Saints wasn’t such a good idea now?
This just proves people are idiots, confined to the constrains of urbanised commercial station programming – the same show has been airing in more or less the same timeslot for years, and yet only once it gets to Nine does it rate so well…
I thought it looked very heavily edited compared to when it was on sbs when they went to new segments it just didnt flow
Amazing but not surprised Nine would get more viewers than SBS, better promo’s, ACA, ads in magazines, you would’ve thought this was the first time!
without ads the episode on nine was only 42 mins long.
Was obvious Nine has trimmed the episode. The ‘news’ section was obviously cut short. Further, when eric bana was interviewed clarkson referred to an earlier discussion on Bathurst that we never got to see.
Did 800,000 people just get televisions? I don’t get that, they all had access to SBS.
You say the International version is 52 minutes long. Well I have copies taped from SBS that are only 49 – 50 minutes long, so they must have done some editing as well.