Nine: “we owned” Jessica Watson coverage
In a memo leaked to TV Tonight, Nine's News boss claims victory in the Jessica Watson coverage, boasting it "owned a massive news event we didn't, officially, own."
- Published by David Knox
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Coverage of the Jessica Watson Homecoming was “owned” by Channel Nine, according to its News boss, even at the expense of the rights-holder TEN / ONE.
All three commercial networks were covering the event, but only TEN / ONE had blanket exclusivity access on Watson, whose journey it had sponsored from the beginning.
That got TEN / ONE scoop pictures and interviews, which were rebroadcast by other networks, complete with the ONE branding across the screens. In the old days, such tolerance of a rival network would arguably never have been allowed.
A buoyant Mark Calvert, Nine’s Director of News and Current Affairs told staff on Sunday that they had delivered, in an internal memo leaked to TV Tonight.
“Well done on a superb performance on the homecoming of Jessica Watson,” he wrote.
“The output right across Saturday was by far the best of any of the networks. We saw that – and the viewers agreed.
“In the final quarter-hour of the live homecoming show, our audience averaged around 750,000 – a massive switch-on for a Saturday afternoon – and way ahead of anything Seven or Ten could manage.
“The live coverage, EP’d by Rob Hurst, led on-air by Karl and Lisa, and with support from across News, Today Show and ACA, was a master-class in how to run a TV marathon. The team sustained interest, humour and energy across four and a half huge hours.
“The dedication and ingenuity of everybody who worked behind the scenes, on location, on land, on water and in the air – and the warmth and sheer stamina of our hosts and reporters – made the late-scrambling Seven look average. Rights-holders Ten/OneHD didn’t know what to do with what they had. (Rob did!) And our so-called ‘national broadcaster’ wasn’t even in the game, the ABC choosing instead to show a repeat of Australian Story – while Nine was bringing the ultimate Australian story to the nation, live, as it happened.
“All in all, we absolutely owned a massive news event we didn’t, officially, own!”
Ratings numbers were all over the shop after Watson’s arrival was delayed and TEN and Seven switched to digital channels.
According to OzTAM in Overnight figures Seven pulled 452,000 for its news special, Nine pulled 429,000 and TEN had 229,000. It had a further 144,000 on ONE’s extended broadcast. But results for children’s TV shows which didn’t air were actually part of the Watson broadcast.
Nine claims that from 11-3:30pm the numbers were as follows:
Nine: 482,000
TEN: 326,000
Seven: 322,000
ONE: 184,000
7TWO: 61,000
Of course, it isn’t a fair breakdown given TEN switched to AFL at 2:08pm and Seven to V8 Supercars at 2:30pm with Watson coverage continuing on digital channels, while Nine did stay the course. In any case the combined TEN / ONE total is 510,000, undermining Nine’s own claims.
One source suggested to TV Tonight that Watson had even been asked to “kill time” off the NSW coast in order for her arrival to dovetail into the 2pm AFL match.
60 Minutes had also stitched up a second Watson interview as part of its first deal with Charles Woolley prior to her departure.
62 Responses
Keep in mind that Ten/ONE made their broadcast available to Seven and Nine and at the end of the day – they got their brand out there all day regardless of who won the ratings on the day – which seems to me to be Ten/ONE anyway – as pointed out by Andrew below…
The benefit of the brand exposure of ONE will ultimately far outweigh the ratings figures for the day in long term benefits. Not to mention help digital uptake go further.
I never watch Nine News Crap
The choice of the word “owned” is just silly. There are other words in the English language that would describe Nine’s coverage more accurately…
…and most would probably agree none of them would be of a positive description.
I believe Jessica was ready to come through the heads the night before, but CH10 told her she would have to sail up the coast and enter the next day to coincide with the coverage. Something happened to the boat overnight thats why she was late. Then she was delayed coming into Sydney for 2 hours – then ch10s AFL coverage was interrupted because she was late. Hahaha
And here I was thinking nine had the worst coverage of all channels because it was headed by Karl stefanovic *cringe*.
One/ten had far better coverage, it was far more varied and interesting to watch.
i have nothing against the girl, yeah it’s impressive she sailed around the world but i simply don’t care really. I also don’t quite get the national hero, inspiration aspect as well.
although then i’m one of these people that never understands how footy players are considered legends and heroes.
I really don’t get the big fascination the media is telling me everyone has for her and i have spoken to no one that does.
A TV remote control is a wonderful thing and enables the viewer the power of comparison on occasions like this one. My family spent most of the time on Nine. ONE HD came second. Seven was not worth the effort required to push the button. My viewing preference was based on what was provided to the viewer, thus the channel hopping, and the end result was more time was spent on Nine. As an adult we often overlook the opinions of children. My primary school aged children preferred Karl & Lisa etc. on this a family event. So in summary I have to agree that Nine provided the best rounded coverage.
How Arrogent from Ch9.. when you combine 10 & One.. “Ten Owned”
Pathetic is all i will call their coverage. OneHD had superior coverage and this is Nine’s spin on things again. I wish this network would go jump!
It’s an internal memo so it’s not surprising it has elements of mustering the troops. I expect Seven and TEN also applaud their own for events of this nature.
The Nine coverage was terrible! Every time they switched over, they would continue to interview random people about their thoughts on Jessica…
Ten had the best coverage.
It goes to show the arrogance of nine.
Normally i would expect this sort of rubbish attitude from that other mob called Channel 7!!!!
I found the whole thing complete overkill … we were not the least bit interested in it and swithced off all the stations immediately …
Why do they all have to compete over these things all the time and take away any real options for viewers???
Jack!
i am just witing for what 7 has to say. that should be a laugh. they will probably claim they knew before anyone else did
That is One (184,000 not 184)
Ten 326,000 + One 184 = 510,000, did Nine get more viewers? As it turned out Ten were similcasting to Nine and Seven. 510,000 were watching the channel Ten brand.
The biggest turn off for Nine was Karl and Lisa.
Arrogant tossers !
Good on ya Jessica Watson, your a inpiration to many people, but seriously… what is she going to tell us now that is going to be “exclusive”? “It was tough, I missed my family, I cryed sometimes, it was cold and wet etc etc…”
As a whole, her journey was amazing and an inpiration, but as a story, sorry but for me its not really that interesting.
One HD’s coverage was far superior to Nine’s.
Nine has an attitude problem. I think it’s hilarious how they stole the slogan from seven… ‘Leading the way…’ It’s like they cant come up with their own material, they have to resort to stealing.
Good on Nine, I did enjoy the coverage thye had. We’ve been switching between One and Nine but keeps on going back to Nine. Caught a few glimpses on Seven and as Mark has rightfully stated, it was very average, in fact less than average.
Nine are so far up themselves it’s not funny. The One HD coverage was great, in my opinion, that I never changed the channel until the broadcast was over.
What I found sick with this whole thing was last night on the 7pm Project they shown TEN doing that exclusive video (in a hotel or something) and Nine had a camera directly over head, from several floors above capturing the whole thing. Of course there was no audio and the angle was bad but I mean WTF is the point of Nine even doing that?
I’m wishing she had turned up at like 3am and there wasn’t the fanfare and she could have done the media stuff later.
As for 60 Minutes, how much of that was new, from the last couple of days? And I joked about her wearing the ONE HD logo, but she did LOL
Geez the girl sailed around the world…but is she prepared for all the crap ahead?No wonder she wants to get back out there.
“The live coverage, EP’d by Rob Hurst, led on-air by Karl and Lisa, and with support from across News, Today Show and ACA, was a master-class in how to run a TV marathon. The team sustained interest, humour and energy across four and a half huge hours.”
So basically you took an entire broadcast from another network and aired personalities from your network talking over it…bravo Nine.
Nine is so pathetic, they might have surposidly won in ratings but the logo one hd was splashed over 3 networks and im sure thats value u cant buy. Plus ten’s coverage was much bette including the quality