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ABC News 24: first ratings

Update: First ratings figures for ABC News 24 indicate it outperformed ABC2 and ABC3 on Sunday night.

Today we get our first glimpse at ratings for ABC News 24 from OzTAM data.

On Sunday it pulled a share of 0.7%, which was higher than ABC2 (0.5) and ABC3 (0.3%).

The figure for what is essentially an “opt-in / opt out” style of programming is for the standard 6pm – midnight block. No single show made it into the Top 100 for the day despite 146,000 for Captain Mack (ABC2) and 113,000 for Iron Man (ABC3).

Rival multichannels did big business on Sunday with GO! pulling a 6.0% share ahead of 7TWO’s 4.1%. The figure helped the Nine Network steal Sunday night from Seven.

ONE was strong thanks to the FIA Formula One Championship, taking second place on 4.3%.

SBS TWO was 0.8%.

GO!: 6.0
ONE: 4.3
7TWO: 4.1
SBS TWO: 0.8
ABC News 24: 0.7
ABC2: 0.5
ABC3: 0.3

Update: ABC Managing Director Mark Scott said, “We are delighted with the first figures we’ve received for ABC News 24. A reach of over half a million in a single day has exceeded our expectations. This result reinforces our belief that the Australian population has a strong interest in an independent, free-to-air news service available 24 hours a day.”

ABC News 24 achieved Free-to-Air Share % of:
· Daytime (6am – 6pm): 1.4%
· Prime Time (6pm – 12mn): 0.7%

24 Hr Reach for Sunday 1st August (5-minutes consecutive)
· ABC News 24: 523,000 (3.5% of the 5 City population)

Week 32

18 Responses

  1. I agree with the other posters. There are way too many kids’ shows on ABC2. Ditch the lame cartoons for some older BBC and ITV shows that haven’t been on TV for a few years. Start Doctor Who again. Kenny Everett. Monkey. The list goes on. The kids and the negligent parents have ABC3 to use as a babysitter. Give the adults something to watch.

  2. The ABC should ban all ex politicians and party staffers and ex staffers from talking about the election. Its created warped and boring discussion.

    They should not employ ex politicians and ex political staffers to role where politics is discussed.

  3. They need to change ABC2 now, well the kids shows on it anyway. There is now ABC3 and its annoying how during the day there is nothing but kids shows on ABC2. There is no need for that to happen anymore. ABC could so utilise this channel but instead the daytime lineup continues to be these kids shows. Its time to move forward ABC2 and give us something else

  4. Yes filling in time 24/7 is a big ask of a specialist channel and ABC News 24 has started well. The big test will be after the Elections when the grind really sets in and you have to cope with those slow News days. With its BBC association I see no reason why they can’t run some of those excellent prgrams that are on BBC World and are not free to air. Fast Track, Hard Talk etc.

  5. CatFan- combining figures is most useful to the networks when they sell packages. They sell on the basis they can deliver …as a network and then build a package around that for a client. I agree, it has very little to do with each channels worth but i think its been more of a commercial decision for the networks more than anything else

  6. @CatFan – Totally agree. As an advertiser it’s very misleading. perhaps bordering on deceptive conduct. Nine is Nine, Nine+GO! is Not “Nine”.
    At many times, ABC1, 2 & 3 are all showing children’s programs. A great waste of your ABC.
    ABC News24 is great but still wish they would intoduce some Al Jazeera International content in place of 4th runs of “Foreign Correspondent”, “Landline”, and other ABC fillers.

  7. The answer is in your post, CatFan. Networks’ advertising revenue, as reported at the end of each quarter, comes from the advertising purchased on all of their channels. You don’t see them breaking their advertising revenue down one channel at a time.

    The only possible gripe that you could legitimately have is that it falsely implies that the people who watch GO!, for example, are worth the same as the people who watch Nine (speaking from an advertising perspective here). But that’s an argument for not reporting any topline figures at all, since we would have to break the audience into infinitesimally small segments in order for the ratings to provide an accurate representation of the relationship between popularity and monetisation.

  8. The F1 last night was fantastic!

    On that why is it TEN is running the ‘encore’ later the last few weeks? It used to be on at about 10:30 pm but last night was after the movie at about 11:30 pm and the week before with the Great Debate and MC final not until just before mid night. Is it all an effort by FreeView to get people to go digital?

  9. Good result for News 24. I’m not surprised that it has very quickly gained an audience as it has many good programmes and, although not perfect, has quickly shown its vast superiority to Sky News.
    As for ABC 2 and ABC 3, the results are dismal. ABC 2 needs more promotion on ABC 1 (i.e. whenever viewers are told what programmes are coming up on ABC 1 they should also be told what is on ABC 2) – it has good content, but viewers are never reminded what is on it and tend to forget it exists. The ABC also really needs to sort out its children’s programmes – I really wonder what is the point of ABC 3 for most of the day as it shows programmes made for school aged children whilst those same children are at school and not watching TV. They should dump these programmes and move the ABC 2 children’s shows (aimed at a pre-school audience) to ABC 3. This would free up space for new programmes on ABC 2 that may help it gain an audience, offering an alternative to children’s shows or news throughout the day.

  10. I concur with Super Opinion – based on the potential viewers and it’s new-ness – ABC24 will just grow from here. I had to help my father-in-law (in his 70s) find it last weekend and now he is addicted…

    I am very fond ABC24 already. We have it on as background noise when there’s nothing grabbing us on other channels.

  11. Great pic of the gorgeous Jeremy. I hope he continues to present on ABC 1, as i cannot get News 24 at the moment. He is a charming and watchable reader – warm and intelligent – knowing when to give some personality and when not.
    Most Popular New Talent?

  12. Can someone please explain why it is that those who believe that ratings for the different channels with the same owner (e.g. Nine + GO) should be combined together for the overall result? What on earth has one channels viewers got to do with another when they have different shows with different demographics and importantly different advertisers? Rating are for the purpose of generating income through advertising so combing them for different channels is utterly absurd.

  13. Those are pretty good figures given it is the single HD only channel on Freeview. Whilst One may be HD only in regional areas, it does have an SD version in the Metros.

    Beating both ABC2 & 3 which have been around for a much longer period, and have a wider potential audience shows that ABC News 24 had already made an impact.

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