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7mate and GEM tie on Day One

Updated: The first day of ratings figures for 7mate and GEM pulls a dead heat -but there's a catch.

The first day of ratings figures for 7mate and GEM proves to be just like the AFL Grand Final -a dead heat.

Both channels netted a modest 1.1% share for their Sunday programming.

7mate officially launched at 6pm Saturday following the AFL draw. GEM, which had “soft-launch” programming from midday Friday planned, didn’t arrive until 6am Sunday -the time the channel said it would launch officially. It hit a technical snag on Friday.

Both joined the OzTAM ratings panel from yesterday and both trailed GO! (4.7%) and ONE (4.6%). But with sport on offer, Sunday is one of the more distinct viewing days of the week. The dust is yet to settle on how these channels will resonate with viewers and whether one has any edge. 7mate’s promotion which has included extensive cross channel promotion, billboards and even a chopper flying a giant banner over the MCG on Saturday, far outstrips the hurried GEM.

Meanwhile in Sunday night figures Junior MasterChef lost ground, slipping to 1.5m viewers. Now shunted off air for two weeks for the Commonwealth Games, it reinforces the value that stripping gives the main event.

The X Factor dipped slightly to 1.05m viewers, down from 1.09m. At this stage it looks set to repeat the performance of last year’s Australian Idol. At least it has no Brownlow Medal to compete with tonight.

The star performer of the night continues to be Midsomer Murders. It rose from 1.35m to 1.4m, defying the razzle dazzle of its commercial competition.

Elsewhere, Sunday Night was 1.1 1m, 60 Minutes was 1m, RBT 998,000 and Offspring was 943,000.

The Big Bang Theory was 369,000 for GO! and FIA Formula One pulled 368,000 on ONE.

Seven won the night.

From this point forward in ratings results remember that TEN and SBS are now essentially two channels competing against 3 and 4 from their competitors.

UPDATED: TV Tonight has since learned that ratings results did not record  any figures in Sydney or Perth for 7mate nor Adelaide for GEM.

Week 40

67 Responses

  1. How did 7mate and Gem make it so quickly into ratings given networks are normally required to give OzTAM 8 weeks’ notice for a new digital channel? 7mate was revealed one month ago and Gem was unveiled only three weeks ago.

  2. Something tells me Eleven will jump ahead of other digital channels early next year as it seems to be more of a stand-alone channel with lots of first-run programming and a couple of big names going across like Neighbours and Simpsons. Go!, 7TWO, 7mate and Gem all seem to have been created as “re-run and movie” channels.

  3. Knight Rider and the A-Team back to back!! Hell yeh…

    GEM is just a place where Nine can show very old movies and junk that never made the ratings on Nine. 7mate is looking good. I would still prefer a 24/7 documentary channel however.

  4. @ Craig,

    The V8 supercars are not in HD anyway. That is obvious when you compare it to the F1 or Moto GP on 1HD, especially with their in car/bike HD cameras it is really obvious.

  5. the watermark logo of 7mate is huge!

    7mate actually had decent shows on primetime, which looking at the advance TV guide is looking pretty decent too as an alternative viewings

  6. @Mark, 7mate is the HD channel, it just shifted numbers from 70 to 73. 7HD is no longer (sadly). I think you’ll find when you tune into 70 again, it is just another stream of 7 – the SD channel.

  7. Give the new channels a go they only been on 1 day and its not like you are paying a license fee for them i agree with some ppl if you find u dont like them then simply dont watch them,there plenty of channels now on tv.

  8. @ Peter

    the HD quota only adds up to about 2 hours a day and doesn’t have to be in primetime. so the midnight reruns of shows like Lost in HD can usually fill that quota alone quite easlily.

  9. Gem doesn’t have much worthwhile content if you ask me. At least 7mate has some new content. I hope it does better during the week. I think 7mate on Saturday looks good, better then repeat movies on most other channels at least!

  10. I’m pi**ed off that GEM didn’t adjust their schedule to account for missing the Friday launch, so they skipped over two episodes of Old Christine that haven’t aired in Australia yet.

  11. i thnk 7&9 would be happy with th ratings for 7mate and GEM. if they can get an extra 1-2% every night by chuckng a few repeats on they’ll be laughing all the wa to the bank. shame itlooks like we won’t see ratings for 7mate on Sat there was a lot of talk on twitter about it, not nearly as much as there was on sunday it might have done really well.

  12. Yeah I noticed how much of the new HD channel wasn’t even 16:9, it’s a joke!

    BTW do we know if the V8s will be on 7Mate for the Bathurst weekend, They are not listed for Fridays coverage on Seven. So do we miss out on the V8 Supercars in HD at the most important event of the year?

    Also with TEN wasn’t there a rumor that ELEVEN will start Jan 11, maybe with a soft launch New Years day?

  13. Tuned into 7mate twice – first for the launch with the ‘boobs, explosions and fart jokes’ promo which was followed by That 70’s Show. And then randomly the next day where I was pleased to find… more That 70’s Show. Thank god, because I was wondering where I’d be getting my non-stop That 70’s Show fix from.

  14. How does 7HD (Channel 70) work with 7mate? Since 7mate launched, 7HD showed 7mate programs, but this morning, Sunrise was on 7HD, and 7mate had something different on it.

  15. From people I’ve spoken to they’ve heard of 7mate but Gem is news to them, plus being on existing lcn 90 some equipment might not urge you to rescan so it will take some time for people to stumble onto this channel. They are both in my tv guide however so that will help them.

  16. @pietro: A quick look at this weeks Advance Guide for Gem and the only two primetime shows that I can see that are not 16:9 is Friends and Wife Swap USA. On Wednesday night for example, Gem screens HD content from 7:30pm – 11pm.

  17. @pietro – Completely Agree.

    I simply cannot see why we have 4:3 sitcoms or SD programming on our HD channels when we have brand new 16:9 shows on 7/7TWO and 9/GO! that could very well be in stunning high definition.

    I cant wait until everyone has access to HD and we can actually have some good quality shows in good quality.

  18. It’s good to see 7mate & Gem getting good ratings. 7mate has been a great channel for prime time and Gem has a great day time line-up and it also has some good movies i don’t know people think it’s crap oh well that’s just my opinion.

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