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Soft start for new TEN hour

6PM with George Negus pulled less viewers than TEN's 5pm News, but the feedback has been mostly positive.

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TEN has always said they would be in for the long haul, and they may need to be with a modest launch for its news revamp.

6PM with George Negus pulled 605,000 viewers last night with the biggest audience in Melbourne (220,000). Sydney was  173,000. The national audience dropped from the 827,000 average of TEN News at Five.

The new show was beaten convincingly by Seven News (1.26m) and Nine News (1.06m).

TEN Evening News was lower still at 536,000, beaten by Today Tonight (1.09m) and A Current Affair (1.01m). The Melbourne edition with Mal Walden was again the biggest audience with 201,000, followed by Sandra Sully in Sydney on 141,000.

Network shares for the new line-up, now including alternatives on ELEVEN, was only 18.9%, well behind Seven’s 32.9% and Nine’s 28.5%.

But while the Australian Open is in play it is probably unfair to be making too many conclusions about how the new hour has affected rival offerings on Seven and Nine.

Feedback for 6PM has been mostly positive, with many readers welcoming a change from tabloid and consumer stories by 6:30 shows. Many noted the brevity of some stories and indicated a feeling the first show felt too rushed.

TEN execs have publicly stated they view the shift as a long-term plan and that such change requires habit. They are probably also looking forward to a day of big breaking news.

Week 5

31 Responses

  1. I just cannot come at George Negus on a commercial network. Sorry, but it doesn’t fit anymore, not with the wonderful legacy he left at SBS. Plus I wonder if a Ten audience will warm to this style of show at all.
    Bad move all round.

  8. @Andy. Yes. I watch Ten news and then flick to Seven News at 6. Good to get news from a different and they don’t always have the same stories.
    I would love to watch 6PM with George Negus but unless they switch it to 6.30, sorry but i won’t be watching. Which means i still have nothing to watch at 6.30

  9. Kill 5pm news, have a half hour bulletin at 6pm then let George make a mockery of the pathetic crap we have to deal with from Today Tonight and ACA – at 6.30

    Its not about conforming to what the other stations are doing, however they NOW have the right journalists in the job, its time Channel 10 takes on the others and gets some market share.

    7pm Project is a good way to end the night on a lighter note..

  10. If you look at the ratings for last night. There weren’t alot of people watching tv anyway.

    1.2 million for Seven News (highest rating show) is pretty low

  12. In the beginning i thought it was going to be to much news from 5.00PM to 7.30PM and it is.Put something on for the kids from 5.00PM to 6.00PM.I won’t be watching anyway nine news for me

  13. At first 7pm Project was quite bad, but now it’s decent viewing. I’d hope the same thing will happen with the 6-7pm slots. Not too sure how different the 6:30 Evening News is to the 5pm one, seems roughly the same to me anyway.

  14. Total people doesn’t matter to Ten, or the bottom line.

    In 18-49 it is much closer:

    6PM
    Seven News – 381k
    Nine News – 329k
    6pm w/ George Negus 274k
    ABC News – 216k

    6.30PM
    A Current Affair – 327k
    Today Tonight – 315k
    Ten Evening News – 272k

    Still softish numbers, I think it will drop off this week. Then start to build again.

    Worthing noting in Melbourne “6pm” ( 106k) beat both “Seven News” (96k) and “Nine News” (99k) in 18-49 on night 1. Pretty impressive! Wonder if the local Ten station there ran more promos, or there was more outdoor media?

    Ten was also #1 at 6.30 in Melbourne with “Ten Evening News” (101k) beating “ACA” (88k) and “TT” (73k)

  15. These shows will obviously take time to develop and considering how poorly the Simpsons & Neighbours were rating in that timeslot, they’ll be rubbing their hands together once they crack 700k.

  16. A good shift for the network, any network. If they stuck with 7PM for as long as they, then I hope they more than give the new shows a fighting chance…

    As I mentioned elsewhere here – the new shows need to be streaming live if they are going to grab me as a viewer…

  17. Ten wouldn’t be under any illusions that this show will need at least 18 months to find its feet, not 6 or 12 months (similar to 7PM Project which also took the same time) and while George took a break and someone took over for 2 months, it’ll also have to continue being done during the December 2011 – January 2012 summer recess as well. At least it’s cheaper to make, than airing repeats of The Simpsons.

  18. Not bad, slightly higher than what neighbours and the simpsons were doing this last year. Ten did miss a huge opportunity with the queensland floods, especially since they had Neighbours on 11 already. We all know that in April Ten will have the biggest oportunity to push these new shows through Masterchef Australia, the most popular, broad skewing show on TV, which despite being extremly popular in demos, is also the only show on Ten that attracts a decent amount of people over 55 which is what they need in order for this entire stategy to work.

  20. Does this mean there are actually people who sit and watch the 5pm news on Ten, then flick over to watch the same stories again on Seven and Nine at 6?
    Maybe the people that finish work at 5 and get home at 6 aren’t ready to go “in depth” with George before they’ve seen the stories in the bulletin.

  22. I wasn’t expecting 6PM or 6.30 to break 500k so I think to get what it did was a good start but it’s impossible to get any sort of analysis from one day of figures with so many people sampling it and no doubt many people flicking between channels. Agree with Jerome, I think the figure will drop in the short term and then hopefully will pick up as time goes on.

  23. They should have launched when the Qld flood crisis was at its peak… Missed opportunity. No doubt everything would have been in place by that stage too (except a few staff who may have been on holiday).

  24. I think the lack of coverage by ten for the QLD floods has come back to bite them which is a shame because the news hour last night was a refreshing break from the fluff and blatant advertising and plugs that 7 and 9 serve up during 6 to 7 6pm was espicially good

  25. They made life hard for themselves with the promos. They were boring and didn’t generate any interest. During launches for shows like 7pm or Sunday night the promos have been really well made and got people talking then when they premiered lots of people sampled it even though a lot didn’t stay atleast they had that starting block.

    I predict a drop off over the next fortnight maybe settle round 500k and then a slow climb over the next year.

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