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Dangerous start for The Straits…

ABC's launch for The Straits may have been paradise on Twitter, but danger lurks in the ratings too...

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ABC’s launch for The Straits may have been  paradise on Twitter, but danger lurks in the ratings too…

Last night the show averaged 599,000 viewers -well down on the 900,000+ that The Slap was nabbing in the same timeslot. The debut of course, was twice as long meaning the average is likely to be lower rather than higher.

The question for ABC is whether the show might have pulled a bigger audience as a flagship Sunday night drama, or be smothered by the competition there. While other networks are hurriedly slating repeat airings of new product, ABC2 already had a rerun scheduled for tonight. Check it out if you like dramas that are offbeat or challenging.

My Kitchen Rules was once again the night’s #1 show on 1.44m viewers, miles ahead of the weight-loss battle between the other mob. Home and Away was second in its timeslot on 934,000 viewers. The return of Desperate Housewives was 620,000 / 537,000. Seven News (1.13m) topped Nine News (1.05m) and Sunrise (372,000) bettered Today (319,000).

A Current Affair (994,000) outranked Today Tonight (981,000). The return of CSI was 764,000 and CSI: NY was 535,000. Hot Seat (535,000) burnt Deal or No Deal (493,000). But the third episode of Excess Baggage (555,000) was in fourth place, beaten by The Biggest Loser (734,000).

TEN News was 684,000, with Law and Order: SVU on 570,000. A Gifted Man is struggling on 524,000. The Project averaged 527,000.

ABC News won its timeslot on 983,000 viewers. It was followed by 7:30 (678,000), and The Straits (599,000). Family Confidential premiered to 499,000.

Best for SBS ONE was 24 Hours in Emergency on 234,000.

Seven won the night.

Thursday 2 February 2012.

34 Responses

  3. Too much to record last night (none of it reality TV though!) but we’ll be watching The Straits tonight on ABC2.
    It’s the station to watch tonight, with new episodes of The Misfits too.
    Only competition is the SciFi channel, which for once has a couple of new programs – which is rare for them!!!! (New program Alphas, and new series of Warehouse 13, which is OK, not brilliant).

  4. We taped The Straits and Desperates and waited till 9pm to watch SVU – Gifted Man will be lost in the MKR ratings due it starting on the hour – we completly forgot about it until MKR was over.

  7. The Straits – Unlike The Slap which was a fine adaptation of a highly successful and contentious novel this is an original script, a much bigger challenge to succeed creatively and to find an audience. Pretty locations are easy to find, a gripping, cleverly written story with a driving narrative far more difficult. To commission 10 hours of such a drama was madness for the ABC. A 4 or 6 parter over two or three nights would have been far more sensible. Back to the drawing board for the ABC which seems to have far too many misses than hits. What is wrong there?

  8. The Thursday Night Curse in my opinion, and up against giants like MKR it was always hard yakka. It’ll grow, but 2 hours was a bit silly in the first real week of ratings.

  9. Next week both The Straits and Desperate Housewives go back to an hour, but not the same hour, so I can watch both ! Having ‘waded’ through DH since its beginning, I feel I have to be there at the end.

    I’ve also watched The Project in its various incarnations since the beginning, so I’m very pleased that it’s starting to trend up (hopefully). Dave Hughes annoys me though, he’s too dominating, and not all that funny – and terrible at delivering his movie clip intros. They need more genuine wits like Steve Vizard, and more guest journos/reporters like Waleed Aly and Barrie Cassidy. It’s always good to see them there. Not to mention the odd celebrity like Sarah Jessica Parker – who Loved the show!

    I really don’t understand why it’s not more popular, it’s way more interesting and fun than the appalling TT and ACA.

  11. Why did they show the first 2 last night? When it runs to almost 2 hours on the ABC that’s just too much without a break. They should have split the eps with credits and promos for 2 minutes.

    I watched some of it but not sure if I’ll stick with it, even for just another 8 weeks.

  12. If Aussie Audiences had any taste shows like SBS 24hours in Emergency would
    be rating it’s butt off. This is one of the most amazing Television shows I’ve seen.
    True reality TV.

  13. The project doesn’t rate because it’s Boring . It should have always been
    a late night news program instead of TEN’s late news.
    I’d love to see all of them just go to town and speak freely about the news of the day.
    Watching talented comedies trying to be politically correct journos is Dull.
    I mean just look at Charlies Hair!

  14. Wow, a lot of shows from 8.30 rating under 700k mark. There is too much competition on, and with TEN starting shows on the hour is a terrible decision.

    If we had more digital channel allowance, we could have a +1 channel like the UK do for its main channels (and Foxtel has +2 as we all know).
    So we could then have for instance Seven and Seven+1, and the ratings for each program at their specific airtimes can be added together for total program viewership, like the way overnight ratings are done. You wouldnt separate the +1 channel as an individual channel like you would with 7Two and 7Mate. The primary channel share would be Seven and Seven+1 combined.

    This way, each network gets the oppertunity to have a repeat airing of their shows, which opens up for more exposure and ratings. It makes complete sense.

  15. @Steve Sydney – I agree, Twitter gives a distorted view because the reality is far less people are on twitter than watch TV. So it is a vocal minority, population-wise.

  16. I enjoyed The Straits. The beginning was original and fast-paced. Overall, the pace was a little slow for my liking (I think they were on “island time”) but it had potential… and wasn’t by, for and about middle Australia. It had just enough to bring me back a second week.

  19. It’s because it’s average, nothing to do with the timeslot. You can’t compare this to the slap. It’s like comparing Chances to the Sopranos.

  20. Project seems to be trending up which is a good sign.

    I tried to watch The Straits (well I stuck with it, but it just seemed all over the place, too much going on to try to work out who was who and what was happening)

  21. Thursday 8-9.30pm time zone is a suicide zone – too many decent programmes competing for the same audience. (6 last night, in our case).

    Bring on the encore screenings – or shift the schedules around, please.

    I only have 4 PVRs…

  22. Well done to The Project! I thought it would struggle to do 400,000 between 6-7, but over 500,000 for the hour is a fantastic result. It got 600,000 between 6.30-7.02, and that’s almost double what Negus was getting!

  24. I thought this looked beautiful and there were some genuinely original moments but overall I was disappointed. Scratch below the surface and the storytelling was really lacking. It’s very male friendly but what’s in it for the female audience? Though I was really looking forward to it, I won’t be rushing back.

  25. I really think we need to stop using twitter as a gauge to measure the popularity of free to air television. For all we know half or more of those tweets could have been negative with people calling the show boring and promising to never to watch again..

    The other night Gina Rinehart was trending on twitter… Does that mean one of the networks should commission a telemovie on her based on that? … Although I probably would watch it lol.

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