★★★★★ 0/5

Criminal Minds beats Big Brother as Seven takes Wednesday

Ratings: Big Brother will need to deliver more storylines if it is to stop a trickle becoming a ratings leak.

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2014-09-18_1011Big Brother may be scoring well in its younger demos, notably 16-39, but its Total People numbers are already slipping. Last night the show had 634,000, down from last Wednesday’s 777,000. It also lost its timeslot last night, beaten by Criminal Minds 799,000 (although Nine took the younger demos).

The Bachelor also did better business in all 3 demos 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54-albeit in an earlier timeslot.

While Big Brother has copped some criticism in the media and from fans for its casting, storyline editing and lack of Live Updates, one of its problems is the audience needs to peel back the layers of its characters. Focussing on romantic storylines so much and shutting down Live Updates diminishes their stories.

But primetime was not the only story in yesterday’s numbers.

Sunrise is whacking Today, both of which are now on terra firma. Sunrise pulled a big 411,000 to Today‘s 280,000.

Seven network won its second night of the week with a 31.0% share then Nine 30.1%, TEN17.7%, ABC 16.2% and SBS 4.9%.

Seven News (1.1m / 1.01m) was best for Seven then Home and Away (931,000), The Force (864,000), Border Security (82,000), Criminal Minds (799,000 / 544,000) and Million Dollar Minute (564,000).

The Block (1.17m) topped the night for Nine followed by Nine News (1.09m / 1.03m), A Current Affair (968,000), Big Brother (634,000), Hot Seat (589,000) and Two and A Half Men (284,000).

TEN’s The Bachelor lifted from last week (774,000). TEN Eyewitness News was 577,000, The Project was 560,000 / 457,000, Wonderland was 458,000 and Extant was 166,000.

ABC News (754,000) led the night for ABC then Utopia (603,000), 7:30 (586,000), QI (520,000 / 409,000), Reality Check (444,000) and a repeat of Head First (295,000).

On SBS ONE it was Living with the Enemy (234,000), Wild Britain (207,000), SBS World News (122,000) and Borgen (110,000).

7TWO’s Rosemary and Thyme was best on multichannels at 303,000.

Sunrise: 411,000
Today: 280,000
ABC News Breakfast: 76,000 / 46,000

OzTAM Overnights: Wednesday 17 September 2014

27 Responses

  2. I love BB but will admit it’s a little slow to get going.
    The time slot isn’t helping and it should only go for an hour.
    Not keen on the playing in pairs scenario either.
    Should of been every one for themselves from the start.
    Will still watch though.

  3. I really think 9 need to have another look at BB’s timeslot. at 10 o’clock at night, I don’t want to be watching reality. Reality TV is made for eating your Dinner to… or Tidying up to…
    Later in the evening people just want a nice Drama….

  4. The worse BB does the better the chances of new episodes of TBBT in a reasonable slot. But its still rating well with <40s even though Go!'s TBBT and Dark Knight tooks some viewers away from it.

    Criminal Minds and Rosemary & Thyme picked those who wanted drama before their bedtime.

  5. Really disappointed in BB this year, it deserves those ratings. There is a lack of compelling content in the daily shows to connect with the housemates, and not all housemates are getting balanced coverage. I’m now recording the daily shows so that I can skip through the ads and rehashed pieces and best of all don’t have to wait for The Block to finish.

  6. I gave up an extant a few weeks ago when I went to watch it on tenplay on my windows phone and it wasn’t there (had previously seen episodes on there). Was losing interest in the show and ten gave me the final reason to give it the flick.

  7. I’m going to miss Laurina from the Bachelor. Miss Dirty Street Pie is one interesting person to watch. Really enjoying the series too.

    I checked out BB last night and have to agree with the many other comments. Very badly cast, I hear lots of noise from the housemates, but they say very little that is interesting. Basically there seems to be a lack of personality depth. It’s a shame, last season wasn’t to bad and I guess I expected something similar and maybe better housemates wise this season.

  8. Why not just have BB with a group of people in a house for 3-4 months and see what happens in 16 weeks time? No games, stunts, special twists, forced romances, evictions, just keep everyone there, a few of each sex, religion, age, sexuality and have the audience vote for the winner at the end of the series.

    Would possibly be worth watching then – see natural behaviour take hold and not crafted drama to try and grab ratings.

  9. I Am watching big brother but not enjoying it as much as i have done previosouly this years housemates arent that appealing nines version isnt as good as what tens was but if it came down to having nines version or none at all i wouod still prefer to have nines version i just wish we had live streaming and friday night live with the live streaming you got to see the housemates in depth

  10. On Reality Check last night Peter Abbott talked about how a German Producer of Big Brother had warned them not to do too many stunts and twists as it takes the contestants away form dealing with living in the house with others. The Big Brother German Producer had apparently said that they painted themselves into such a corner with stunts and twists, that all that was left was to kill someone.

    This is true of Big Brother Australia right now, with engaging people in tasks, games, whatever, it is pulling them away from the how do they function with other people aspect.

    The Block is also in this territory right now, making it bigger every series, well eventually the bubble has to burst as how big can they keep getting. Plus the contestants voting on each other’s work, this is for causing drama’s, so less focus is on the build at hand (from a viewing perspective).

    Both I’ve…

  11. @Secret Squirrel – yeah, fair call.
    I have been a bit of a sucker for BB in the past.
    Every year I vow not to watch but it ends up drawing me in.
    Same happened this year but it appears there’s nothing at all to draw me in this time.
    Time to move on ….though I don’t agree about there being so much good content at the moment.
    Not on FTA anyway…

  12. If anyone’s interested, I watched Sin City on SBS2 last night. An absolutely stunning movie, great stories and very stylish visuals. Worth seeing again.

  13. People have been complaining for 10 days about how boring BB is and yet they keep watching it. I don’t understand that. There is way too much good content for me to waste my time watching something that doesn’t engage me. Just sayin’.

  14. I actually watched some of BB last night. My goodness it was boring. I do not know what 9 were thinking running it at 8:40 for what, 90 minutes. No one at that time slot wants to watch boring people sit around chatting or a stretched-out nomination process. If 9 do not have enough length in their ratings schedule to run stripped reality shows at separate times rather than overlapping them and giving one of them the wrong timeslot they need to shorten their series so they can fit. Family friendly shows do not air at 8:40 for a very good reason.

    BB could easily be run as a stripped weeknight show, an hour episodes on Monday, Tuesday and Friday for eviction, nominations and Friday games, and 30 mins on Wed and Thurs for daily show. When there’s not much happening on a show dragging it out will not make it any more interesting.

  15. Agree with the comments here about BB – an especially boring, unappealing cast this year and yes, seems overly manipulated and even scripted.
    The beauty of early BB was that it was spontaneous and unpredictable.

  16. If Sunrise starts to pull these numbers regularly, Today should start to weild the axe. My suggestion is for Today to grab Adam Boland and completely re cast the show. It has become old and dated.

  17. Problem with BB this year is it’s being micromanaged by the producers.

    Rather than throwing them into the house as a social experiment, this year every hour seems organised and manipulated from behind the mirrors.

    I wanna get to know the yuppies but BB has them too busy with parlour tricks.

  18. Interesting that last season The Batchelor lifted in the final weeks also.

    Big Brother not really interested watched a couple of seasons then switched off.

    Dont watch morning TV much if I do it is mainly ABC 24.

  20. @DaveyBoy – Extant is like Under the Dome. Both started out great but have dragged on for too long and are now slower than Bold & the Beautiful. Still watching Extant but have given up on UTD.

  21. I’ve stuck around for 10 seasons of BB wanting to watch eps every day. This week, I honestly could not care less about it… I’ve struggled to get myself watch it. Producers have gotten it wrong this season with the length of the show (way too long) and the way the stories are being shown.

  24. I’ve tried watching Big Brother, but have now stopped. The cast isn’t appealing, and I don’t like how BB is creating situations or dramas purposely – he seems to aggravate the situation.

    Is Sunrise beating Today in Sydney and Melbourne? I watch Sunrise over Today, but then watch 9 or 10 News over 7, which is appallingly bad in Sydney atm.

  25. I am one of the 166K still watching ‘Extant’… & I have no idea why. Just a glutton for punishment, I guess.

    It’s clearly not rating that well since it’s on at approx 11pm, but if I was 7, I’d put some summertime promotion into airing the 2nd series of ‘Motive’. It would attract the Bones, Castle & Criminal Minds crowd well.

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