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Is the 6pm News sliding?

Ratings: Nobody could manage to crack the magic million on a Tuesday.

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2014-08-07_1253Viewing was again under the magic million last night as early as Tuesday -and this time bad weather in Sydney and Melbourne are unlikely to put the blame on daylight saving.

Once again neither Seven nor Nine news could top the million mark. While they did top their respective networks both were trumped in the demos, reminding us that it is older viewers keeping the total numbers high, while younger viewers are getting their news elsewhere.

Seven was first in primary channels but Nine’s multichannels pushed them over the line.

Nine network was 29.0% followed by Seven 28.3%, TEN 20.8%, ABC 17.1% and SBS 4.9%.

Nine News (983,000 / 951,000) was the night’s top show. Next for Nine were ACA (821,000), Big Brother (628,000) in an earlier timeslot, Hot Seat (547,000) and movie The Hunger Games (461,000).

Seven News (970,000 / 967,000) was best for Seven then Dancing with the Stars (946,000), Home and Away (928,000), and Million Dollar Minute (481,000). Scandal was 354,000.

NCIS was 691,000 for TEN. The Project was 620,000 / 414,000, Jamie’s Comfort Food was 589,000, TEN Eyewitness News was 586,000 and NCIS: LA was 498,000.

ABC News (750,000) was best for ABC then 7:30 (743,000), Foreign Correspondent (708,000), Flying Miners (640,000), QI (421,000) and At the Movies (387,000).

On SBS ONE it was Insight (215,000), The Sixties (211,000), Dateline (171,000) and SBS World News (131,000).

ABC2’s Octonauts topped multichannels with 274,000.

The Morning Show: 133,000 / 71,000
Mornings: 104,000
Studio 10: 55,000 / 25,000

OzTAM Overnights: Tuesday 14 October 2014

29 Responses

  2. An hour of news is too long. I probably don’t mind it if it was on later. The weather is no longer at 6:27 every night. Also, why is the 6:00 news only 30 minutes on Sunday, of all nights?! I hate the inconsistency.

    @Dr_Rudi I’ve noticed 7News Adelaide runs until about 6:34pm weeknights. I don’t know if it’s their attempt to stop us switching over to 9.

  3. The weather was bad enough that it stopped people getting home from work by 6pm (though office workers won’t have left by then).

    Viewers for the news drop of later in the week, and as Summer approaches and every year they are a bit smaller.

    I read newspapers so have never watched TV news. I used to record the PBS Newshour when it was features, but it’s become more of US daily news so I just stream the interesting stories on the weekend.

  4. Ten had the superior hour bulletin up until they were cut to a skeleton staff. Now the Ten bulletin is ordinary – what’s Meakin doing exactly for his pay cheque? He only has one bulletin to focus on which is ridiculous to begin with. Ten need to invest again in news. Seven have their best newsreaders relegated to the weekend bulletins in at least two markets and now fill the majority of their bulletin with rubbish pulled from the Internet, as does Nine. So the falling ratings aren’t a surprise.

    Reality tv is killing commercial channels. Time to put a few of these shows on the shelf for a while. Viewers need more variety. I’d love to see an Australian late night show, someshing in a similar vein to The Tonight Show with Steve Vizard.

  6. Lol at Davey Boy .. we have exactly the same conversation, and come to much the same conclusion, specially on Tuesdays.

    We watch The Project each night, at least there’s some entertainment value and a bit of a laugh.

  7. I cannot recall the last time this conversation occurred in our household, but it did last night:

    Wife: What shows have we got to watch tonight?
    Me: Nothing – unless you count ‘Suits’ at some ungodly hour.

    And that, my friends, is why the ratings were so low last night. I threw on a movie we taped off of Foxtel 2 months back.

  8. The audience and the people running commercial TV news are not even in the same room. Over 55’s are all that they can bet on getting consistently. My guess is that live crosses to courthouses two hours after the court has been locked and everyone’s gone home is not news – but it does give the kids outside in the street a chance to practice their new live cross youtube “pussy” antics. Maybe that’s the only way they can reach this younger section of audience?
    A half-arsed change of some piddly peripheral graphics or contrived stupid ways of how the bulletin opens is likewise meaningless.
    55 + don’t care for annoying screen graphics and window dressed animations that drag on alongside the shallow content for an interminable hour.
    So if they just keep doing what they’re doing the managers of news are accelerating the lack of respect the only remaining section of audience they…

  9. On Sundays – the only day when the news on Seven and Nine is half an hour – we watch beginning to end.

    The rest of the days, news is on out of habit but usually off by the first ad break and sometimes not on at all.

    Half hour is perfect and sums up everything – even if you already know all the news of the day which is now just about always the case. An hour just drags on and is completely unnecessary.

    The ratings suggest that the two half hours rate close to each other – so no big drop off – but they also show that now many simply don’t tune in at all.

  13. @leffy59 – “warmer weather”? In Sydney? Last night? Snow in the Blue Mountains. Rain, wind. 10-16 degrees at 6pm. Would have thought there would have been a surge in viewers last night. Apparently not so, at least for commercial news and Big Brother.

  14. “Once again neither Seven nor Nine news could top the million mark.”

    Is this a trend yet?

    1) Commute times – really, who has a full time job and can get home before 6:00pm?

    2) Seven has an hour news service at 4:00. Nine has half the afternoon dedicated to news. No need to watch at 6:00.

    3) Having read the news online in the course of the day does anyone (regardless of their age) need to see it on television at 6:00?

    4) Even the news starts early and runs overtime (Seven Adelaide, I’m looking at you).

    5) The local commercial news services are rubbish – sadly the ABC isn’t much better.

    The perfect news blend is still the first half-hour of SBS followed by the ABC.

  15. It’s been a year now since 7 and 9 changed to a one hour bulletin. I wonder if this is a sign that people are starting to tire of the extended format? I know I stopped watching them as the stories just became too long and padded with unnecessary filler content that added no value and wasted my time.

  16. Perhaps there are just too many News bulletins..what with Breakfast and Morning shows, then 11am bulletin, then 3.00pm bulletin and then 4.00pn and then 5,00pm and then 6.00pm, the 7.00pm. Not much changes between 3 and 7.30pm unless there is breaking news which is delivered during regular programming anyway.

  17. I got all of my news off the Net. So does 6pm news. New graphics won’t fix it, maybe they should try going out and getting some news.
    The rest of the night was woeful also. I ended up watching recorded stuff.

  18. David, @Steven G, yes need to take into account (back out) 1 & 11’s ratings. However, still safe to say this has been a considerable boost to 10’s ratings – and taken viewers from other networks.

  19. Inconsistent timeslots have not helped BB at all, could it be the end (again)? If Nine do axe it, I hope Ten does an AGT and picks the format up and does it right.

    Lower news bulletins on Seven and Nine are only going to continue I think. An hour is too long, and they both spend significant time on fluff stories than serious political or international issues/stories.

    If the Scandal figure is across the double episode ending close to midnight, that’s pretty damn good!

  20. hmmmm, same old, same old isn’t it?!?! Daylight savings and warmer weather usually causes a ratings slide every year, better things to be doing than sitting in your lounge-room!!!

  21. I used to watch 7 or 9 “news” when it was a half-hour. Now, the one-hour (40 mins + comms) is padded with “new survey- drinking coffee is OK”, Target has some new fashion supplier, SIDS survey, circumcision survey – at dinner time (“another sausage anyone?”), and those ridiculous remotes. What was the cost to have someone standing in front of Cairns hospital, interviewing no one, and telling us no more than the autocue reader had already? Then pad the rest with repetitive weather and sports. And they wonder??

  22. 589K at 7.30 is not terrific, but Jamie’s Comfort Food got its best audience in a long time. I think that was ex Block viewers who did not move to Big Brother. BB languishes around the very same number every night and does not improve or drop irrespective of the timeslot, indicating a small but loyal audience.

    Nine Network still won the night so BB looks to be safe even for next year despite not setting the world on fire.

  23. If dancing with the stars does not get characters like Mark in order and keeps going over time this season will be the worst yet, it’s annoying how long it is, it seems so armature and unorganized.. and towards the end we didn’t even here comments from all judges because Dan kept hurrying them up! I love this show, and I love that my whole family sits around and actually enjoys it, but it needs organization and better time management… Sorry for venting this is just something that’s really bothering me.

  24. These numbers are a result of the commercial networks unimaginative, lazy programming that has for decades lacked creativity, foresight and vision. They’ve shot themselves in the foot, driven their audience to consuming content in other ways whilst providing them no incentive to stay around.

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