A Current Affair hits bum note with One Direction
Ratings: Viewers switch off ACA's squealy night with One Direction -but the trouble didn't stop there.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Viewers switched off A Current Affair‘s One Direction special in droves as the show plummeted to just 547,000 viewers (surely its lowest number in living memory….).
The show was notable for its squealy teen hecklers, several bored boyband members, and Tracy Grimshaw telling them they were now a ‘man-band.’ Riiiiight.
Not even the 16-39 year old demos came to the aid of the show. It also proved to be bad timing given the big news of the day, the death of cricketer Phillip Hughes, went unacknowledged.
But ACA was not Nine’s only problem last night. Hijacking old shows from GEM and trialling them on the main channel was also a disaster: New Tricks was just 348,000 and Midsomer Murders a dismal 193,000.
Meanwhile Seven’s Beauty and the Geek finale bowed out with 560,000 / 548,000 -probably not enough to win a renewal.
Seven network won another night with 29.1% then Nine 26.0%, TEN 20.5%, ABC 18.8% and SBS 5.7%.
Seven News (989,000 / 943,000) was best for Seven then Home and Away (877,000), Beauty and the Geek (560,000 / 548,000) and Million Dollar Minute (488,000). The Happenings was 290,000.
Nine News (1.1m / 962,000) was best for Nine then King’s Cross ER (620,000), A Current Affair (547,000) and Hot Seat (540,000).
TEN Eyewitness News (616,000) was best on TEN. The Project scored 566,000 / 386,000, Madam Secretary was 560,000, Jamie’s Best Ever Christmas was 517,000, Law and Order: SVU (391,000).
ABC News surged as a result of ACA‘s fail at 879,000 viewers. 7:30 (739,000) was also strong. Catalyst followed with 664,000 then Upper Middle Bogan (596,000) won its slot, It’s a Date (431,000), QI (386,000) and The Midwives (254,000).
Made in Italy with Silvia Colloca premiered to 250,000 for SBS ONE followed by Heston’s Feasts (195,000), Gourmet Farmer (170,000), Vikings (139,000), SBS World News (114,000). Thai Street Food was 67,000.
GO’s Auction Hunters led multichannels at 312,000.
Nine’s Afternoon News: 348,000
Nine News Now: 201,000
ABC News Early Edition: 139,000
Seven News at 4: 97,000 in 3 cities
Seven News at 4:30: 83,000 in 2 cities
OzTAM Overnights: Thursday 27 November
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- Tagged with 7:30, A Current Affair, ABC News, ABC News Early Edition, Beauty and the Geek, Catalyst, Gourmet Farmer, Heston's Feasts, Home and Away, Hot Seat, It's a Date, Jamie’s Best Ever Christmas, Kings Cross ER, Law and Order: SVU, Madam Secretary, Made In Italy with Silvia Colloca, Midsomer Murders, Million Dollar Minute, New Tricks, Nine News, Nine News Now, Nine's Afternoon News, Qi, SBS World News, Seven News, Seven News at 4, Seven News at 4:30, TEN Eyewitness News, Thai Street Food, The Happenings, The Midwives, The Project, Upper Middle Bogan, Vikings
36 Responses
The Project covered the tragic news well last night with a subdued opening to the show. The nannas of the One Direction boys would have been fans of The Monkees too.
One Direction’s performance was excellent!.. the interview was just ok due to Tracey’s awkwardness without a desk.
1D write or co-write their songs and are more on par with the Beatles than a silly comparison to the monkees.
ACA probably should have delayed the telecast until tonight but contractual agreements etc may have intervened.
The commercial news bulletins really overdid the story of the cricketer’s death. Seven Perth spent the first 10 minutes of a 30 minute bulletin covering the story. Back stories beyond the headline really belong in a separate program like Today Tonight or Sunday Night, especially if they are going to take precedence over local news headlines.
Will be interesting to see if New Tricks and Midsomer pick up much in the consolidated figures.
Who ever made that decision to get 1D One ACA should have a talking too! ACA’s viewers are not 7-16yr olds
In years past the last week of ratings would see all the networks bring out their big guns in a race to the finish. Nowadays apart from some lack lustre reality show finales it seems they have lost all interest in trying to grab some last minute viewers before summer kicks in. I suppose they think the finishing order is already determined so why bother.
Only thing I saw last night was The Feed, which did bring out the big guns with its all-star battle. Brilliant work that ends their year on a high. David, any idea from SBS or OzTAM how The Feed went?
Grimshaw and 1D is a case of bland on bland. At least The Monkees played their own instruments (eventually) and even wrote a decent song or two.
Nine really have no idea beyond rolling out the Block and Big Bang (over and over and over).
They killed Ramsey’s Kitchens, They killed BB.
Please oh please let the Block be the next casualty?
Considering there’s nothing interesting about One Direction or Tracy Grimshaw those numbers are actually very good lol.
I’m glad Nein’s lazy programming bombed
At least Ten are trying something different with fast tracking madam secretary
Good on the oztam people with boxes for avoiding that 1D special as well. The ads for it were cringeworthy (‘biggest aca of the year!!’
How did the last episode of Soul Mates rated on ABC2?
Soul Mates was 68,000.
When I saw the commercial for Midsomer and New Tricks for Nine, I thought they’d made and error and it was supposed to be for GEM. I cannot believe they thought this would have worked. Just goes to show how lasy their programming is when they rely on ancient shows, Big Bang and stripped reality.
I’d tip Nine was testing the waters with New Tricks on the main channel.
Having One Direction on ACA is like having Andre Rieu on Couch Time.
I saw the add on Nine for New Tricks and Midsomer Murders and thought it was a mistake and was supposed to say on GEM.
Seeing we are now all 100% digital, what makes any network think that a show that was on one of their digital channels will gain higher ratings on their main channel?
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that 9 was showing ancient episodes of New Tricks and Midsummer Murders. I didn’t realise they had been on Gem, but they’re also recycled from the ABC. They really have nothing except a million episodes of Big Bang. No wonder I never watch 9 – I can’t believe that anyone does.
Not that the other commercial networks are much better. A pox on the lot of them.
Please nine more Big Bang Theory repeats pleeese! not more old shows from the other channels!
Some of the programming decisions by nine are astounding. They think they can put anything on and people will watch whereas they make us wait for new content. Common sense would suggest that a current affair viewers are not one direction fans.
With six episodes a week of home and away I’m falling behind. Too much.
Very sad news about the passing of Phillip Hughes. May he RIP.
Interesting to see ACA’s numbers go significantly down due to their 1D interview.
Brisbane figures would also be lower than usual. Around 80,000 homes were without power last night due to the storms.
@ Sairy. James
I too am glad the creaky old UK shows bombed. But please don’t suggest more Big Bang repeats.
Surprised that Ten is continuing with Madam Secretary during the non ratings as it is more than holding its own during the ratings period. Also not a show that demands fast tracking in order to be successful.
Tonally, it was always going to be an issue as to how to follow the News yesterday. I watched Ten’s lineup and thought they found the right note, considering the sombre 1 hour news was followed by hyper Family Feud, but at least in Syd, Hugh and Sandra got it right, and the Project, with its reliance on funny, also handled it well; it was obvious that Pete Heliar was visibly still distressed by it. What were Nine to do? Delay it? They may not have had anytthing on the shelf to run.
As noted it was a case of bad timing. No easy way out, and hardly ACA’s fault.
I couldn’t believe that channel nine had nothing better to put on than (really old) crappy english shows like New Tricks and Midsomer. I would have even preferred Big Bang repeats.
There was a fantastic review of the ACA ep on smh.com.au today – my favourite line was “One Direction’s new single is undeniably catchy, but then so is Ebola.” and “At least it was refreshing to see teenagers crying on ACA without pleading for the cameramen to “Please leave my dad alone!”.
I don’t understand why they thought it would work!! Teens don’t want to watch ACA. The target audience doesn’t want to see screeching teenagers!
Seriously, SFA on tv last night!! Watched a Simpsons episode on 11 but that was it – and The Project.
With all due respect to Phillip Highes and the horable curcumstances around his death, I do belive that 9 were right to not stop their regular coverage (even if it was a cringe worthy 1 direction interview). Just report the news that he died and give those that are greaving some time to reflect on the death of a family member or friend. Might be a slightily bias opinon because I strongly dislike the sport and I want less of it on my screen.
it was promoted as “the biggest ACA of the year”. if that is the best they can do there are issues.
doing specials on big pop acts can work, when lady gaga did an ACA special it rated 1.3mil and 5SOS sent sunrise over 400k, the problem last night was the band themselves. how much longer can their fans get excited about them when all 5 of the members seem so sick of it?
Not in the least bit surprised that ACA’s One Direction special bombed so badly. When they announced this last week I thought WTF? as it seemed so at odds with their target demographic of older bogans, the radio shock jock audience. Their decision to go ahead with it last night, even after the death of Phillip Hughes was nothing short of shameful. The special should have been pulled, or else delayed until tonight and a special program devoted to Phillip’s death should have been shown instead, in the same way that Seven bumped the golf to 7Two and showed rolling coverage of Phillip’s death. It is even more unforgiveable given Nine’s status as the cricket channel, the first place people turn to for anything cricket. It will take a long time for Nine to redeeem themselves and repair the damage caused by this monumental programming gaffe.