Big Brother finale tops demos -but can’t avoid new low.
Ratings: A decision to air at 8:30 instead of 7:30, plus ARIAs competition, sees Big Brother end at a record low. Seven wins the night.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
At 11 seasons long, 3 of them on Nine, Big Brother fatigue saw the show’s grand final attract its lowest ever ratings.
Nine divided the show into 3 parts, with 737,000 for the moment Ryan was announced as winner followed by 693,000 / 662,000 for the bulk of the show in Preliminary numbers.
Comparatively they are half the numbers of the 2013 finale (Winner Announced: 1.4m / 1.47m / 1.31m), which aired an hour earlier and Live around the country.
Nine’s decision to schedule the finale at 8:30pm in all states, instead of 7:30pm would have been a key factor as well as competition from the ARIA Awards.
But Big Brother won all the key demos, reiterating its deeper value even in the face of a sluggish season. Whether that’s enough for it to win a renewal remains to be seen, despite opening a registration of interest for future housemates.
Meanwhile the ARIA Awards also performed better with younger demos than it did in Total People (Red Carpet:Â 602,000 / Awards:Â 574,000).
In fact the 7:30 timeslot went begging last night -ABC’s 7:30 would have won if not for a 1 hour Home and Away.
Despite two big events, it was Seven that took the night in network share.
Seven network won with a 29.4% share then Nine 28.6%, TEN 19.3%, ABC 18.0% and SBS 4.7%.
Seven News (959,000 / 899,000) led for Seven then Home and Away (817,000), Criminal Minds (800,000 / 615,000), Air Rescue (591,000) and Million Dollar Minute (474,000). Grimm was 222,000.
Nine News (1.04m / 989,000) topped the night for Nine then A Current Affair (884,000). Big Brother was 737,000 / 693,000 / 662,000. Renters was 656,000, Neighbours at War was 632,000, The Big Bang Theory was 521,000 and Hot Seat was 519,000. Nine’s schedule ran late for the night meaning some numbers will be adjusted.
TEN Eyewitness News was best for TEN at 615,000. The ARIAs averaged 602,000 for the Red Carpet and 574,000 for the Awards show. The Project was 548,000 / 454,000.
ABC News (774,000) led for ABC then the season final of Mad as Hell (733,000), Media Circus (717,000), 7:30Â Â (659,000), Home Delivery (494,000), Black Comedy (311,000) and a repeat of The Agony of Modern Manners (244,000).
On SBS ONE it was Wild Croatia (262,000), 24 Hours in Emergency (235,000) and SBS World News (116,000). Fargo was just 49,000.
Big Bang pulled a decent 350,000 on multichannels.
Sunrise: 385,000
Today: 315,000
ABC News Breakfast: 91,000 / 53,000
OzTAM Overnights: Wednesday 26 November 2014
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- Tagged with 24 Hours in Emergency, 7:30, A Current Affair, ABC News, ABC News Breakfast, Air Rescue, ARIA Awards, Big Brother, Black Comedy, Criminal Minds, Fargo, Grimm, Home and Away, Hot Seat, Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery, Million Dollar Minute, Neighbours at War, Nine News, Renters, SBS World News, Seven News, Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell, Sunrise, TEN Eyewitness News, The Agony of Modern Manners, The Big Bang Theory, The Chaser’s Media Circus, The Project, Today, Wild Croatia
21 Responses
David, using your ratings experience and knowledge… How likely do you think it is that Big Brother will return next year?
Very hard to know. If Nine could make the costs work you would bring it back on GO! in a heartbeat, but it’s not cheap when the ad rates are much lower.. The outlook on the main channel is very grim.
Bb will be returning next year… Applications to join the show have been posted online
As the story indicates, an invitation for interested housemates is no guarantee of a renewal. The Amazing Race did the same in 2012.
The show should have ended with Gretel.
If Big Brother was to return in 2015, it should only screen on Go! only where it would have a regular timeslot and be a better fit demo wise with all the other programming on Go!. Big Brother was never a good fit on the Nine main channel. Unlike up to a couple years ago, first run Australian produced content on a multi-channel can now be counted as part of the networks Australian content quotas. Nine should seriously consider.
How is Studio 10 rating ?
I ran those numbers on Tuesday in my ratings wrap.
Please let Big Brother go permanently unto the big eye in the sky! Seriously bland casting each and every season! If they tried to go controversial and divisive like the UK, I might give it a shot but Australian TV is far too cowardly to do so.
BB was also going to deliver reasonable demos. That’s not unexpected.
The show needs to go back to Ten now.
@MJL – Big Brother is on delay in every state for the daily shows as none of that is live so surely that isn’t the reason you stopped watching. Also its easy not to go online and find out who’s evicted etc for simply one hour.
Summed up perfectly Jjfabbsy. Couldn’t agree more.
This season of BB has been marred by bad decision after bad decision, predominantly scheduling. With a 6 month old baby next year I’m not sure how keen Sonia Kruger will be to do another season. Surely its time to rest it again?
Big Brother relies on a consistent schedule – as soon as Nine began moving the show around, breaking viewer habits – the show began to lose steam and the station and producers panicked creating a catch-22 situation of pulling silly stunts, which led to further decline in viewer satisfaction.
On a show that is being produced 24/7 – how can you justify 2-3 days off the air? It’s madness.
This is a much larger issue than the lack of live feeds etc. – because the previous series on Channel 9 were very engaging in spite of this.
I’d give the format another run, and go back to basics – market this “back to basics” approach heavily, strip away all the stunts, go for complete isolation of the contestants. Half the fun is the fact they have no idea what is going on, bar Big Brother announcements.
Also bring back the live nominations – the current Big Brother voice is comedy gold…
I haven’t watched BB since Gretel left but I would be shocked if it wasn’t renewed on the demos alone. On 10 that would be a major hit.
I underestimate that Channel Nine has made terrible decisions with Big Brother putting this show on at 8:30PM this year. Maybe it was due to The Block Glasshouse as well as TBBT. This has rated between 500-600k this year – much lower than Channel 7’s X Factor. Despite low ratings, Nine was able to attract young viewers. For me, I would like to see BBAU cancelled.
I have not seen an episode of Big Brother since it was put on an hours delay in Queensland when daylight saving started.
Looks like the only Reality Shows that rate these days are the talent shows and cooking shows. I’d be very happy if all the other kinds rapidly disappear.
You left out Renovation.
All I have to say is if Nine gave the viewers what we wanted with live streaming ,uplate (even on GO!) and started the season in the 730pm slot throughout the season they would be rewarded with the ratings and the demos. Oh also if they do a housemate hunt for 2015 pick real unknown people not friends of ex contestants. As people may know I am obsessed with BB but after this year I’d rather see it cancel than on Nine again or give it back to Ten.
Rant over.
I think if TEN had coded the show into seperate segments like Big Brother over the 2 1/2 hour broadcast the average would have been a lot higher, but it was well produced nonetheless regardless of the delayed broadcast.