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Meoww! Internet cats the answer to Seven’s woes.

Ratings: Who needs drama & documentary? Seven's YouTube cat videos become the #1 entertainment show of the night.

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You can just feel the dogs and the pandas lining up in the wings.

Last night Seven’s audacious programming of YouTube cat videos was the #1 entertainment show of the night at 917,000 viewers. It more than doubled the last audience of Restaurant Revolution, the show it replaced, and defeated The Hotplate (839,000) and The Great Australian Spelling Bee (642,000) -despite the show already being available for free on YouTube.

It was even higher than Seven’s own locally made drama Winners and Losers. Unfortunately for SBS it also over-shadowed their own excellent doco series Who Do You Think You Are? Next week Seven has already promised Dogs Make You Laugh Out Loud -likely to be the first of two specials.

All over Australia producers are now frantically exploring ways to inject grumpy cats into their projects.

Seven Network won the night with 28.9% then Nine 27.3%, TEN 20.1%, ABC 16.9% and SBS 6.9%.

Seven News (996,000 / 940,000) was best for Seven then Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud (917,000), Home and Away (780,000), Winners and Losers (609,000 / 587,000) and Million Dollar Minute (472,000).

Nine News (1.11m / 1.01m) led the night for Nine then A Current Affair (994,000), The Hotplate (839,000), Hot Seat (584,000), The Truth About Sugar (503,000) and Embarrassing Bodies Down Under (324,000).

The Great Australian Spelling Bee was best for TEN at 642,000. TEN Eyewitness News was 638,000, The Project was 603,000 / 526,000, NCIS was 460,000. NCIS: LA was 353,000.

ABC News was 854,000 for ABC then Kevin McCloud’s Escape to the Wild (696,000), 7:30 (665,000), Foreign Correspondent (547,000), Frantic Family Rescue (348,000) and Antiques Roadshow (343,000).

On SBS ONE it was Who Do You Think You Are? (457,000), Insight (267,000), Dateline (189,000) and SBS World News (141,000).

7mate’s Outback Truckers led multichannels with 261,000.

The Morning Show: 137,000 / 80,000
Mornings: 115,000 / 85,000
Studio 10: 68,000 / 45,000

OzTAM Overnights: Tuesday 11 August 2015

108 Responses

  1. I totally saw that coming, to be honest 🙂 I hope Seven realises that Australia is enough with reality TV shows and it’s time to put local drama first!

  3. Proves the point that Seven had to do something completely different to compete against their proven popular MKR formula ripped off by Nine. More evidence for their case and a very clever way to obtain it.

    1. No reason. I rarely drill down into Demos in daily wraps (check any other report for comparison). Occasionally, but not much. Broadly speaking Demos are more for advertisers than public. That said, TVT publishes the Demos everyday under the Ratings vertical, as I have for Hotplate today.

          1. Let’s be honest. The demos are the only things that matter. Win the demos- stay on air

        1. Demos are never covered in the daily rundown, why would David start today? The big news is that 7 put on some crap TV, and the audience lapped it up. Shows people are looking for any alternative to the same old tripe the networks are serving up.

        2. If you are suggesting bias against Nine, why do you not accuse me of bias on a day when I write how well Nine has won the ratings (earlier this week)? Your email address suggests the bias is not with me.

          1. I find we’re all bias towards networks at times. We have our faves and the ones we dislike. I do find most of the comments from one person in particular very heated and consistently negative, to the point where we get attacked for sharing our opinion. I though it was your site DK, do whatever the hell you want!

  6. Who Do You Think You Are….Toni Collette’s story, was very intriguing….I just watched on SBS On Demand…(still difficult to watch)….
    And Seven must be pondering also, how a youtube show can out rate all their shows that cost them $$$ to make…..

  9. It rated well because it was something different. Dogs next week will probably do much the same.

    As long as the networks don’t think these shows will always rate well and commission more of them – because they won’t – lack of variety and too many similar programs is driving people away.

    Wonder if its time for Nine to try Hey Hey again… two specials rated through the roof – then the series they commissioned after it didn’t do so well.

  10. I’m going to watch this special now purely because everyone on here is up in arms about it. Some of the comments here are hilariously overblown. I watch walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, but would also enjoy watching that special on cats over Hotplate or Spelling Bee. No one is more intelligent because of the TV they watch. And no I am not a Liberal supporter, quite the opposite

  11. Astonished at the amount of vitriol for what seems like an entertaining show. I didn’t see it, but only because I forgot and would more likely watch it on tv, rather than while on you tube. It was no worse than the unimaginitive realy programs that are blanketed accross our schedules. I can only assume that the haters have no interest or love for the wonderfully facsinating creatures that are cats.

  13. I Watched The Great Australian Spelling Bee Last Night I love watching the Kids reaction when they get a word right and hearing there comments – I Recorded Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud – I have a Cat and I love him a lot he is funny as well

  14. What a ratings CATastrophe :p

    I know the temptation is to flood the schedule with this filler crap, but the short term sugar hit will be squashed by droves of people continuing to turn off FTA at a very alarming rate

  15. I watched the cat show and loved it. I can’t believe people are commenting that they are “embarrassed to be Australian” because of what other people choose to watch. The cats were far more attractive and entertaining than any of the boring people on The Hotplate.

    1. I am embarrassed to be Australian that people are judged harshly based on what they watch on TV. Some of the comments are pretty constructive and fair here but there are some that are a bit extreme.

  16. I hosted a pub quiz last night where a TV theme tune question was The Jetsons. On hearing the answer, someone piped “Is this what’s replacing Restaurant Revolution?”. Somebody else said “No, it’s funny cats. I’m taping it”.

  17. In reply to greyghost’s comment below, I don’t think it is about being TV snobs, although I admit it does look like it(myself included) but more to the fact that in the middle of a very cold. wet winter , this is what is offered in primetime. There has always been a slot for this kind of show on tv, but what 7 did, is like ITV or BBC showing this as a highlight of their autumn schedules, believe me the brits would be rioting in the streets if that happened. I mean also I don’t think it was shown on channel 5 that early in the evening and they are a minor channel over there.

  18. Wow so Outback Truckers finally gets #1 on Multi’s and its the final show. Aweome but annoying I’m sure. Its already been announced for S4 so hopefully people return to it.

  21. HotPlate is really lowest-common denominator stuff. Narrow-minded lower-middle class Australians bitching about other narrow-minded lower-middle class Australians. It makes MKR look like Masterchef; Professionals. Cultured Australians gave up on commercial FTA years ago – it doesn’t suprise me that current programming panders to the viewers that are left.

    1. You forgot to mention upper middle class bitching about upper middle class, The Housewifes of Melbourne. ewww makes my skin crawl just typing the words.

  24. What a bunch of TV snobs, there has been no quality TV in ages, all we have in that time slot are copycat cooking shows and a spelling bee, sometimes people just want to laugh, and there has been nothing to laugh about on TV lately. Why are most of you having a go at the public, as it is 7 that aired the show. Sometimes you have to blow bubbles in the bubblegum that is television.

    2. We didn’t watch the cats, but I can understand that families and children would have enjoyed it, also those who are sick of cooking and not into spelling. 7.30 has been a wasteland of reality rubbish for too long we need some fun and laughter for the early evening.

    3. Well said. There are so many nasty and pretentious remarks. Some even more dramatic like it is the end of the world for Australia. The cat show didn’t appeal to me and I didn’t watch it but at least it is something different. We all know that quality doesn’t equal ratings. So what if people watch something that you don’t agree with? The last time I checked Australia is still a democratic country (I think).

      1. Indeed. I no longer watch FTA TV and haven’t for nearly two years but I’d most definitely rather watch a collection of cat videos than another cooking show or school kids trying to spell. I honestly don’t understand how cat videos are considered lowbrow but the 150th version of the same old cooking or home renovation show with a load of fake drama for the sake of drama isn’t.

    4. Its nothing to do with the topic in the case cats, its the fact airing a bunch of youtube videos in primetime just reeks of lazy television and unfortunatetly 7 have been rewarded.

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