0/5

Breaking news drives ABC’s night

Ratings: Schedules in disarray ....but ABC finishes in second place, just 0.1% from claiming top spot.

2015-09-15_1008

It was a night of high drama, as it would have been in the offices of TV programmers making rolling decisions about whether to stick with scheduled programming, draw upon multichannels or dump earlier plans.

Today’s numbers are a bit of a hot mess in terms of knowing quite how the evening unfolded. They include figures for shows that did not air, and will be adjusted later, ran overtime or in some cases, were simulcast. Commercial networks largely stuck with their early evening schedules given the vote was not announced until after 9:30, but switched to late night news bulletins.

The best indicator of how viewers reacted is to look to the channel shares. They show a big surge for ABC, which finished in second place behind Seven -split by just 0.1%. ABC News 24, which was partly simulcast on the primary channel, scored a 6.1% share alone.

Yesterday was also the premiere of The Chase on Seven, which has been coded as two shows but enjoyed a good launch, while Sunrise‘s Dubai broadcast saw a big win over Today.

Seven network won with 27.6% then ABC 27.5%, Nine 24.6%, TEN 15.7% and SBS 4.5%.

The X Factor (1.22m) was best for Seven then Seven News (1.09m / 1.04m), Home and Away (778,000), The Chase (720,000 / 520,000) and What Really Happens in Thailand (633,000).

7:30 appears to have drawn its best numbers all year at 1.06m viewers. While not all shows aired, the numbers indicate ABC News (985,000), Media Watch (868,000), Australian Story (805,000), Four Corners (731,000) and Q & A (739,000).

Nine News (1.18m / 1.15m) led for Nine followed by A Current Affair (1.02m), The Block (891,000), House Husbands (748,000), Hot Seat (620,000) and Footy Classified (592,000).

TEN barely scraped into the Top 20 with TBL Families (685,000) and The Project (634,000 / 497,000). Have You Been Paying Attention? was 506,000, TEN Eyewitness News was 508,000 and NCIS: News Orleans was 258,000. The last ever Under The Dome ended with 102,000.

On SBS it was Is Binge Drinking Really That Bad? (249,000), Vaccines: Calling the Shots (194,000), SBS World News (162,000), and The Island with Bear Grylls (155,000).

Lateline topped the night on multichannels with a bumper 414,000 viewers on ABC News 24.

Sunrise: 411,000
Today: 317,000
ABC News Breakfast: 113,000 / 45,000

OzTAM Overnights: Monday 14 September 2015

26 Responses

  1. Nine completely ruined the gay marriage edition of House Husbands by filling half the screen with the Liberal Party turmoil and promising a result that never came in the timeslot. If they wanted an hour of Abbott v Turnbull why even bother with House Husbands?

  2. The host of The Chase was awful – like a charicature of a bad 80’s game show host. Suspect Seven will stop coding it in half hours too when they realise the second half hour isn’t beating Hot Seat and losing a significant chunk on the first half hour. 620k across the hour vs 620k for Hot Seat sounds much better.

  3. Think the UK version of The Chase is a better production, but as with any new show it has to be given time to settle in and finds its own feet and maybe when that happens here, people will be used to the Australian style and enjoy it as much, I will keep with it for a while to see what the chasers are like, as their trivia knowledge is unbelievable, hope people give it a good shot.

  4. a good start to the chase I do think the uk version is better but we’ll see how the rest of the week goes if the ratings go down or stay the same I was over the constant news on the government spill good to see the x factor doing well it feels like a brand new feel to the show I thought h&a might have got a boost from the x factor run in but still not much difference and i knew WRHIT wouldn’t do huge numbers but did do better then most shows they ‘ve had on monday night. I see HYBPA seems to have found a audience.

  5. The editing of The Chase let the show down. The first contestant part was good, but from the second contestant onwards it felt flat and rushed with little interaction with the governess. Andrew looked a bit lost during these. Also what it is the point of talking to the other contestants after a money choice was made, that is not how it is done on the Uk show. It is like the direction forgot to consult first and then pick a money amount.

  6. Saw 10 minutes of the chase. Okeefe did not draw breath the whole time, I wanted to pick my eyes out with a fork it was excruciating viewing, never again, watched Tbl weigh ins thought it was ok but not good as good as Sunday’s episode. Still refusing to watch X factor I am hoping the novelty burns off soon and it crashes and burns, I am predicting it will. Watched house husbands again was one of the better episodes of the year but still not as good as past seasons, I doubt it will go again next year.

  7. I haven’t seen any of the Chase but Mum who sometimes watches the UK version saw about 10 minutes of it but got annoyed with Andrew and turned off. Surprisingly she didn’t have the same issue with him on DOND

  8. I stuck with X Factor for the whole episode instead of changing over to House Husbands as planned. Was still waiting for HH to start at 9:15pm in Perth so gave up and will watch when it is added to Jumpin days later

  9. I wonder how many spills in government the ABC are looking forward to in the future just for ratings success… Considering how well they have triumphed in their anti Abbott mission! Other then that I’m glad the chase did well tho I am certain 7 expected higher figures considering it was a premiere and highly promoted with the Uk’s Anne haggerty aka ‘the governess’. The hot seat still did well tho find it Interesting how all of a sudden the hot seat has now made big winners of its contestants.. Considering how sneaky and threatened 9 is over 7 I’d be quite pissed off if I was a past contestant not being given a chance to win the money the hot seat now gives away!!!

    1. Funny, I thought it was the 54 LNP MPs who turfed Tony. ABC just reported it, and pretty well too – except for the ABC reporter on 24 at 12:11pm AEST today claiming he was “in Tony Abbott’s electorate of Wentworth”. Perhaps that’s news for next week being prerecorded?
      The ABC that has had numerous “independent enquiries” into “ABC bias”, all declaring there isn’t any bias. Like beauty, bias is in the eyes, or ears, of the beholder.

    2. Exactly Jason. Well said 🙂

      To me, what this indicates is that when there is an actual news story breaking, then people will turn to who they trust the most. It really indicates how little faith people have in commercial news and shows the dire need we have for the ABC.

  10. David, partly implied from your useful ratings summary story, that due to the political shenanigans unfolding last night in Canberra, the regular Monday mid-evening ABC line-up of Australian Story, Four Corners and Media Watch and Q&A all switched to ABC2 while rolling news of the ‘coup’ ran on ABC1 following the conclusion ‘7.30’. Hence figures for those four current affairs stables would have been ratings for the ABC News 24 simulcasts going out in the respective timeslots.

      1. Humans was on ABC2 (the only thing I cared about). They went to Media Watch when it finished at 8:20pm.

        That Turnbull and Bishop tapped Abbott on the shoulder was announced in the afternoon. They obviously thought they had the numbers and Abbott and the Right has lost control of the ministry as well as the back bench. The meeting was for 9:30pm and the vote not announced till after midnight. So all the ABC was broadcasting was speculation.

  11. As I expected, ChaseAU wasn’t a patch on the UK version. It was rushed, it seemed. Andrew OKeefe isn’t at all suited to this. He rarely engaged the contestants on their answer choices, as happens in the UK with Bradley, and there wasn’t much interaction with Anne. The actual chase board is shorter, and it all seemed geared toward fitting in the commercial breaks. Strange that 7 can cut up the UK show enough to fit in commercials, yet needed to rush the format for the local.
    I still feel a less over exposed host, like Tommy Little or Chrissie Swan could do better.

  12. The Chase Australia was great last night. Andrew is a nice fit as host, The Governess was in top form and the final chase was close and compelling. I predict the ratings will only go up, it’s real test however will be over the coming days with the untried Chasers.

  13. @ David Knox – this might be a little out of your wheelhouse but I was thinking last night, with TEN having a special news broadcast at 9:40pm after HYBPA (replacing the NCIS:NO repeat) on the East coast, was that shown live in WA replacing TBL Families?

Leave a Reply