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ABC entertains us on Wednesday. Hard.

Ratings: While commercial networks have all but forgotten about making half hour light entertainment, ABC is running away with the audience.

ABC is benefiting from having half hour light entertainment shows, which commercial networks have seemingly forgotten to commission.

Hard Quiz and Mad as Hell were the top rating entertainment shows last night, upstaging any reality shows that have aired this week and it follows on from the roaring success of the Spicks & Specks (1hr) reunion this week.

Hard Quiz pulled 776,000 in its slot, its biggest audience ever,  followed by 7:30, The Bachelorette‘s 601,000 (which also topped the demos), Bride & Prejudice and Young Sheldon.

At 8:30 Mad as Hell hit the front on 745,000 then Tomorrow Tonight on 567,000, 9-1-1, Playing for Keeps and Manifest.

Best for SBS was Great British Railway Journeys on 268,000.

Seven News, ACA and The Chase won earlier slots.

Seven network won Wednesday with 29.4% then Seven 24.6%, ABC 20.5%, 10 18.3% and SBS 8.0%.

Seven News was #1 for Seven with 958,000 / 951,000 then Home and Away (604,000), Bride and Prejudice (583,000), The Chase (530,000 / 350,000), 9-1-1 (455,000) and Criminal Minds (277,000).

Nine News (904,000 / 890,000) was best for Nine followed by A Current Affair (780,000), Young Sheldon (580,000 / 501,000), Hot Seat (490,000 / 300,000) and Manifest (371,000). A Ghostbusters movie drew 114,000.

Hard Quiz (776,000), Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell (745,000), ABC News (707,000), 7:30 (679,000), Tomorrow Tonight (567,000) and The Set (179,000) comprised ABC’s night.

The Bachelorette topped 10 at 601,000 followed by The Project (475,000 / 261,000), Playing for Keeps (402,000) 10 News First (384,000) and Pointless (217,000). A Blind Date replay was just 137,000.

On SBS it was Great British Railway Journeys (268,000), Food Safari Water (182,000), DNA Nation (172,000), SBS World News (123,000) and The Missing (98,000).

7TWO’s Rosemary and Thyme led multichannels at 151,000.

The Morning Show: 102,000 / 70,000
Today Extra: 88,000 / 63,000
Studio 10: 48,000 / 46,000 / 38,000

OzTAM Overnights: Wednesday 7 November 2018

17 Responses

  1. People under 50 (those still watching TV) were watching The Bachelorette, Playing for Keeps and Bride & Prejudice. The ABC does well because it puts on the only watchable TV that over 60s like, which is irrelevant to the commercial networks because advertisers don’t have to pay prime time advertising rates to reach them.

    1. I’m well under 50, I watch Hard Quiz and Mad as Hell (along with HYBPA they’re the 3 must watch shows on TV these days). Put something interesting on the commercial Networks and I’ll watch it. The shows you mentioned above aren’t interesting in the slightest.

  2. Hard Quiz is doing everything right. Makes me wish ABC had HYBPA and ran it as a companion. They would be unbeatable.

    Loving The Set and the fact that live music finally has a presence on national TV again. It makes no sense being on a Wednesday night though. Would make for perfect evening weekend viewing.

  3. The commercial channels could learn a lot from the ABC about appropriate lengths for programs. Blind date for instance should only be a short, sharp 30 min show. Great to see these shows succeeding over reality TV.

    1. I would have thought BD would be good for 6pm, given Perfect Match reinvented 5:30 slot. Commercials have a tendency to think “We built the set, we hired the talent & crew, let’s just run it for 44 not 22 mins.”

      1. It only makes commercial sense if they can fit the ads that go in 44 minutes into it, that was assuming that it got enough viewers under 55, which it didn’t anyway.

    2. exactly, i mean i don’t mind Bride & Prejudice but drawing it out to an hour & 1/2, & do they think anyone wants to watch that much of FFF, no wonder that ones tanking. Bring back 1/2 & 1 hour shows! It also doesn’t help matters much that Coles, Woolies, Target etc have already started their Xmas ads, the Coles one was on nearly every ad break in the part of B&P i watched before giving up. I dare say alot of people find them so annoying they tune out too & go to abc or netflix

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