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ABC NYE raises over $2m for Red Cross

But why does ABC always undersell its own ratings results?

ABC’s New Year’s Eve broadcast helped raise more than $2 million dollars for the Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund.

Director of ABC Regional & Local Judith Whelan said Australians had turned to the ABC in their millions to connect, celebrate and support those in need: “The ABC’s New Year’s Eve broadcast brought together millions of Australians in support of bushfire-affected communities. Thank you to everyone who gave so generously to our joint appeal with the Australian Red Cross and City of Sydney, which raised more than $2 million to help people in need across the country.

“I would also like to thank the ABC staff and crews who worked through the night to bring our New Year’s Eve coverage to audiences here and overseas. Thanks, too, to the ABC broadcasters, reporters, presenters, producers, staff and crew who continue to deliver emergency broadcasting services to communities under threat. People turn to the ABC at such times and we are proud of our role in helping to keep them informed and safe.”

ABC stated in a press release the broadcast drew a 5 city metro prime-time share of 26.3%.

But that undersells the actual share of 32.2%.

ABC ratings people always get this wrong. It’s only 26.3% if you include Pay TV share. ABC is the only broadcaster to continually make this error and I can’t figure out why…. happy new year.

Last night, ABC was the leading network in the metro markets with a 5 city metro prime-time share of 26.3% (2018 result was 22.0%). The highest share was in Sydney, with a prime-time share of 35.4%.
ABC TV’s New Year’s Eve: Midnight Fireworks was the #1 program of the night, New Year’s Eve: Countdown to Midnight was ranked #2 and New Year’s Eve: Family Fireworks was ranked #3.
New Year’s Eve: Midnight Fireworks achieved an average audience of 1.8 million across ABC and ABC NEWS (Combined Metro & Regional.)
New Year’s Eve: Countdown to Midnight achieved an average audience of 1.2 million on ABC (Combined Metro & Regional).
New Year’s Eve: Family Fireworks achieved an average audience of 980,000 across ABC, ABC NEWS and ABC ME (Combined Metro & Regional).
ABC’s NYE coverage was live streamed 209,000 times on iview last night, which was up +132% on the 2018 NYE result. The ABC channel live stream generated 119,000 plays yesterday, (70,000 in 2018) which was the highest result for the channel on iview ever!

Sources: OzTAM & Regional TAM Preliminary Overnight data; OzTAM VPM data, live stream based on: ABC, ABC NEWS and ABC ME channels, highest result ever based on daily results across 2017/18 since measurement commenced.

Social Audiences

ABC’s New Year’s Eve 2019 coverage was live streamed directly to ABC TV and iview’s Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts and shared to 33 ABC and partner accounts. This included 25 of the ABC’s location-based regional and capital city Facebook pages, allowing Australians across the country to celebrate New Year’s Eve together, regardless of their location, with the message to donate prominently featuring throughout the night. 

  • Total views across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram of concert and fireworks so far: 1.6M.  
  • On Twitter, the Midnight Fireworks stream has 869K viewers so far. #NYEABC trended #1 on Twitter during the broadcast,  with over 3900 tweets using that hashtag in the last 24 hours and potential reach of 6.5M.  
  • On Facebook, the live streams and highlights packages amassed a combined total of 275K+  views across ABC and partner pages overnight.  ABC New Year’s Eve GIFs to celebrate the night reached over 2.3 million views. 
  • On YouTube, ABC TV’s live stream and highlights packages had 460K views at the time of reporting.  
  • To celebrate the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages, five Indigenous language packages from around the country were shared on the relevant local pages. These received more than 22.6K views. 

Sources: Facebook Insights, Twitter, YouTube Analytics and Instagram Analytics. Numbers correct at 9am 1 January

8 Responses

  1. Was a very enjoyable gig especially for us old timers who actually know who Tex Perkins & Steve Kilbey are, i also enjoyed the amazing talent of Casey Donovan as always. It certainly beats watching some fireworks in between the ad breaks on 7, i notice 9 didn’t bother at all this year.(in Melbourne anyway)

  2. Only $2 million? thought having the fireworks was meant to help raise more money? the $5 million spent on fireworks probably should have gone to help aid the fire fighters.

    I watched the fireworks in Adelaide (which literally caused a small bush fire) and all I could think as it fire work exploded was how the money could’ve been used better.

    Moving forward fireworks should be banned.

    1. I also thought they might raise more money than that, but its a non commercial network which maybe part of the reason (comparing it to amount raised by recent Hay Mate on 9), also people a bit cash strapped after Xmas. &/or already given to other fundraisers.
      The fireworks had already been planned & paid for months in advance, it would’ve just been silly to cancel it under those circumstances. But i do agree we need to look at doing something less expensive & potentially dangerous than fireworks for future NYE celebrations.

    2. I don’t agree, the community fireworks on NYE are a great way to bring people together to celebrate the end of the year. The government (state and fed) could easily find that $5 mill to give to such needs if they cut back on boozy lunches and overseas junkets…

  3. Weather was pretty crappy where we were so ended up watching this from 9pm until a few songs into Rage while sipping on a few sherberts.

    Was wonderful to see Australian Rock Legend Steve Kilbey perform amongst all the cover band singers. Would have a loved a couple of other The Church songs ….. tantalised, almost with you, reptile …. to name a few. Had the pleasure of meeting him and the rest of The Church before a gig in 2018.

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