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Which shows are tops in the bush?

Shows that rate big in Metro aren't necessarily tops in Regionals.

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In the bush they love Death in Paradise.

It drew more viewers in regional markets last week than and Reality TV, averaging 456,000 across Queensland, Northern NSW, Southern NSW, Victoria where it is strongest, Tasmania and Western Australia.

It’s just one of the quirks of the different tastes between Metro and Regional viewers.

In the city they love Lego Masters and MasterChef but in the Regionals House Rules was tops last week  -just. It averaged 405,000 viewers while Lego was 404,000 and MasterChef some distance behind at 311,000. House Rules is strongest in Queensland.

Seven News is the clear news leader at up to 692,000 last week, also strongest in Queensland. ABC News was next at 459,000. Nine News trailed at 364,000, winning in Northern NSW -but it has headaches in Tasmania and Western Australia.

The Chase was also well ahead of Hot Seat at up to 420,000 vs 242,000, respectively.

Weekend Sunrise was the top rating Breakfast show at up to 237,000 -strongest in Queensland.

Amongst the other quirks from last week’s results:

  • Northern NSW loves A Current Affair, but not so much in Tasmania and Western Australia.
  • Western Australia isn’t much into Lego Masters, Australian Story, 9-1-1, Paramedics or Britain’s Got Talent.
  • Victoria loves Mystery Road and Lego Masters.
  • Southern NSW likes Hard Quiz, MasterChef and Media Watch.
  • Home and Away was strongest in Queensland, weakest in WA. It was the top rating local drama at 393,000.

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  2. The main reason as to why the ratings differ is due to the legacy stations that originally started in those regions. The locals stay loyal to the “station” or channel that was first in their town or region. For example – Sydney Nine is strong in the inner and metro area. As soon as this heads to the regionals – WIN (now TEN) has the Nine signal for 28 years up until July 2016. When the switch occurred to SCA (Nine regional from July 2016) this audience did not translate straight away as regional viewers were loyal to the WIN brand regardless of programming.

  3. Also:

    “Southern NSW likes Hard Quiz, MasterChef and Media Watch”

    Southern NSW is one of ABC’s strongest markets. Because half the market is made up of the Canberra market, which due to demographics and make up of the city tends to watch a lot of ABC

  4. What the article fails to acknowledge is that a lot of this can be explained by station loyalty

    Like 7 Perth, 7 absolutely dominates in Tasmania and Queensland.

    NBN in northern NSW dominates
    yes and that lifts all Nine shows there which influences across the board

    WIN tends to rate lower than 10

    And ABC tends to be more popular in the top 5 markets than the smaller markets

    And “the Bush” really?

  5. Nine News wins in northern NSW (Sydney’s northern beaches to the Gold Coast) as it’s a well-entrenched hour produced by NBN Newcastle with 6 regional splits. NBN was the first to launch an hour-long news bulletin in April 1972. Similarly Seven News Qld is 7 regional local news bulletins for regional Queensland broadcast each weeknight at 6 pm in all seven regional areas followed by a shortened 30 minute version of Seven News Brisbane. Nine News Tasmania is a relay of GTV9 news. Irrelevant as no local content. Northern NSW loves A Current Affair (loyalty to NBN) but not so much in Tasmania (where the incumbent channels TVT and TNT are WIN/10 and TNT/Seven. Nine is on a ‘secondary’ channel, and WA suffers from the anti-Nine thing in WA. Odd that Home & Away is weak in WA given WA’s love-in with TVW7 and incumbent Prime7 WA.

  6. Having programmed regional television, I found that regional samples tended to be more individualistic than their metro counterparts who were more of a “herd” mentality. I put it down to marketing – regional markets did not have the billboards, the bus sides and the relentless on-air promotion on radio and television that persuade audiences in metro to join the masses and watch a particular program. The “water-cooler-effect” is more pronounced when there is a water cooler to gather around!

  8. Thats interesting, thanks for that info David. I did think the regional viewers would watch and prefer different things. Still don’t know why they don’t add their ratings. You use to be able to get them free with the city ones not that many years ago. We have been watching Outback Truckers as well. Barnwood Builders is interesting too.

  9. I don’t understand why we don’t have national ratings.
    Also, I’m sure people from cities love being described as “from the bush”.

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