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Lockdowns not leading to ratings rise

Aside from News, several lockdowns around the nation did not result in much lift for entertainment.

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Despite a number of lockdowns around the nation, TV viewing is barely going up -unless we look to News. But even then they don’t reflect the big rise we saw in 2020.

That left game show The Chase as the top ranking entertainment show of the night at 637,000 / 405,000 metro viewers, followed by Home and Away (634,000).

7:30 won its slot at 656,000 then MasterChef Australia (616,000), Australian Ninja Warrior (615,000), Highway Patrol (430,000 / 352,000) and Win the Week (405,000).

Later Mad as Hell, back with a crowd, was 497,000 -denied the lead in Hard Quiz would normally deliver- then The Front Bar (336,000), The Anti-Vax Conspiracy (294,000) and later, Hurricane of Fire (258,000).

Nine network won Wednesday with 29.8% then Seven 26.9%, 10 19.25, ABC 15.5% and SBS 8.6%.

Nine News (1.17m / 1.06m) was best for Nine. A Current Affair drew 739,000 then Hot Seat (561,000 / 340,000). Footy Classified was 63,000 across the network.

Seven News was #1 at 1.18m / 1.12m for Seven. The Latest drew 288,000.

The Project pulled 533,000 / 324,000 for 10. 10 News First was 462,000 / 282,000. Bull was just 141,000.

ABC News won its slot at 768,000. Starstruck (243,000), The Drum (196,000) and Superwog followed (121,000).

On SBS it was SBS World News ( 178,000 / 135,000), Britain’s Cathedrals with Tony Robinson (163,000) and Tour De France (138,000 across the network).

ABC News at Noon led multichannels at 179,000.

Sunrise: 264,000
Today: 236,000
News Breakfast: 125,000 / 84,000

OzTAM Overnights: Wednesday 30 June 2021

11 Responses

  1. Home and Away has been really good lately. They’ve been exploring some long term storylines and the one with Justin’s (James Stewart) issues with pain medication and addiction has been handled really well. Great acting from James and Ada Nicodemou.

  2. I’ve been loving the Wimbledon tennis on Stan Sport. Really impressive service with all courts streamed, full match replays, highlights and daily wraps plus old throwback matches and other content.

    Given the time difference its unlikely but I’d love for them to pick up the US Open too. I’m not a big fan of the US style of commentary that ESPN shows.

  3. As you say, the viewers should have been higher in lockdown – but I think both of our points are that the viewers are there, just not viewing in a way that the traditional boxes would capture?
    I don’t have an aerial connection, but still watch live broadcasts via the various apps. I watched State Of Origin on 9Now, for example.
    Thanks for the info on VOZ, that sounds very interesting. Perhaps that’s why all of the platforms require a login now, in an effort to put every account into a demographic for reporting purposes?

  4. What I am seeing from recent figures (apart from a push to news services from COVID developments) is a real viewing shift. Apart from the bleed-off to streaming services and other forms of entertainment (gaming and podcasts are often underrepresented in broader thoughts about where the audience is) the great 9.00pm switch-off is now edging earlier. Though purely anecdotal I am hearing people say they can’t be bothered watching reality shows starting at 7.30pm as “they are on too late,” meaning not the start time but they can’t be bothered hanging around until after 9.00pm for a single episode of a show to finish.
    This does seem to be evidenced a little in the ratings figures with a successful program now averaging in the 500,000 to 700,000 range where previously 800,000 to 1,000,000 would be acceptable. Not much the networks can do about it but eventually average/normal ratings must fall below the level of viability even for dreary four night a week reality shows.

      1. I would think so as these shows such as a ‘Rove Live’ are often costly to make ie studio space, writers, live audience where covid just adds to the complexity of making it happen ie Australia’s Got Talent – not going ahead. Or ones like ‘The Panel’ can instead be done with late night news, like Ch7s ‘The Latest’ and just piggy back off the newsroom services; or cleverly packaged into a quiz show like Ch10’s Have You Been Paying Attention. The payback for a late night show probably won’t have the eyeballs to justify the investment, or large gamble.

  5. Essentially the numbers wont rise as there are a fixed amount of boxes in each metro city..The only “true” way would be to analyze 9Now, 7Plus, 10 all access, Iview to see if streaming numbers are up.. Larger data pool to pull from..

    1. As we saw with Origin last week, or MAFS earlier this year, numbers can still be high with same set of boxes. BVOD is certainly up across successive years and VOZ will reflect this better. That said, Wednesday should really have seen more given lockdown.

  7. Does OzTAM include numbers from streaming aggregates? Or just those mysterious “boxes” from the 1960’s? Haha

    It would be interesting to learn exactly how the overnights are calculated in 2021.

    1. OzTAM site has more info on this. They cover metro regions for Free to Air & Subscription TV (not streaming platforms). But they do tally data for iview, 9now etc plus Timeshifted. A new ‘Total TV’ data set called VOZ is also coming.

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