How Hey Hey helped Seven to a ratings victory
Nine turned it down, but Seven's success with TV nostalgia tipped over one important scale.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
You couldn’t make this up if you tried…
Last week Seven won 19 of 38 survey weeks (two less than the usual 40 due to the Olympics), putting it in an unbeatable position on the “weeks won” measure.
It won largely due to the huge drawcard of Hey Hey We’re 50 -a special that Nine was offered but did not take up. The show was the top rating show of the week at 1.22m viewers.
That said, Nine led in the demos thanks to The Block and the year is ultimately decided on share not weeks won.
But there’s also a bigger stoush over the demos across the year. Nine objected to Seven’s claims last week at network Upfronts it was winning any way you cut the numbers.
Seven claims across the Calendar Year it is leading 25-54 demos at 36.3% over Nine’s 35.7% in commercial share (to Week 41 without Olympics).
But Nine insists it is winning the demo at 37.1% over Seven’s 33.9% in commercial share (to Oct 11 without Olympics).
So why the discrepancy? There’s also a spat over whether the Olympics constitute 2 weeks or the full 16 days (which spills into 4 calendar weeks).
Meanwhile, here’s how last week stacked up….
Network:
Seven: 29.6
Nine: 28.2
10: 17.7
ABC: 16.1
SBS: 8.4
Primary channel:
Seven: 20.3
Nine: 19.9
ABC: 11.7
10: 11.3
SBS: 5.0
Multichannels:
7TWO / 7mate: 3.4
10 BOLD: 3.3
9GEM: 2.8
7flix: 2.5
10 Peach: 2.4
9GO!: 2.2
ABC TV Plus / ABC News / 9Life: 2.1
SBS VICELAND: 1.4
9RUSH: 1.2
SBS Food: 1.0
SBS World Movies: 0.9
10 Shake: 0.8
ABC ME: 0.3
NITV: 0.1
Nine led the demos 16-39 and 25-54.
Seven led on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Nine won Monday, Wednesday & Saturday.
Seven claimed Sydney, Adelaide & Perth. Nine won Melbourne & Brisbane.
Best brands last week were:
Seven: Hey Hey We’re 50 (1.22m), Seven News (Sun: 1.04m), SAS Australia (Tues: 631,000) and Home & Away (580,000).
Nine: Nine News (Sun: 996,000), The Block (924,000), A Current Affair (682,000) and 60 Minutes (478,000).
10: Have You Been Paying Attention? (697,000), Celebrity MasterChef (620,000), Gogglebox (577,000) and The Dog House (481,000).
ABC: ABC News (678,000), Gruen (658,000), Four Corners (602,000) and Hard Quiz (552,000).
SBS: Australia’s Health Revolution (264,000), Coastal Devon & Cornwall with Michael Portillo (246,000), Back to the Titanic (210,000) and Great American Railroad Journeys (209,000).
Including this week, there are 6 more survey weeks this year.
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- Tagged with 60 Minutes, A Current Affair, ABC News, Australia's Health Revolution, Back to the Titanic, Celebrity MasterChef, Coastal Devon & Cornwall with Michael Portillo, Four Corners, Gogglebox, Great American Railroad Journeys, Gruen, Hard Quiz, Have You Been Paying Attention?, Hey Hey It’s 50 Years!, Hey Hey We’re 50, Home & Away, Nine News, SAS Australia, Seven News, The Block, The Dog House
11 Responses
The Hey Hey special was great. Daryl is still a bit annoying though,but what do you do???
Australian TV definitely needs more Raymond J Bartholomew though. He was awesome.
Agree, Raymond J Bartholomew was fantastic, a great surprise, was great he was able to be in the studio too. I wonder who they might get to perform if a second special eventuates.
Jeez, you really do love Hey Hey and Daryl don’t you? You even bury the lede by slipping in “ the year is ultimately decided on share not weeks won”.
That said, I completely get and appreciate that you’ve always maintained that TT has been and will continue to be a blog – so I don’t hold anything against you or the great work you do. I just don’t share your “stanning” as my grandkids say 🙂
Ha… Fin Review ran with demos lead, so it’s good to find another angle. Hard to go past the irony of a Nine show giving Seven the year in weeks won. Can’t make that stuff up!
I am interested to find out how many people watched Hey Hey on 7plus. Thanks
You can click on the Ratings and see Total TV for that date.
Didn’t realise how dominant team red have been, what a come-back and one that would surely have TCN-9 bosses noses out of place.
In my opinion, it just reads sour grapes from Nine, they shouldn’t be even bothering to spin when they’ve clearly lost Total People (not including Tokyo 2020) by a considerable margin.
I recall TVT at the end of 2018 in your auricle using “Nine come home with a wet sail” and “losing 25-54 clearly a disappointment for Nine”… Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that was including Comm Games and Winter Olympics? So this year, whichever way it’s cut, going to be even more than 2018.
And The Voice was miles higher than Married, so they’ve also lost the “No. 1 show”.
So all I’m saying is, it just sounds silly an incumbent No. 1 network trying to discredit another network’s obvious turn-around and success stories this year. Happy to be told off otherwise, but it’s almost now like a “c’mon, seriously” mood.
1.22 mil in a population of 25 mil is tiny, when you consider that in its heyday Countdown used to get 3 million viewers a night (pop 12 million back then).
You don’t compare pre-OzTAM to current OzTAM they are a different measure. But that Countdown number if correct would be national… Total TV number for Hey Hey is currently 2.12m.
In its ‘hey day’ Hey Hey didn’t have to compete with Netflix, Stan, etc.
totally different environment and viewing habits, then versus now. When Countdown was on we only had 5 channels in the capital cities, no internet/streaming, no pay-TV and if you were lucky you might have had a VCR. In country areas it was only ABC and 1 other channel, and limited access to popular music on the radio, etc., so pop music shows like Countdown had a very captive audience and very little opposition. Even so, I’m not sure it could claim to have an audience of a quarter of the entire population of Australia.
And as David has mentioned, ratings methodology and platforms have changed since then, too, so comparisons are difficult.