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“A shambles”: viewers slam not so Great Debate

"A shitshow", "a shambles", "embarrassing", "a mess," a "debacle -just a snapshot of what viewers thought of Nine's leaders debate.

Viewers took to social media to slam the conduct on last night’s poorly-conducted debate between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese.

As both leaders shouted over one another, ignoring moderator Sarah Abo, viewers described the event, variously as “a shitshow”, “a shambles”, “embarrassing”, “a mess” and a “debacle.” It will be up to Seven to rectify the staging, with Mark Riley reportedly due to stand in between the leaders.

But The Great Debate did rate for Nine, averaging 641,000 metro viewers, a good figure given the post 10pm ending and it helped Nine to win the night.

Earlier The Voice led at 766,000 then Lego Masters (664,000), MasterChef Australia (452,000) and Grand Designs (415,000).

Elsewhere 7News Spotlight averaged 383,000 with FBI at 208,000 / 103,000 then Fall of the Maya Kings (148,000) and Barons worringly last at just 133,000.

Nine network won Sunday with 33.4% then Seven 30.4%, 10 15.8%, ABC 12.5% and SBS 7.9%.

Nine News (862,000) was best for Nine with a late edition high at 402,000.

Seven News was #1 at 879,000 for Seven.

The Sunday Project drew 307,000 / 206,000 fo 10. 10 News First was 198,000 / 153,000.

ABC News was 581,000. Compass (174,000) and Life (103,000) followed.

On SBS it was SBS World News (175,000 / 112,000), Secerets to Civilisation (131,000) and The Real Lawrence of Arabia (113,000).

Insiders led multichannels at 144,000.

In Total TV viewers last Sunday were:

Barons: 300,000
Lego Masters: 1.16m
FBI: 373,000
MasterChef Australia: 744,000
The Voice: 1.38m

OzTAM Overnights: Sunday 8 May 2022

21 Responses

  1. It’s funny how people comment according to their political biases. From a purely academic point of view, as a teacher marking a debate, Morrison would get a higher mark for constructing arguments thoughtfully and backing up with evidence, regardless of whether you like him or agree with those arguments. And for all those people saying 9 are biased towards Liberal, the journalist from the Fairfax newspapers showed an obvious bias towards Labor in every question, even using the wording from their attack ads in one – ‘so that’s not your job Prime Minister?’

  2. I only saw one badly behaved person last night. This ‘both behaved badly’ the media keep peddling is rubbish. Albo was forced to shout back to get a word in or be heard. Sara Arbo should have pulled him into line & told him to let Albo speak. He asks him a question & then starts shouting over him & not letting him answer. I hope Mark Riuley does better. I hate to admit it but the Sky one was better. Letting the people ask questions rather than biased ‘journos’ is a better way.

  3. The most annoying part for me of The Leaders Debate was the ‘journalists’ interrupting the leaders 60 second answers to push their own agendas. They seemed to mostly do it to Albo and no extra time was given for the time they took away from them.

  4. Fascinating science on the 2 archaeological docos on SBS last night-top viewing if you don’t care for singing contests or shouting matches…

  5. So it would seem it was not a 50/50 tie that 9 is trying to feed everyone?
    I could not watch….I cannot deal with that smug ScoMo smirk anymore…and this is from someone who voted for him (I am a swinging voter)…I have since come to deeply regret that decision 😞

  6. It wasn’t half as bad as people have made out. Isn’t it good to see our leaders passionately advocate and articulate their views? It was entertaining, live, unscripted with no filter – great tv. And the ratings reflect that. When was the last time 60 Minutes retained that much of the lead in audience?

  7. The Great Debate was awful last night! Both Scomo and Albo shouting at each other, constantly interrupting each other and speaking over the moderator and even those asking the questions!

    For the next debate, I hope they take a note out of the last US presidential debate and mute the participants microphones once the allocated time is up…

  8. Barons I am still just watching, Seems to take a long time to get to anything in the story instead we see endless surfing shots. Ostensibly shot with a 16mm Bolex, I had one once. I hope it gets better, it has a great lead in with Kevin and Grand Designs.
    Hard to see and to fathom out just where some characters fit in.

    1. i haven’t watched it yet but by what you’re saying perhaps it was designed partly for viewers who enjoy watching that sort of detail because they are surfers themselves, perhaps the type of people who would buy surfing magazines & watch surfing docos, I don’t know if you fit into that demographic.

    2. Halfway through last night’s episode it occurred to me that Barons is pretty terrible. The writing is terrible, the pacing is lackadaisical and the production design and costuming lacks the detail of the far superior Puberty Blues. The surfwear storyline keeps getting forgotten.
      The cast is pretty good but even the jacked leads aren’t enough to keep me watching.

  9. I much prefer town hall style, normal people ask much better questions than journalists. The questions and topics last night were straight out of the press gallery echo-chamber. “What is the definition of a woman?” ffs.

  10. Politicians will be politicians but the real issue here was the horrendous format. 60 seconds for responses was way too short and as it played out they should have seen that it wasn’t working. Debates are at their best when they can actually debate each other and often good moments were arbitrarily cut off by the moderator. Also the questions were a joke. “What can you do to lower the price of lettuce?” – followed by analysis by the panel that politicians actually can’t do much. So why ask? The truth pledge at the start was cringeworthy and unnecessary. And for the final question to be on anti-siphoning…. how self-indulgent. A mess from start to finish.

  11. Tried voting for Albo but it did not work for me or many others (see Twitter) but apparently the Coalition and Scomo button worked fine. It was rigged. What country is this?

    1. Nine’s online “poll”. “Which party do you think will win the election?” ( Three Options) “Coalition”, “Labor”, “Coalition”. Did Peter Costello write that?
      At least twice the “moderator” shut up when Morrison showed her the palm of his hand. What an absolute farce. Sarah Abo should skip this when updating her Resume.

    2. This happened to me as well. I tried 12-15 times to vote for Albo with no success then in frustration I hit Morrison and WHAM accepted. I noted online later this was the situation for many.. Yes it did “seem” rigged for Liberals.

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