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ABC wins Election night ratings in TV landslide

It was a TV bloodbath on Saturday night, with the national broadcaster as victor.

As the nation voted for change, viewers voted for ABC in the television bloodbath of ratings.

ABC was the clear choice, drawing a whopping 44.3% network share.

This includes 27.9% share for ABC channel and 15.2% for ABC News.

By contrast Seven drew 24.5% network share (including AFL on 7mate) and 19.6% for Nine network.

Despite offering rolling coverage, 10 network was just 6.7%.

Australia Votes: Election Results Live pulled 910,000 metro viewers for ABC (and another 459,000 on ABC News), well ahead of Nine’s 397,000 and Seven’s 373,000.

10 trailed on just 78,000 (lower than SKY News’ 125,000). While it would have been cheaper to run a movie, 10 clearly wanted to show it was committed to news.

Meanwhile weekly shares were:

Network:
Seven: 28.2
Nine: 26.3
ABC: 21.6
10: 15.8
SBS: 8.2

Primary channel:
Seven: 18.9
Nine: 18.7
ABC: 14.6
10: 10.6
SBS: 4.7

Multichannels:
7mte: 4.0
7TWO: 3.0
9GEM / 10 Peach: 2.4
10 BOLD: 2.2
9GO!: 2.0
9Life: 1.9
7flix: 1.5
9RUSH: 1.3
10 Shake: 0.6

Seven won 16-39 but Nine won 25-54 demos.

Nine won Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Seven won Sunday. ABC won Saturday and also bettered 10 on Wednesday and Friday.

Best brands last week were:

Seven: Seven News (Sun: 1.02m), The Voice (726,000), The Chase (542,000) and Seven’s AFL (Fri: 522,000).

Nine: Nine News (Sun: 901,000), Lego Masters (Winner ann: 688,000), A Current Affair (631,000) and Travel Guides (Wed: 593,000).

ABC: Australia Votes: Election Results Live (910,000), ABC News (604,000), Gruen Nation (564,000) and 7:30 (513,000).

10: Have You Been Paying Attention? (684,000), MasterChef Australia (Mon: 535,000), The Cheap Seats (379,000) and The Project (358,000)

SBS: Eurovision Song Contest (rpt: 204,000), Great British Railway Journeys (174,000), Tony Robinson’s Coast to Coast (168,000), and World’s Most Scenic River Journeys (166,000).

This post updates.

14 Responses

  1. Seven should be thanking the election and the ABC for snatching the week off Nine which had it in the bag after the Lego masters finale.

    6.7% for Ten on Saturday! Big minus return on the investment spend for the night. Don’t bother next time.

  2. I mostly watched the very beginning of the ABC coverage which always amuses me, and the very end with Antony Green’s big screen election analysis, Antony is always great value especially when he said earlier in the evening that neither party may govern by tonight, I guess he missed the Greens and Teals factor, probably everybody did, though I did see an unusual amount of Green and independent how to vote leaflets in the voting centre bins.

  3. Interesting, the LNP hates the ABC with a passion, and many of the general public love to use the ABC as a punching bag, mostly for no other reason than that old tired bandwagon of bias.

    Yet despite that, almost half of the Australian viewing public turned to the ABC for the vote counting. How good is that? There has to be a message there somewhere.

    Unfortunately I missed the coverage on Saturday night as I was at Zoe Daniel’s election night party, and with all the crowds of people and excitement, I could not see or hear the coverage on the big screens. But many of us there were all avidly watching the numbers on the ABC website on our phones throughout the night.

    Best to avoid the sideshow of panel discussions if it annoys you, and just concentrate on Anthony. No nonsense about him, he just gives us the information we want to know.

  4. I stayed with ABC most of the night. 5 hours was more than enough for me! I did watch SKY a little, but really enjoyed the ABC’s graphics and especially Speersy and Antony Green. I thought Leigh was a little muted actually – throwing more to Annabel or to Andrew Probyn. Perhaps there were too many hosts – and crossing to Laura in Melbourne. The crosses were predictably chaotic. Antony had some great one liners as he was under the pump to provide answers as the night developed. No sign of Casey Briggs though. I wonder if he will be groomed to be the next Antony Green, who has acknowledged he can’t do this forever. Good job overall though. Great set!

  5. I started with ABC occasionally checking the other 3 coverages.. ABC were much better with graphic analysis and general commentary.
    I can see why they easily won the election night coverage. So well do ABC

  6. A 44.3% primetime share for ABC looks like a record since OzTam shares began in 2001. While ABC seems to be more favorable option for the election, I mostly watched 9’s coverage. I liked 9’s coverage & that they have archival footage of crusher, smasher for retiring MPs. Pete & Alicia were great on the coverage. 7’s coverage was dreadful – they fall behind most of the other networks and mammoth graphics. It takes up 3/4 of my screen & that I don’t watch 7 News anymore because of their graphics. 7 don’t know how to treat election coverage well.
    I think 10 doesn’t seem interested in news anymore.10 used to have a lot of presenters back in 2000s, but since late 2011, theyve axed more news presenters & I can’t believe their ratings have sunk to new lows. In the past 10.5 years, Saturday’s ratings have been a joke for 10. 10 clearly has no clue on Saturday nights and they could have stuck with a movie or just run a test pattern during the night.
    SBS could have jumped onboard with…

  7. Despite writing on this site last week that 7 looked like the most interesting due to the hyped-up new tech, it was pretty underwhelming in the end so I switched to the ABC and their graphics were clearer and the discussions much more interesting.

  8. Sales was rude and domineering on the ABC coverage. She can’t be gone from The 7.30 Report fast enough. The saving grace for the ABC coverage was Laura Tingle, who should have been hosting it.

  9. The ABC coverage was fine, lefties were anxious taking everything to heart and the ABC team were being cautious. There are multiple takes on the outcome – change of government, new leadership, primary votes for both parties at historic lows, teal wave, Lib decline, Greens rise. Critics just wanted the ABC to celebrate the new government but that’s not the national broadcaster’s job.

    Don’t know why Ten bother was news anymore. Would be better off running a test pattern than wasting money on a news service most people clearly don’t want from them.

  10. I initially chose ABC but the way Sales was acting and the panel they had i swapped over to Seven for the most part. I checked out Nine and Ten but Uhlmann is such a turnoff so didn’t last very long there. Good on ABC for winning the night though. They don’t do it enough.
    Also think Seven need to rethink The Voice next year too. The shortened format while working, could do with a few extra rounds. I’d love the live shows to return. Can’t believe we’re already at the GF this coming Sunday.

  11. “committed” – not sure how 10 define committed……..staff appear committed….maybe just not leadership?

    10 trailed on just 78,000 (lower than SKY News’ 125,000). While it would have been cheaper to run a movie, 10 clearly wanted to show it was committed to news.

  12. Ironically, the ABC probably had the least balanced coverage. Hopefully they’ll soon realise they don’t have to suck up to the LNP anymore.

  13. That’s very surprising. I was seeing a lot of comnments on twitter complaining about the panel on ABC. Apparently Sales was very rude to Tanya.

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