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MAFS continues dominant week

Nine reality show tops Thursday ratings, while SBS is yet to edge into the Top 30 this week.

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Married at First Sight has finished a dominant first week of viewing after topping ratings results for Thursday.

Last night it reached 2.34m viewers, well in front of an extended Home & Away (1.1m / 1.01m), 7:30 (1.06m) and The Dog House (774,000).

Nine’s Emergency was the second highest rating entertainment title reaching 1.19m viewers. It outranked Grand Designs Transformations at 965,000, Mrs. Brown’s Boys (889,000 / 748,000) and The Dog Hospital with Graeme Hall (524,000).

In this early stage of the new-look ratings SBS is yet to see a title edge into the Top 30 shows and unable to be adequately reported. OzTAM also no longer supplies share for the evening.

Survey begins on February 11.

Total TV: Thursday 1 February 2024

23 Responses

  1. I feel sorry for good people like David who are dealing with the fall out of this ridiculous move to effectively inflate viewing numbers.
    The public and advertsiers can see right through it.
    If FTA thought this new system would help them, it’s going to seriously backfire.

  2. I was confused before I am totally bewildered now and yet I am in the demographic of aged persons who has the most spending power these days most of us have paid off our mortgages and have money to burn where young people have trouble just buying groceries and are locked into huge mortgages or very high rents the advertisers away behind they need to catch up

  3. Thank you for all you do David, When the ratings survey actually begins I am sure you will have worked out the best way for you to give us all the information you can.

  4. Sorry but ‘Reach’ is a joke. I apologise, David, but I can’t read these posts anymore. I am not sure if you are deciding to report only on Reach or if you are being told to. In any event, it was the wrong decision by all involved.
    I will only look at National Average as this is the only true indication anymore.
    A pity as I used to like the daily summary you gave of ratings.

      1. Same and it’s a shame. This vague reference to ‘not ruling things in or out’ is slightly ridiculous. Ratings only matter if what’s reported is an actual reflection of what people watched and in what numbers. Reach is a meaningless number – we all have busy lives and this is a complete waste of everyone’s time. It’s like reading fiction. I’ve loved this site for years but I’m out, unfortunately.

        1. Just remember, don’t shoot the messenger. All media reporting on ratings are grappling with this new world. B&T’s website also offered a fairly blunt assessment of the new ratings platform a few days ago and media commentators on social media also echoing similar dissatisfaction and lack of transparency with the new numbers.

          But at the end of the day, it is OzTAM and the industry driving this change and feeding the stats to the media, those doing the reporting can only deal with what they are being supplied, which isn’t a lot.

      2. Thank David for responding. You do a great job in reporting every day in and out of survey.
        I just wonder if you are being forced to report Reach over National + BVOD.
        You always had an ability to cut across the spin and i am curious. It feels like, as others have said, that the network spin has taken over.

        Have you been given direction in your reporting?

        1. OzTAM has given media their guidance which I republished some time ago. It’s a radical change and as I mentioned in newsletter, in between all the criticism / abuse and several moving targets I don’t feel we’ve landed on a new way forward just yet, but at least we’re not in survey.

          1. I appreciate that. OzTAM may have ideals for their new product but it is the likes of you that calls them out. Can we keep it that way?

  5. The other thing that has been noticed, with the top 30 is because it is ranked on reach numbers, unfortunately some shows that have a higher national average but lower reach number miss out on the top 30 such as Deal or No Deal.

  7. Here in the UK, what counts is the final audience (which includes catch-up within 7 days of a show airing), breakdown of that total by viewing method (Television Set/Tablet/Computer/Mobile ‘Phone) and, crucially, audience share (whether a show is winning its slot) for which overnight viewing figures are released.

    Ludicrously here, the key metric appears to be “reach” (taking a 15-second interval), so a programme with a higher total audience potentially fails to make the Top 30 because its reach is less than another programme which has a lower final audience, so the 15-second factor (what’s on the screen whilst the viewer “reaches” for the remote) becomes the defining measure.

    Definitely in the Not To Be Taken Seriously category.

  8. Thanks for providing us with some figures and some context around these figures all week, David. I’m sure it’s been a bit of a chore having to deal with all the comments especially because ratings wraps have never been your favourite thing to do anyway.

  9. David, is it also the case that you now no longer have the ability to let us know about certain shows not in the top 30, such as Neighbours or Bold like you did before? Is it a case of info not being supplied or you are under agreement not to?

      1. Why set this arbitrary cut off – the ratings system has radically changed, why shouldn’t TV Tonight redefine what’s worth reporting? As it stands, shows like Deal, for example, are a black hole of information as it’s fallen out of top 30. In the information age, it’s rather ironic that we have less access to data than before. But, of course, that was precisely the point of this new system – to control and reshape the numbers. It renders this site more PR than news, it seems.

          1. Fair point. Your report above references your inability to ‘adequately report’ shows outside the top 30. Clearly, it’s beyond your control, I get it. However, if media simply refused to report these nonsensical numbers, the networks would be less confident it narrowly setting the drip feed of information and hence, the tv news agenda.

      2. Thanks David, I was asking for future reference not so much now during non official ratings, it was more a curiosity if you would still be able to do it, I understand there are complexities in working out how to move forward with the new system.

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