Last Chance Surgery

Ex-Big Brother producer becomes ITV America executive vice president of programming.

Being the end of the year, some media and online sites have been naming their “Top 25” shakers and movers of the year.

The Noughties will end with variety television closing a chapter after Rove bid his own show farewell last week. But Seven took the night and Week 47 of ratings.

Audiences are slipping across the board as we limp to the ratings finish line. But they are hanging on for the Rafter birth, helping Seven to take out another week.

Week 45 saw Seven launch its new digital channel, and the Melbourne Cup delivering it their biggest audience all year. And there were celebrations in Community Television.

Last week viewers bid farewell to All Saints after 12 seasons across 11 years, helping Seven to win Week 44. Just 4 weeks of official ratings remain.

With the passing of Don Lane, Nine’s audience again sent a message that it loves variety television, while Seven’s announcement of 7TWO saw it lose another week to Nine/GO!

Without any events or boosts from digital channels, Channel Seven won the ratings week -thanks largely to its factual slate underpinning consistent programming.

In a week when our sense of humour was questioned once more, it was sport that ruled the week -but Nine had both shows in question and won the week.

Week 40 was a particularly brutal fight in television with a string of big shows led by Hey Hey’s reunion. By the time the bell rang, Nine had taken victory -by just 0.1%.

The afternoon AFL finale becomes the second biggest audience of the TV year, but denies TEN primetime glory. For the third week in a row, GO! helps Nine win the ratings week.

Two AFL matches roared to over 1.4m giving Seven and TEN some big victories, but it was GO! that again helped Nine across the line to win Week 38.

Australia's leading TV blog

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