For the second week running Nine’s ratings enjoyed a boost from GO! that blurs its performance. While all networks enjoy share from their secondary channels, in the case of Nine figures for its titles included viewers that watched shows on GO! On three nights Hot Seat beat Deal or No Deal, but how many of them were viewers for Bewitched? All will be revealed this week when the figures break out from today.
Seven won Week 34 with 28.3% ahead of Nine’s 26.6% and TEN’s 20.8%. The ABC had 16.5% and SBS 7.8%.
Nine won 18-49 and 25-54 while TEN won 16-39 demos. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday were Seven’s while Nine won Wednesday and Thursday. Seven also won all cities except Brisbane which fell to Nine.
Packed to the Rafters was again the top show of the week with 1.89m viewers. It led Seven’s other top raters including Seven News, Better Homes and Gardens, World’s Strictest Parents, Dancing with the Stars, Today Tonight, City Homicide, Air Ways, Surf Patrol and a Coming Home special on Saturday. Dancing with the Stars (1.47m) continues to perform in its ninth season against tough competition, helping Seven to win the prized Sunday night. City Homicide‘s 1.38m was also solid on Monday. Beyond the Darklands returned with a respectable 974,000. But while All Saints‘ 1.07m is a good figure for 9:30pm, it was a big drop-off from Rafters, especially given both are local dramas. TV Burp and Double Take took down Seven’s weakest night, Thursday.
Nine put in some more good performances, possibly boosted by figures from shows on GO! From today that all changes. Nine News (Sunday) was its best with 1.61m while 60 Minutes, Domestic Blitz, Rescue: Special Ops, Two and a Half Men, A Current Affair, Getaway and Funniest Home Videos all did good business. Hot Seat was the success story of Nine’s week defeating Deal or No Deal on three occasions -was it propped up by Bewitched? Even ACA was hot on Today Tonight’s tail, level pegging on Wednesday. The Footy Show was hit by SBS’ Ashes test. RPA (1.19) and The Gift (1.12m) worked hard to salvage back Wednesday’s share after the lousy turnout for Australia’s Perfect Couple -just 698,000.
Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation‘s 1.5m was the standout performer for TEN with its next ranking shows all taking around 1.1m each: Australian Idol, Rush, NCIS and Rove. The return of Numb3rs and Burn Notice were 628,000 and 723,000 respectively. TEN News at Five beat both commercial game shows. Friday night was still a low performer, if challenged by big drawcards on ABC and SBS. Just 753,000 for The 45 Stone Virgin, another special that didn’t deliver.
Spicks and Specks took 1.27m this week for ABC, with George Gently, Stephen Fry in America, ABC News, Australian Story, Four Corners, The Librarians, United States of Tara, The New Inventors and The 7:30 Report its other performers. Sunday night’s The Last Enemy was unable to compete or even retain its lead in from Stephen Fry while nobody is laughing very hard at Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union on Tuesdays. Scrapheap Challenge remains ABC2′s most popular show. ABC beat TEN on Friday.
Top Gear was tops for SBS with 776,000 but the 2009 Ashes Test Series was strong on Thurday, Friday and Saturday, taking up to 700,000.
Jan ask Nine for auditions.
Hi Eddie!
My friend and I love your show. How do we get an interview to go onto the show?
Jan
Obviously I was referring to the people who haven’t got digital TV.
@tasmanian devil: But for the 40% of the population that does have an stb, most would have gotten a ‘new services’ note when GO! launched and updated their stbs
@PD… Sure that wasn’t Australia’s Fastest growing game show?
I think daqua_99 has a point. I bet half of the population probably haven’t a clue what GO! is. It’s off topic, but even come digital TV switch-over time, there’ll be still a handful of people who haven’t made the switch yet…
@ daqua_99: Although we may be a small percentage, it’s still a large enough sample to give us an idea on how the new channel is going.
Oztam collect their ratings a similar way, there’s no way they could collect the entire nation’s viewing habits, so instead they collect from a diverse, but small, sample size.
You forgot to mention Nine’s Cold Case on Wednesday night, the season final got 1,099,000 viewers and was #1 in it time slot and also contributed to winning the night for Nine.
David. Is the 7pm Project a relatively cheap show to produce compared to other Australian productions?
If so, could that work in it’s favour by giving it a chance to grow and mature in the timeslot?
I think Dave Hughes is a bit out of his depth discussing ACAs. A bit like when he was the Glass House. He is no fool but he’s not the train spotter that Charlie P. seems to be.
Thanks Jerome for that info.. I guess ten can’t hold onto it too much longer if it doesn’t pull in quite a sizeable amount more..
The 7pm Project had a lot of potential, but it just doesn’t add up.
Also, I agree with allen somewhat. There is no proof that Go! is rating well enough to pull in sizable audiences. Whilst I watch it, and most people who commented here have watched it, we are about .000001% of the total audience. The fact also that we are spending time on tvtonight talking about TV proves we know more than 99% of others about TV. When I asked my mates about Go!, most of them had never heard of it …
I also see that Channel 9 are running promos calling Hot Seat Australia’s number 1 game show… that didn’t take them long.
PD you just nailed the whole problem with the 7PM project and the broader lack of quality satire in this country.
@mikey – I think you’re spot on. Whenever Jon Stewart on the Daily Show goes head to head with a political guest you’re always sort of amazed that he knows exactly what he’s talking about no matter what the topic.
I don’t mind 7pm Project but they are out of their depths. It’s news but not as we know it, because as we know it news usually doesn’t involve a heavy does of YouTube clips and dogs being reunited with their owners.
i really hate hot seat – and eddie.
Right now I only watch a few things on GO!, Seinfeld, Aliens in America and a bit of Big Bang. Even thought I’ve seen all 3 at some point.
Over the coming month sit will be interesting to see what new content they put on GO! from the new US season about to get under way in September.
That’s right Allan, shame on you! In future please to adhere to site comment policy: if you don’t have anything nasty to say about channel 9, don’t say it at all. And try to remember it’s Bewtiched that’s beating Deal or Deal, not Hot seat.
There has been a lot of talk of how Go has inflated Hotseats numbers, but no one has made any comment on Deals numbers. Deal has been averaging around the 800-900 thoudand mark for a long time. Now that figure has dropped to 700-800 thousand in the last two weeks. This is a bad trend. Maybe Go has pulled some of the viewers from Deal.
@ allan…. i think there are many viewers watching GO!!.
what a lame statment by u….. honestly….hang your head in shame…..if u are a regular on tv tonight, u would of noticed other ppl saying great things about GO! because they are watching it!!!…
allan…go back to sleep….seriously!
@allan: It’s a fair statement of David’s, after all, can it be pure coincidence that Nine’s ratings are higher in the 2 weeks that GO! has been up and running? I think not.
I love GO! I don’t even watch the regular channel 9- way too stuffy and too much Eddie Mcgyer for my tastes.
re: 7PM project – you can’t have semi-funny, semi-intellectual, semi-witted, and semi-knowledgeable people discussing potentially highly-political, highly sensitive or highly important subjects in a light-hearted, half-assed way.
For this show to work every single panel member must really know what they are talking about, must have an opinion based on their thorough understanding of the situations and topics they are discussing. None of these panel members is qualified.
If you look at shows like the Daily Show or Colbert – they work because the host is right on top of the issues, is quick-witted, has a massive team of writers, and frankly it’s funny cos he knows wtf what he’s making fun of…
7pm Project deserves to do better.
God help us all if it gets changed to another timeslot and gone within a year.
Until the 7PM Project or whatever TEN screen at that crucial 7pm timeslot works and consistently takes a good number, TEN has no hope.
i’ve stayed out of the 7PM discussions until now but i thought i’d add this:
Week 1 – 938,000
Week 2 – 739,000
Week 3 – 731,000
Week 4 – 722,000
This Week – 698,000
this is also the first week it came atleast 3rd in all demographics (for all we know it could be 4th, as ABC’s demos are hard to find)
and this should be the high rating part, god knows how low it will get when daylight savings kick in.
IIRC taken out’s cut off was 500k, u’d hope ten have lifted their standards since then. i’m all for being patient and giving shows a chance but ten should definitely be considering this to just be a short term thing and start planning its replacement.
I’ve swithced to Bewitched rather than the game shows. No one screams in it and Endora is divine !
this is kind of a poor statement to lead with David, you say Nine is boosted by Go! for the second week but you don’t actually know that Go! even has 1 viewer yet due to ratings not being released seperately. assumption much?
I actually don’t mind 7pm project, although I end up missing it most nights because of the time factor, just not at the tv when it’s 7.
I sure hope they don’t put it at 6pm and dump the simpsons (like they have done so many times before- you just can’t beat simpsons repeats)
Finally, GO’s ratings. That will be good to see.
I refused to believe 1.4 million people watched 20 to 1 last Thursday…I still reckon at least a few hundred k of that was from Gossip Girl on GO! At the moment Nine’s ratings figures are inflated due to people watching the quality content they have on their second channel. No doubt Survivor would have given Nine’s Tuesdays a boost as well.
Now, when will Seven announce their second SD channel? As I’ve said before, Seven, as the current “#1 network” (in total people, anyway) should be supporting multichannelling and Freeview, not ignoring it. It will probably just end up being a factual/lifestyle channel, but one can hope that Sky News will get a slot.
“On three nights Hot Seat beat Deal or No Deal, but how many of them were viewers for Bewitched?”. That’s exactly what I asked during the week. Seven alone beat 9+GO. “I watch 0% of nine’s shows, but with the launch of GO!, I’ve basically only been watching that channel”. Advertisers must be wondering……..
7PM project isn’t doing particularly well in the total numbers.. it doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction just yet, and i think It’s going to be a struggle for TEN for quite some time.. Does anyone know about the demo’s for 7PM? Last i heard it was bombing in their key demos too..
If my viewing habits are anything to go by, then apart from Nine News, I watch 0% of nine’s shows, but with the launch of GO!, I’ve basically only been watching that channel (Seinfeld on weeknights, Survivor, Fringe, Terminator:SCC, a bit of Dog the bounty hunter and neighbours at war, Wipeout).
One thing I can’t stand about 9 is how they boast about their news (7 do it too), but honestly, if anything it turns me off when they have a 30 second ad telling us how they’re First on the scene, First to break major stories, First to boast. It’s enough to turn you to another channel!
Seven’s stable lineup just keeps powering on.
I am even watching PTTR and AllSaints , 2 shows I ignored previously.
I think I watched a grand total of 1 hour for whole week of Nine’s product between 6pm – 10 pm Mon-Friday – I think I watched 5 hours plus of srtuff on ABC including most of Weds night (Librararians,Tara).
As for Ten and their 7pm project I keep seeing the clips they relentlessly flog da and night and it makes me shudder.Dave Hughes has lost the plot and the clips just make me want to run away.
Finally we get to see the figures from Go! But could they get rid of the cartoons and bring back the 80s sitcoms (showing my age here) like Perfect Strangers, Alf, etc?
eddie is a mastermind hot seat will win its time slot easily
Nothing to add about from the GO! numbers will be interesting this week.
i wouldn’t be surprised if nine deliberately didn’t inform oztam of go’s launch in time before the deadline, so they could boast their rating for their main channel(or at least give the impression) it really isn’t far to compare the rating of 2 channels against each of the others.
is the 7pm project still going badly? i hope its not as i am beginning to like it!
Only 753,000 for The 45 Stone Virgin… Channel 10 really need to look at how 7 advertise their doco specials – 7 have managed to make next week’s documentary about space look like must see TV.