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TEN’s year of losing to ABC

Ratings: Seven wins the week as TEN clocks up another week behind the ABC.

TEN logoUpdated: With the exception of seven weeks, Network TEN has now clocked up a year of trailing the ABC in Total People.

It was the end of the London Olympics that the network’s 12 months of pain began. In the 12 months that have passed it has only defeated the ABC five times in weekly figures (pre-consolidated), including once in summer (they also tied twice).

For all the noise about new shows, event TV, new appointments, sports deals and breakfast TV -TEN has a more fundamental problem: the ABC.

In Week 35, Seven won the ratings week once again.

Network:
Seven: 31.2
Nine: 26.9
ABC: 19.6
TEN: 17.4
SBS: 4.9

Primary channel:
Seven: 22.7
Nine: 19.1
ABC1: 14.3
TEN: 11.8
SBS ONE: 4.1

Multichannels:
GO!: 4.7
7mate: 4.3
7TWO: 4.2
ELEVEN: 3.1
ABC2: 3.0
GEM: 3.0
ONE: 2.5
ABC News 24: 1.5
ABC3: 0.8
SBS 2: 0.7
NITV: 0.1

Nine won 16-39 but Seven took 18-49 and 25-54 demos.

Seven won every night except Thursday, which fell to Nine. ABC bettered TEN on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Seven won all cities except Sydney, secured by Nine.

Sunday’s Live X Factor was the week’s top show with 1.54m viewers.

Update: TEN advises with Consolidated ratings it has eclipsed ABC in nine weeks since the end of London Olympics.

Corrected.

19 Responses

  1. Advertisers don’t want to see the demise of Ten, that’s for sure. Imagine trying to negotiate a deal with one of the other two networks sharing the marketplace between them. At least Ten balances out the other two and advertisers can go there for a low cost option if Seven and Nine are bargaining too hard.

  2. The Bachelor is very niche programming. I know some people watch the farmer wants a wife but that’s kind of daggy and has scenery. It’s also at least in some respects trying to be about finding someone compatible. This is putting women up against each other and trying to look really slick. It’s the ‘Any Questions For Ben’ of television shows. Unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things. What’s at stake, throwing yourself at some guy because he was chosen by casting. It’s a terrible idea. You would think after Lara Bungle and The Shire they would have learned.

  3. Stan, I also suggested that replacing Under the dome with a reality program for one week would be a disaster …. I got that one right ……

    I am assuming that ten already have a gut feeling that the bachelor wont fire up …… if i could take a bet at the bookies, I’d put $20 on it …….

  4. Stan, the problem with ten, is that it has been producing an oversupply of mindless bad quality reality television. It narrowed it’s target audience to a younger audience and in doing that, it alienated the general public. FTA is a mass media and not a target media. It consists more of just gen – y, it consists of gen y, gen x, baby boomers and whatever goes beyond that.

    7 and 9 also plays this, and the result is that tv numbers just seem to be dwindling. ten just seems to make a worse job of it than 7 and 9. Im sure if you had a dollar for every program that failed on ten, you could probably afford to get foxtel hooked onto your home.

    I am taking a punt and say the bachelor will be a disaster, because it just seems to be appealing to a very small target audience, and as a result, people will just switch off altogether. But I suspect as well that in the ivory tower in ten, they…

  5. @joey69: I don’t think anyone is advocating the demise of a third commercial network. The article is just pointing out fact of ratings… and the fact is that Ten has been consistently coming fourth in a three-horse race for a year now. Something that (I think) is unprecedented in the almost 50 years since we’ve had 3 commercial networks.

    It’s not pleasant news for Ten I’m sure (although I’m sure Ten is already well aware of its current position without reading TV Tonight) but I don’t think anyone wants Ten out of the picture.

  6. MonashMan, metro ratings are the only figures everyone talks about. Regional ratings don’t factor in much.

    Randwick, how do explain the successful, but very woeful content on Seven & Nine? I think you’re being too simplistic.

  7. I don’t see why it should be a shock that a public broadcaster has beaten a commercial network. The BBC is the single largest performer in the UK, and although paytv collectively gets slightly more that is dispersed amongst hundreds of channels with a multiple number of owners(including the BBC).

  8. Again! imagine FTA with 7 & 9 the only two available channels and a dripping of ABC & SBS to a please us more slightly challenged folks.
    What a poorer place Australian FTA TV would be if a viable third network is removed or collapses. regardless of which network, all three must survive and posts such as this do very little to instil confidence into a network that is already down on its knees trying to lift itself out of its own mess.

  9. Network TEN’s problem extends to just content. Its the treatment of that content, crap ideas thinking they will fly, not accepting that tv and more importantly audiences have changed. To me it seems that Hamish McLennan is directing TEN more towards what the former administration was doing before the hostile takeover from Packer, Rhineheart and Murdoch Jnr. I knew that Lachlan would stuff TEN up so they had to get a News Corp guy to bail him out not surprising look how the ONE tel thing turned out. Lachlan maybe ok with Online businesses such as the online Classified businesses hence why Fairfax is in trouble but he stinks at old media. I think with Hamish they are on the right track but they need persistance.

  10. The ABC has a bigger budget than Ten now, and doesn’t have to show ads. There just aren’t the same advertising dollars and easy ratings for cheap US shows as their used to be.

    Three commercial FTA networks competing against two public broadcasters, STV and the internet may not be viable.

    Ten will probably do a deal with Southern Cross as soon as the reach rule is gone, but they have already extracted higher affiliations fees and there is much more to gain.

    Abbott will not cut the ABC’s triennial funding. They will not get the ever increasing budgets they have under Labour through a never ending series of one off special payments for this and that.

    The ABC will have to deal with increasing competition for merchandise operate with in its budget. It is getting sales of locally made shows and formats which will bring in more money.

  11. This is why I am very worried about the ABC under a coalition government. The Murdoch press is out of control pushing their own agenda and after the distraction of the election all guns will be trained on the ABC once again. The real problem for Ten is their traditional audience, say from a hey-day around 2000 simply grew up and drifted away and they are not being replaced. Younger people simply do not consume content the old-fashioned way. This is a structural and permanent change that cannot be “fixed”. The ABC has reached out to audiences where they are now.

  12. TEN needs to look at buying out some of Southern Cross’ stations in regional Australia to better able them to compete with Nine and Seven. If they bought them out and TEN invested in local news we all know it creates a halo effect for the rest of the nights programming and then they would see a rise in viewers nationally. Maybe it’s something they should consider?

  13. .. And they are going to solve all their problems with a diamond studded breakfast show. Seriously that’s all I ever hear them investing in, they need primetime content badly. At this point they are going into 2014 with almost zero hit shows.

  14. “Network TEN has now clocked up a year of trailing the ABC ”

    I can count 6 weeks this ratings year that the Ten Network has beaten the ABC.

    Weeks 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 and 29.

  15. When you say ‘we deserve better’… what do you mean David? Like more bang for your buck? For what you pay TEN you don’t think they’re delivering the goods?

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