Do regional viewers really matter? Depends on your headline…
A right royal Twitter stoush has erupted today over Media Watch ratings and whether regional viewers really matter.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
A right royal Twitter stoush has erupted today involving The Australian media editor Sharri Markson and “the rest.”
It emerged following the newspaper’s ongoing barney with Media Watch and the ABC.
Last night Media Watch questioned News Corp’s lack of covering a March in March protest rally against the government. Today the newspaper had an editorial calling for host Paul Barry to stand down and is accusing Barry of bias against the organisation.
But the Twitter feud more specifically followed Markson’s tweet about Media Watch‘s ratings. In doing so a screenshot of ratings from this website was included.
Last night’s Media Watch rated 611,000, nowhere near the million @TheRealPBarry claims. pic.twitter.com/WCJYkQIB4y
— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) March 24, 2014
That immediately led to some quizzical tweets and rather surprising responses.
@SharriMarkson @TheRealPBarry 611k is for mainland capital cities only, Sharri. Including regionals it’s 884k, plus iView plays. — Michael Idato (@michaelidato) March 24, 2014
@SharriMarkson @TheRealPBarry LOL. I have written ratings for 20 years, I know the “standard”. Australia is more than five cities. 1/2
— Michael Idato (@michaelidato) March 24, 2014
@michaelidato Then you should know that 5 city metro is the only figure that matters. National figs used to artificially inflate ratings.
— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) March 24, 2014
.@SharriMarkson How can you “artificially inflate” ratings with actual people watching TV? LOL. 5 city matters to *advertisers*. Not ABC.
— Michael Idato (@michaelidato) March 24, 2014
@michaelidato @abcmediawatch values viewers outside 5 capitals.The Australian’s media editor @sharrimarkson counts them for nought. Wow! — Paul Barry (@TheRealPBarry) March 25, 2014
Others also weighed in including Wil Anderson, Michael Ebeid from SBS, Amanda Meade from Guardian Australia, ABC Media Manager (and former Australian media writer) Nick Leys, Marc Fennell and more. You can see a snapshot of those here.
@meadea @michaelidato @leysie Have any of you ever worked at a TV network where your entire job is focused on the daily ratings battle? No? — Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) March 24, 2014
Also, can all extreme Lefties please stop following and tweeting me.
— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) March 24, 2014
What was also noted from the screenshot of TV Tonight was that the browser included bookmarks for The Pirate Bay and Unblock-US, as Televised Revolution and Mumbrella both noted.. Not a very good look.
A TV exec sent me that pic this morning – it’s not my computer screen. Sorry to disappoint.
— Sharri Markson (@SharriMarkson) March 25, 2014
As for the ratings debate, it’s pretty simple.
Regional viewers absolutely matter and the sooner our markets are merged for purposes of reportage the better.
This site has filed on that several times as well as the differences between 5 City metro, Regional, Overnight and Timeshifted data.
And piracy is bad m’kay?
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21 Responses
of course regional cities matter cities like newcastle wollongong geelong etc have all big populations. and why would nine buy NBN in newcastle if regionals didnt matter and looks like nine will be buying win tv in wollongong in the near future . the audiences are there and just as important . try telling the politicians that regionals dont matter at election time .all i can say is thank god for the ABC other wise we would all be brainwashed by this right wing media with news limited and macquarie radio networks at the forefront of the biased reporting and comentating .media watch gets close to a million viewers because its a fantastic show .sharni only wishes she had that many followers .more people watch media watch than read the tele.
As I have said before many times, last time I looked Hobart is a Capital city and should be included in the ratings.
Yes they do, its the only local news they get.
I can not believe how sensitive news limited and the girls at the tele are . After dishing out all that right wing propoganda and giving it to everyone remotely left wing .they news limited can not take any form of criticism . Well done to media watch . Its my favourite show on tv .i watch religiously. Media watch really does keeep the bastards honest. I didnt know that andrew bolt has criticised the ABC 131 times this year so far in the tele.and ots only march. Those figures are just ashtonishing figures. So clearly andrew bolt has an agenda against the ABC. Love finding this sort of information media watch.
From a “network” perspective – 5 cities matters the most as ‘national’ advertising is sold on those 5 cities and the network’s own those stations and get 100% of ad revenue income.
From affiliates, they ony get about 35% of ad income.
From a press/public point of view – and debating which shows are resonating with Australia – true national (top 5 + regional markets) matter more.
I think The Oz media section should introduce a male centrefold. That will take the heat off Sharri for a bit
I take it you can only buy The Australian in the 5 metropolitan cities because News Ltd don’t worry about counting their regional readers.
Yep, Pertinax didn’t watch the show, or if they did, they didn’t pay attention.
In fact, most of last night’s episode was about Fairfax rather than News.
News doesn’t like MW because MW call them on their BS, and because they BS more than other “news” organisations in this country, of course they get called on it more. That doesn’t mean the other news organisations are protected or forgotten about by MW, simply that they are better **shrugs**
Anyone who uses the word “lefties” is an idiot. End of story.
The SMH didn’t report the protests in its print editions either (and the lunatic fringe bombed them with emails protesting about the lack of attention). They only ran a small spot on their website on the Sunday evening.
Media Watch accused The Australian of being biased but not the SMH, I wonder why the Australian thinks Media Watch doesn’t like them.
The regional figures doesn’t cover all the rest of Australia and it’s is a separate survey so it isn’t a true national survey
If you are passing 5MC + regionals off as 5MC then you are inflating the ratings relative to the 5MC figures people are used to. If you state they are 5MC + regionals then that is OK but it stops comparison with the widely published 5MC figures.
Media Watch noted Fairfax missed the story and acknowledged its omissions.
I am a regional viewer. I watched Media Watch last night and I use to read The Australian.
And ratings don’t count those people on iview, or timeshift it, or that download the vodcast. I download the vodcast and watch it on the train into work (and thus avoid 4G data charges).
That’s a bit rich – News Ltd accusing Media Watch of bias against them. Pot, meet kettle.
Greater Sydney Metro 4.6M, Melb 4.25, Bris 2.2M, Adel 1.23M, Perth 1.9M
14.18M out of 22.68M. So 8.5M or 37.5% live in “regional” areas, and in places like Hobart, Darwin & Canberra.
So, 37.5% of Australian TV viewers are nobodies. Thanks Sharri. “National figs used to artificially inflate ratings.” How can the figures be “artificially” inflated?
And “someone” had to photo their computer screen and send it to their “Media Editor”? Riiiight.
Remind me again why I don’t read News Corp “news”papers anymore?
Unless you jailbreak your Ipad, I don’t think you can torrent on it easily. It could very well be someone checking if a show is available on torrents rather than downloading anything.
Assume this is The Australian’s official stance on regional area.
They just don’t count.
Wow, Markson comes across as quite unpleasant, as well as mis-informed.
I don’t know whether some TV exec did photograph their iPad and send it to her, but I notice that they have favorites for Seven and Nine but not poor old Ten (as well as taste.com.au and Nike so make of that what you will).
It’s a horrible look that this person (who is obviously remaining nameless) thinks it’s perfectly fine to illegally download material. I’m not sure which part of ‘illegal’ people don’t understand to be honest.
Hhahahahaha… A TV Network rep, who heavily relies on the public to watch their programs legally on television is sprung with a bookmark for Pirate Bay. Ruhrohhhh…
Why would you take a photo of a iPad screen. Havent they heard of pressing power and home and screen-shotting it.
And suuuuuuuure its not your iPad Sharri……… and the dog ate my homework too……
Likely excuse!
BTW nothing illegal about unblock-us…. Have it on all my computers.