Friday & Saturday 14-15 November 2008

I've Decided to Lump Friday and Saturday together this weekend because there really wasn't that much going on and there was a dearth of information about the results

FRIDAY NIGHT

Had it's first shake-up since Nanny McPhee with Nine's first 20/20 Cricket Match of the season (some sort of exhibition game) drawing a commanding figure for Nine. Nine's early schedule though is in dire straits with ACA sinking on a Friday, both ACA and TT seem to be depressed from their lead-in and lead out programs, I can only surmise this is impact of Neighbours remaining competitive at 6.30 (compared to Ten's 6 and 7pm shows) but you never know.

Better Homes and Gardens put up a good show at 7.30 but the movie Shark Swarm must've done pretty badly because I can't even get figures for it or Ice Road Truckers which is probably limping along at the same old speed.

Perth is excluded from the chart because Cricket may have disrupted their schedule more than the eastern states.

SATURDAY NIGHT

Ahh Saturday Night - the night where our television network devolve into radio stations - Local and Low Rating.

Apart from the usually networked Ten, Seven and Nine stuffed things around a bit, Nine for the ongoing RL World Cup and Seven for the Myer Melbourne Xmas Parade, for my own sanity I just chose to run with Sydney/Brisbane overnights only as they were the most complete figures I could get a hold of!

Saturday night was a very low viewer turnout, although it's no longer unusual to have only 1 show over 1 million (normally Seven News) by the 8th ranked show (Ten News at 5) we're now going under the 700,000 mark.

Seven's Movie "Agent Cody Banks" suprisingly didn't hit with the kids (when you consider other movies which have worked for them in this slot), only the ABC's 'Mother Country Lineup' kept a stiff upper lip in the face of what must've been substantial competition for the elderly eyeball with Foxtel's Main Event channel which had a pay per view live Andre Rieu concert, if his DVD sales are anything to go by it could be Main Event's biggest night ever - I eagerly anticipate the results.

POSTCRIPT
Last Thursday I published ratings for 10.30 series Heroes (462k) and The Strip (430k) amazingly I found out later both were beaten by Ten News (488k) for the record Lateline pulled 277k in the timeslot - that's a total of over 1.6 million watching the TV after 10.30