Five-O gets Boned, LA quakes

Sunday, 6 February 2011

Well the 3 commercial majors had a decent night on Sunday with the best performers being the returning duo of Border Security & The Force which have stepped back to anchor a strong Sunday lineup for Seven.



Nine's Cricket kept them in the game for the night with 1.2 million viewers while the presence of Bones seemed to chip away at the audience for Hawaii Five-O which dropped 251,000 viewers week on week.

NCIS: LA meanwhile dropped 166K week on week to a much more precarious figure of just over half a million, about half of that audience were in the crucial 18-49 demographic which, whilst good, points to a show with an older audience and a declining one at that. I wonder whether Ten might move the show back behind NCIS Original in order to shore up its audience.

On Digital TV the big kahuna was again The Big Bang Theory, it was also the top demographic draw on digital with 201K 18-49 viewers. While the top rating movie (yes there are still Sundays movies if you have a HDTV! was "Dodgeball"

3rd place is no Loser

Sunday, 30 January 2011

I think all three nets can be genuinely happy with their Sunday night this week. Well maybe not Seven, but the other two.



On the surface 1.3 million for Tennis looks great - but when you consider its the Men's Final - a match that has routinely pulled in 2 million viewers in years past you can see that Tennis has a slight problem.

Ten had an excellent Launch of their big new Sunday lineup with the constant promotion for The Biggest Loser and Hawaii Five-O paying off over the summer.

Modern Family meanwhile, confirms that Sitcoms are back in vogue with both eps pulling excellent numbers.

Apart from The Big Bang Theory on GO! there was nothing much happening on the netlets.

A moment in the sun

Sunday nights are shaping up to be a real scrap with the return of Seven’s Factual Skeins giving them the edge over Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation which dropped a whopping 19% week on week.

It isn’t being helped by Biggest Loser which fell 13% week on week. With this continuing decline as the young audience breaks off to watch anything but analogue FTA the viability of this show has surely got to be called into question.

Still – it’s one of the few reality shows I can think of that has a video game out at the moment – so it’s not all bad!

So help me – I am not making this up!

Bones got the edge over The Good Wife thanks to its superior lead in coupled with a natural erosion of the sampling audience. Similarly it was close between Castle and House.

Nine would be happy with the performance of its Cricket and Olympics coverage, this is like a moment in the sun for sports on TV because as the year wears on and the country splits in two over their football preference the audience sizes will start to look more and more pathetic.

Whatever we're watching - It's just not cricket

Tuesdays are another night I'll be watching with interest as Nine attempts to shake up Seven and Ten's duopoly on the night. Frankly Top Gear can't come soon enough as people seem to abandon cricket when presented with more exciting options.

Indeed both Biggest Loser and My Kitchen Rules were up 200,000 viewers a piece on the previous night, while the return of NCIS absolutely thumped channel Nine. NCIS LA - though a rerun - did not fare as well, though the 800,000 seems pretty standard for a 9.30 rerun.

While I'm talking about that - 9.30 reruns seem to be all the rage at the moment, Nine is rerunning The Mentalist 9.30 Monday and Thursday, Seven is rerunning Thank God You're Here 9.30 Thursday, perhaps with the 9.30 slot's diminishing returns we will see the advent of American style 2 Hour primetime schedules.

I hope not.

The game they don't watch in heaven

Saturday 6 June 2009

Biggest Disappointment
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections
SBS 7.30pm Down 33.86% week on week

Biggest Improvement
Bruce Almighty
Seven (Southern Markets) after Vicar of Dibley
Up 29.09% over Phenomemon

All 3 commercial nets turned their schedules into swiss cheese last night to accomodate various sporting events.

Seven had the classic North/South split for their coverage of Rugby Union, the Union was a ratings disappointment polling only 219,000 in Sydney and 155,000 in Brisbane - middling figures at best. Worse than this was the decision to rerun Christian the Lion, a wildlife doco they ran only 5 weeks ago on a Tuesday night! And topping that level of bad was the fact that it rated well! More people watched this rerun doco in Melbourne, than tuned in for the Rugby Union in Sydney! If you actually compare it week on week in the three markets with the first run Cheetah Man it comes out on top with a 4% improvement!

Nine and Ten adjusted their schedules for local time differences, with Ten starting their Saturday AFL match at 5 different times and Nine playing around post-7.30 in order to line up with start times for the Twenty/20 Cricket.

Do you laugh or cry? Tuesday 3 March 2009

I’m sure Ten’s programmers wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry – laugh because a rerun of a five year old drama takes down All Saints, or cry because their acclaimed local drama Rush couldn’t do the same.

At any rate it’s wonderful that two dramas can bring over 1.2 million each to the screen at 9.30, in fact viewing across the 5 capitals was up week on week with an average of 147,000 additional people tuning in between 7.30 and 10.30.

Seven’s early evening benefited immensely with Seven News recording a whopping 238,000 gain week on week. Nine’s news also gained an extra 134,000 viewers.

Kudos goes to Wipeout which built on its audience by 75,000 viewers and the new ep of Two and a Half Men increased it’s aud by 109,000. Although Ladette to Lady continues to disappoint in total people terms, at least its not going down, and I can’t see it doing much better given that the Tuesday night game is really between Seven and Ten.

Ten News won the battle at 10.30 – in fact the surge for news across the board indicates intense interest in this unexpected attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan.

A Rising Tide - Sunday 15 February 2009

Another Sunday, another cricket match for Nine and a boost in viewers all around with all commercial nets averaging over 1 million viewers for the four hour prime time last night.

Seven can consider their Sunday night a success with Border Security and Triple Zero Heroes looking like Sunday hits, and Sunday Night losing Sydney but winning Melbourne in it’s first stoush with Domestic Blitz.

Not so lucky was City Homicide whose older Audience spent the second week in a row glued to the cricket – we’ll no more once its regular competition (CSI) moves in from next week.

So You Think You Can Dance had a great night last night with the first live performance and The Biggest Loser Weigh In improved Week on Week.

Also smart on Ten’s part was the decision to return The Simpsons to 6pm Sunday, although keeping Out of the Blue at 5.30 at the expense of Sport Tonight is still hurting their ratings in that slot.

Rove, too is hurting, unable to hurdle a rerun of Bones, one of the most boring procedurals this side of Crossing Jordan!!

Rinse and Repeat - Friday 13 February 2009

Both Nine and Seven had sporting events on Friday night which managed to fracture the schedule across the country.

Seven was split down state lines with Sydney/Bris showing encore episodes and the southern states carrying AFL.

Nine was split by time zone due to their live cricket coverage - viewers in Bris, Perth and Adelaide were treated to an encore screening of Underbelly

I'm not even going to attempt to spot a trend in all that mess - except to say that a national sport (Cricket) easily outperformed a regional sport (AFL). The irony is that I'll bet you the rights to the AFL costed Seven way more than the cricket rights costed Nine.

Ten at least ran a consistent sked - and although they were again up against a mountain of sport - they seemed to do a good job of anyone not tuned into the cricket.

Lies, Damn Lies and Ratings - Tuesday 10 February 2009

Nine’s Cricket telecast and continuing coverage of the Victorian Bushfire crisis led to an off-pattern Tuesday night.

Overall viewers stuck with their favourites – NCIS and Lie to Me had impressive week on week retention whilst Packed to the Rafters seemed to take the biggest hit from Nine’s cricket coverage.

The only series to demonstrate week on week growth was Bondi Rescue, incredible given the series it is up against but it’s audience grew by 140,000 viewers. My only guess on its resurgence could be viewers looking for some good news stories among the wall to wall despair.

Packed to the Rafters had one of it’s lowest weeks yet (even though it’s still miles ahead of the pack) signalling that some of its viewers are casual and are able to be lured away, given the right alternative.

Opening Night - Sunday 8 February 2009

Last night was the first night the official 2009 Australian Television Ratings season.

The night was thrown into chaos with split scheduling across the board owing to the developing news story of the Victorian Bushfires which so far has become the worst natural disaster in Australian history.

All networks devoted extended coverage to the event in their Melbourne markets as well as additional bulletins at night, pushing existing shows all over the schedule

My chart attempts to make as much sense of all the moves as possible but a clear picture of the night won’t be available until figures adjusted sometime later in the week.

Anyhow here’s how they fared on the first night in

Seven

Seven had a big night – deferring their afternoon programming for news and pushing the debut of newsmagazine Sunday Night back to 7pm in Melbourne didn’t hurt them one iota, the new lineup of Sunday Night/Border Security/Triple Zero Heroes pulled a mammoth audience for it’s first outing – it looks as if Seven has successfully transplanted their Monday shows to Sunday night – but the real test will be up against 60 minutes next week.

Nine

Nine had the cricket all day and reaped a huge rating as a result, but it was their news coverage of the fires which stood out for this viewer, they seemed to have almost every reporter in their employ out at a different location bringing some truly memorable vision of the day.

Ten

Ten had the most uneven day and they were partly to blame. Ten have the unique advantage on big news days of being the first cab off the rank at 5pm, but Saturday, when these fires started (not to mention the hottest day in Melbourne’s history) saw Ten run with a national Sydney based bulletin, giving Sydney stories priority over the unfolding crisis.

Sometimes Ten’s national weekend bulletins are interesting because you get to see a bit of what is going on across the country as compared to the more parochial market leaders – but on days like this a local approach is really needed.

By Sunday Ten had realised their error and had brought in Mal Walden for a special hourlong Sunday bulletin but viewers ignored them in favour of Seven’s early coverage.

This result, and the decision to persist with Out of the Blue saw Ten’s share fall dramatically last night. The Biggest Loser was easily dropped by a news hungry public although they recovered nicely with So You Think You Can Dance – proving the show has a devoted audience – Rove got off to an inauspicious start, I suppose people weren’t much in the mood for snarky fun after all sheer horror – they’ll pick up next week.

Welcome Back - Sunday & Monday 1-2 February 2009

The season has unofficially kicked off giving us a good opportunity to look at the early starters and see where the competition is going this year.

First you get the sport
If there was any doubt then Sunday night’s ratings at least proved Tennis’ ability to draw a huge crowd to the television. At 8.30pm Sunday an average of 4.5 million viewers was watching television in the 5 capitals, a phenomenal result this early in the year.

Cricket too was no slouch, but it’s fortunes seemed to depend on what was on Ten, whereas the Tennis steadily built throughout the night.

Then you get the reality
Ten’s two big reality franchises cranked up again and suddenly viewers discovered channel Ten again!

The Biggest Loser commenced it’s fourth season at 6.30pm Sunday with an hour long introduction to the various couples who will feature in this season, it also ended with the most ludicrous cliffhanger in the show’s 3 year history hanging on the edge of one of host Rochester’s incredibly drawn out sentences

At first glance it looks like a disappointment, the show came third in it’s timeslot, but consider a few caveats

– it was up against two popular sporting events
– it had the Herculean task of lifting from a 266,000 viewer lead-in

Not sure what Ten is going to do about Out of the Blue – it’s like an Albatross, the only reason Ten has bought it is to qualify for points on it’s Australian drama quota (you know – keep the rent seekers happy) but to do this they have to show it in Prime Time, but it is currently Prime Time poison. Not sure how they’re gonna solve this one.

So You Think You Can Dance also started last night for it’s second season premiere and posted a 153,000 viewer improvement on it’s lead in and second in the timeslot.

It took a hit on Monday losing 151,000 viewers night on night, but that may be due to increased competition.

Then you get the women…OK so Desperate Housewives might do alright this year though you’ve gotta hand it to Ten for doing their best to burn up their re-entry. The Devil Wears Prada just earned a spot on Ten’s movie wheel (yes that’s what I’m calling it) with a sound 1.4 million viewers, just shading the housewives and leaving Brothers and Sisters in the dust. Clearly men did not control the remote last night as the only testosterone on the night (T3) sunk without a trace.


Oh and the sitcoms
Last night also saw the launch of one the dumbest competitions ever – sitcom vs sitcom. You know this sort of thing isn’t new but generally the programmers have stuck comedies on different nights, now more than ever when good sitcoms are in short supply different timeslots makes more sense to maximise your ratings and the public thirst for laughs, but instead Seven has decided to pit their summertime star performer (How I met your mother) against it’s US stablemate (Two and a Half Men), the result is there for all to see – they didn’t even beat Big Bang Theory, and that should’ve been a walkover.

Well done Worner – how long before we can expect this good show in an 11.30 slot?

Finally hey – it’s Ten
Yeah uh – people watch channel Ten last night – like The Simpsons and Neighbours all posted increases. The Biggest Loser was down night on night – but still a stratospheric increase over Ten’s 7pm entires for the past 6 months. The result of this was that Ten won Monday with 28.4% share to Seven’s 28%, Nine which relaunched it’s look (it’s currently the nicest looking of all the nets) was in third on 20.7%. Ten also won in 18-49, 16-39 and 25-54 with Seven taking out the over 50’s

When Disaster Strikes - Sunday 18 January 2008

Owwwwwwww, ouch.

Short disclosure - I don't watch it - couldn't care less as it's a soap and have better ways to waste time, but still, I expected it would do better than it did.

I'm talking about Out of the Blue which will soon be 'Back on the Shelf' how at least some of it's 10.30pm devotees didn't follow it is beyond me, it doesn't help them that both Seven and Nine's Sundays will be sport heavy in the next few weeks, will it even be back next week - given tens's itchy trigger finger of late (In Plain Sight anybody?) I doubt it.

Cricket and it's entourage (ie: Nine's Primetime lineup) was the victor on Sunday night. Special mention goes to Flashpoint which posted a good overnight figure last Sunday (1,030,000), but this was mostly due to cricket overrun (it was pushed from 10.30 to 11pm), the real figure (561,000) was much less impressive. Now with another week of promotion and a better timeslot the series posted a much healthier 1,112,000 - Nine can be happy with that result.

Seven, knowing they wouldn't win, chose instead to fuck with channel ten, matching ten's Hugh Grant movie (About A Boy aka the most repeated movie on earth) with a much less seen (and more upbeat) Hugh Grant comedy - Nine Months!

Nine puts cart before horse and kills news but wins night - Tuesday 14 January 2009

If there’s one thing that Nine won’t be looking forward to in the 2009 television season, it is Tuesday nights, with Seven’s behometh Packed to the Rafters and channel ten’s one successful show NCIS squeezing them out of this valuable night

Well last night I think they hit on the solution – a weekly Twenty20 cricket match every Tuesday should be enough to see off the competition!

If only Cricket wasn’t a summer sport because last night Nine racked up a 44 share across prime time so far being the only program to take down NCIS this summer with the drama losing 286,000 viewers week on week (although recovering 63,000 of those in it’s second hour.

Strangley Eli Stone actually slightly improved – suggesting that although it has a smaller audience, they are much more loyal.

Whatever Nine is doing right in the cricket – it is struggling in the news department, after a week of good news ratings on the back of a cricket lead in, this week they are under the hammer – with Seven maintaining their share while Nine’s news goes backwards, ACA was beaten by Ten News FFS! Since when has that ever happened!?

Flasher at the cricket - Sunday 11 January 2009

That wheezing sound you can hear is the last gasp of test cricket as it struggles for air, deprived of viewers while it’s upstart younger sibling Twenty/20 cricket grabs the limelight.

For those who don’t know already Twenty/20 shrinks the one day 50 over per side cricket match down to a fast 20 overs per side, meaning the whole game can be played out in one evening – perfect for television and spectacle with the play less strategic and more ‘go for broke’

I’m reminded of a quote from an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where one of the characters laments the demise of Baseball several centuries earlier…

"Once, centuries ago, it was the beloved national pastime of the Americas. Abandoned by a society that prized fast food and faster games. Lost to impatience.”

That quote came to mind when I saw the ratings for last night’s Twenty/20 match – quite different to the middling ratings achieved by the test cricket just a week ago, the difference was – those ratings (because of the timeslot) provided a real benefit to Nine’s News, last night Nine’s News was off the radar and it’s 6.30 showing of The Secret Millionaire (honestly, how many timeslots are they going to trial this in?) was a disaster even being beaten by Ten’s also-ran movie.

Better for Nine though was the opening of Flashpoint which held onto half the cricket’s aud – not bad for a show running through to midnight, I didn’t catch it but judging by the previews it looked like ‘Rush: Toronto’ (or perhaps Rush is ‘Flashpoint: Melbourne’) but this initial turnout bodes well for future airings.

Seven suffered the most by Nine’s cricket dominance with the Rich List taking a dive and their movie being beaten into a close fourth place in the slot.

Ten’s decision to air movies was vindicated – although ‘Aquamarine’ was a non-starter it still did better than last week’s reality double, ‘Die Hard with a Vengance’ however did much better for them, it seems in summer when it comes to showing movies, the back catalogue and name recognition is a better guarantee of good ratings

Ten's Answer = More Tyra - Sunday 4 January 2009

Hey everyone

Even though the networks are still asleep at the wheel it’s time to get back into the fray and bring forth some ratings analysis – the first for this bright shiny new year and what can we see…

Ah yes – people like Cricket! Very good, good stuff people. After some middling ratings for the earlier test outings, Cricket seemed to get it’s game on yesterday with a gargantuan daytime audience of 1.1 million, even The Cricket Show a half hour time filler (they used to play sitcom reruns in that lunch break when I was a kid!) did spectacular business. All of this crickety goodness help Nine News to the No. 1 spot on the ladder last night

Seven News was still impressive though – given it’s lead in was the embarrassingly titled “Does My Bum Look Big?”

Seven got another big shot in with their reality shows, but the Rich List lost 100,000 viewers from lead in Hot Property and while it didn’t do badly (channel ten would kill for that number) – it was not a very confident performance from Seven’s perspective.

Channel Ten is in distress – I’m not sure how they’re keeping the lights on over there this summer because there’s an awful lot of PSA’s taking up commercial breaks on that channel right now which is a sad situation.

Don’t Forget The Lyrics seems to be a show that’s very dependant on it’s lead in, ie: you’re not going to seek this show out, it’s not appointment television the way that you will make a point to catch The Big Bang Theory, rather it’s the kind of show that you’ll watch if its on when you’re watching.

This is bad news if your lead in is the centre of the known universe: Tyra Banks. Tyra’s modelling quest now has less viewers on free to air than it does on Cable (the series’ weekly reach on Foxtel is 831,000 viewers) So what does ten decide to do? Axe the series you say? No – they’re adding another hour! This time 7.30 Mondays to replace the failed How to Look Naked.

Whilst I’m happy they’ve taken out that particular low rater – why replace it with another one. Of course this time tomorrow I could be eating my words and Model could be a big hit back on Mondays – but don’t hold your breath…

Brand Power - Wednesday 17 December 2008

A bit of a weird night caused by a test cricket match in Perth which has skewed channel nine’s lineup and it’s figures as a consequence. It would be encouraging to believe that CSI, ER and Gossip Girl all lifted by 109,000 89,000 and 71,000 respectively – and hey it could’ve happened – but we won’t know until they release the adjusted figures next week.

Notwithstanding the performance of it evening lineup Nine’s cricket coverage had the bizarre side-effect of driving regular ACA viewers to Today Tonight – making it the night’s top show!

Clearly all those years of consumer advocacy has taught the viewers to recognise when one brand offers essentially the same features as another and so people had no trouble switching brands for the night. Nine would want to hope it doesn't become a more permanent switch.

That and the performance of How I Met Your Mother was the end of the good news for seven – the rest of their lineup suffering badly at the hands of the cricket – as did ABC whose older male skew doesn’t help on night’s like last night!

Ten was about the same week on week although that’s not saying much.

Cricket = Nine's Friend - Sunday 30 November 2008

Nine can be pleased with the first night of summer – the lead-in from cricket gave the early part of their night a nice lift over their rivals.

20 to 01 again proved the timeslot king, that is until summer stalwart Hot Property bowed at 7pm giving Seven a boost and further embarrassing Jamie Durie who once again came up short.

I expect 20 to 01 to lift next week as Thank God You’re Here bows out and comedy watchers are left with one remaining option, notwithstanding the unintentional comedy of Tyra Banks’ inflated ego.

Given the paltry lead-in you would think that Don’t Forget the Lyrics did alright to get to 830,000 but you’d be wrong, out of all the 7.30 shows on commercial nets Ten actually had the least increase with only 87,000 added, whilst Seven added 131,000 and Two and Half Men drew an extra 166,000 to the set.

I remember a long time ago when Nine had a mega hit sitcom in the form of Friends – they tried every conceivable show behind it – Caroline in the City, Veronica’s Closet (Good first season then stupidly re-tooled), Jesse (Boring show, good theme song), Spin City (underrated sitcom one of Nine’s best), Malcolm in the Middle (strong start then disappeared!?) and Two and a Half Men.

Now a and the ones that did then couldn’t perform well on their own. This year now that Two and a Half Men is a hit, Nine is trying to get a second, they tried Til Death and succeeded in growing it’s audience, except that the show looks to be on life support in the US and is therefore perhaps not a long term prospect so they’re giving another tryout to Chuck Lorre’s other show – The Big Bang Theory and so far, so good – if it can keep this sort of retention over summer then Nine has another long term prospect on their hands as it is also one of CBS’ best sitcom performers in the states, always improving on it’s 8pm lead-in How I Met Your Mother.

The last Monday sitcom CBS had which pulled better 8.30 ratings than it’s 8pm lead-in was Everybody Loves Raymond which in it’s second season was outrating it’s 8pm lead-in Cosby, it was moved to 9pm the following year where it stayed for the remainder of it’s run as the tentpole show for CBS on Mondays.

Finally, Ten seems to have been vindicated by scheduling School of Rock for the 800th time this season, I suppose in the eternal network game of rock/paper/scissors improbable comedy movie beats out fact based drama.

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