The Last Week on Digital

Just a quick squiz at last week's numbers. Tis Easter Holidays so very busy around these parts, I'll be taking the next two weeks off from the blog but when I return the rant will be de-coupled (so to speak) from the charts - that way I can post the charts in a much more timely manner and rant about whatever is going on in the world of TV without having to directly relate it to the days ratings.

Why do I want to seperate the two - well looking at the ratings since the season started - and they're static. Channel 7 is dominating everything and basically making fools out of the other two nets, judging by the latest channel 9 promo I spied tonight - that isn't going to change anytime soon either.

So on a day to day basis the ratings themselves don't provide all that much fodder for discussion. However there is still a lot going on with TV at the moment so I will still have a lot to bitch about - but keeping it seperate from the charts will mean that I can get the charts up quicker (as they are actually quite simple at this point in time) and given that most people are probably here to see the ratings presented as a schedule grid I think overall it will be a good change.

Enjoy easter everyone :D

- Jason

The law of inverse proportions

Wow, the Biggest Loser was the top rating show for Thursday pulling 1.2 million which has to be one of its biggest hauls this year.

Every year the audience for this show builds in the final weeks, it's almost inversely proportional to the amount of jiggling on display!

The AFL Footy Show had its anniversary which explains a timeslot win for the first time this season.



Over on digital there was a big turnout for Stargate Universe, but Star Trek TNG dropped out of the top 50 despite airing one of the best first season episodes (The Big Goodbye)

No gimmick to speak of

What the hell? How on earth did Farmer Wants a Wife net more viewers for the reunion special than at any point in the entire season?

Is this a case of people saying en masse: "cut to the chase"?

Of course they were helped out no end by the moribund Lie to Me, a featureless crime show with a gimmick, drowning in a sea of crime shows with gimmicks. At this point people have to realise that these shows need engaging or interesting characters to stand out, much like a lot of Ten's procedurals the characters in this just seem to blend into the background, against Criminal Minds, a show whose premise contains no gimmick to speak of, yet their ensemble cast is a group of characters each of whom could carry a show, the difference is there for you to see on the chart.


Over on digital it was great night for Eleven and 7TWO and Decent for 7mate and GO! though how GO's programmers think its sustainable to run so many movie slots is beyond me, its almost programming by panic.

Still when you see the alternative, a steady schedule - as demonstrated by GEM, then maybe panic is the way to go, GEM's post 7.30 lineup across the week has more or less fallen off the map.

Big Trial Period

Well this is the first time I remember seeing figures for Brisbane's breakaway 7pm broadcast of The Big Bang Theory. That's because on Tuesday Big Bang netted 207,000 Brisbane viewers. To put this into perspective here's what its competition did in Brisbane:

ABC News: 146,000
Home & Away: 189,000
The 7pm Project: 148,000

It beat all three of them, yet Two and a Half Men running in the other four cities sees Nine in fourth place across the network. Now we know why come Monday Big Bang will be network wide at 7pm

Sons of Liberty

Well the first big thing you'll notice is the switcheroo with George Negus moving to 6.30 to take on the big Current Affairs duopoly. I have high hopes for it so I'll reserve any comment until its had a bit of time to bed in.

Leaving that to one side there's plenty of things to be annoyed with here. A month ago Brothers and Sisters was netting 1 million viewers, now half an hour later and behind a middling show its doing half that number.

Ten have gone back to the Undercover Boss for the time being and the result is - pathetic, its funny actually - both 7pm Project and the Stand up comedy special net 750K yet 200,000 people decide to take the hour inbetween them off.

In spite of a MASSIVE amount of promotion, Two and a Half Men only netted 1 million viewers, its easy to see why - that show is now pedestrian compared to things like this...



But more of a worry for Nine is the Million Dollar Drop, 4th in it's slot and less viewers than the 5.30pm games shows, its a bonafide flop. Part of the problem IMO is that the show is nothing more than a vehicle for Eddie McGuire to sit there and chat to people (at copious length) while the rest of us wait for some sort of game show. Watching Eddie McGuire hosting a game show is like sitting through those Codec conversations in Metal Gear Solid 2 where Raiden asks every question 3 times and then bickers with his girlfriend Rose. It's frustrating and it should be ended.

On digital check out the amazing performances by 7TWO and Eleven with Neighbours, Supernatural and Raymond all netting their biggest numbers yet.

Seven's turn

Yep Seven's turn to win Sundays as the 6.30 and 7.30 slots continue their round robin between the networks.

Sunday Night got a timeslot win on the weekend that Nine confirmed the Sunday ACA as a permanent fixture. For all their trouble ACA didn't do to well on Sunday night (despite yet ANOTHER TV reunion - this time for The Sullivans). In principle it makes more sense to have A Current Affair on a Sunday than it does on a Friday! But shows like this are habitual so it's hard to break into existing prime time slot with a stripped show.

A rerun of NCIS at 9.30 for Ten didn't do much better than its spin off, reinforcing the notion that save for a handful of shows, (Big Bang Theory and Top Gear cheif among them) viewers are becoming weary of reruns. As I've read over on Media Spy some episodes of Modern Family (a sophomore show) have been rerun by ten 4 times already! Maybe ten should think about throwing in some Bondi Rescue reruns instead, save for cable I don't think that show has ever been rebroadcasted.

Question Time

If GO! didn't have the Big Bang Theory they would be in the doldrums. In spite of showing over 9 EPISODES PER WEEK, the show is still GO!'s biggest.

Coming up in the digital world is Ten's scifi double of Stargate Universe and Star Trek The Next Generation. While Star Trek is amazing in so far as its a 23 year old show with zero promotion beating out other digital fare, but Stargate Universe is now in the top tier of digital shows along with Big Bang, Heartbeat and Neighbours as pulling over 200,000 viewers per episode.

Of the main channels - I have some questions:

How much longer can Nine justify the production costs of two separate Footy Shows to draw less than 700,000 viewers?
How on earth does Ten get any traction for their sickly US dramas?
What evil magic continues to keep Home & Away in rude health?
How much longer will Nine wear the 7pm ratings of Two and a Half Men?

Waving and drowning

Ten have all but given up on Wednesday nights.  They tried valiantly for a while with the cop drama Blue Bloods, that faltered so they wheeled out reruns of Modern Family a sitcom that in just over a year on the air feels like its been run to death.

Now they're slotting in Just 4 Laughs specials which is the equivalent of waving your white flag and surrendering the night.

Expect lots of super sized specials from Masterchef when it returns.  As well as a concerted promotional push behind whatever drama they throw behind it.

Once again we were kings

Winners & Losers continues on from its strong debut with winning ratings. Seven is just dominating this early part of the year and there's almost nothing the other two nets can do to stop them!

Ten must be counting down the days until Masterchef - but at this point I wonder whether the audience for that show will have already gotten their fill for culinary action by the time My Kitchen Rules bows.

Over on digital television Survivor puts in an excellent performance, just like The Amazing Race there are still decent audiences for these shows and while they might not look too spectacular on the analogue channels, on digital they are kings.

Pricing yourself out of the market

In Mediaspy today there's an interesting report about the impending AFL rights negotiations with Citigroup warning that the asking price of 1 billion dollars is too high.

You can read that story here Citigroup issues AFL TV rights warning: $1bn is too high

Increasingly I think the commercial networks would be mugs to pay $1b for AFL rights. The ratings for AFL keep sliding down the slope each year and you have the added logistical headache of finding alternative programming for Sydney and Brisbane. Last Thursday’s match was beamed live into Sydney on channel One, only 9,000 people watched! How the AFL thinks they sustain 2 teams in that city let alone justify a billion dollar price tag for the rights is beyond me.

Ten will want to be involved again because they have the sports channel (I believe they’re also going after Rugby League which they had during the 80s), current Seven is suing Ten so I’m not sure that they’ll work together, but Seven needs a partner and I don’t think it will be Foxtel, unless Foxtel just partners up with Ten (I don’t think Nine will be a player in the negotiations)

You only have to look at the (non) performance of One HD which regularly nets only 1 or 2% of the Audience vs channels like 11 or GO! which get up to 5 or 6% to see that live sport is no longer king in this country.

Dead in the water.

Ooh that's not good.  Not only did Million Dollar Drop come a distant third in its slot, but it also got 36,000 less viewers than its lead-out CSI: Miami!

Consider this show axed.

All in all it was a great night for the ABC which saw a good turnout for 4 Corners.

Seven also continued its Monday hot streak with the unstoppable My Kitchen Rules.

Finally some common sense

Check out the dismal figure for ten's NCIS: LA only 387,000 people tuned in for a show which has a long future ahead of it in its home market but looks like it's headed for oblivion over here.

I've been saying for weeks that ten needs to move this behind its more popular sibling but its taken them until now to act.

Let's hope the show's impending move to Tuesday nights pays off.

One way to get viewers

Wednesday, 23 March 2011


Thursday, 24 March 2011


Is there even a point now to taking ratings Surveys, just tick the box marked 7 and move on. My Kitchen Rules is a steam roller for Seven, so much so that its worth asking whether anything they have in the winter that can match it.

7TWO's british dramas have a similar hegemony over the digital spectrum. Posting big total audience numbers with shows aimed at older viewers while the rest of digital scraps over the under 49s.

On Thusrday we had Ten broadcasting the first match of the AFL season. Almost 1/3 of the total audience watched the match in High Definition giving OneHD one of its biggest audiences so far this year.

No Losers for Seven

Tuesday, 22 March 2011



A very big debut for Seven's new series Winners & Losers ensures the best possible start for the Packed to the Rafters substitute.

It doesn't hurt either that My Kitchen Rules is now a major hit with 1.5 million metro viewers.

Over on Digital TV, GO! had a big night with Survivor: Redemption Island pulling a respectable 260K over 2 hours.

Million Dollar Flop

Sunday, 20 March 2011



Monday, 21 March 2011



The debut for Nine's new gameshow - Million Dollar Drop did alright numbers-wise, coming second in it's slot, but I can't help but think it would've been better had they not used such bad actors for their pilot. The concept of the gameshow is decent enough, although I'm not keen on them constantly inventing formats designed to let Eddie MacGuire waffle on at length. But the "couple" who were in the opening show were excruciating to watch.

Also who the hell doesn't know that Australia only has 5 million-plus cities?? How did they find people THAT stupid?