Here’s hoping that it works because in the 17 or so years since Ten moved their evening news to 5pm, nothing has ever taken off in this slot. Ten’s low readings between 6pm and 7pm have kept their audience share subdued for two decades.
Last night we got a small sampling (that pops up now and again) of what would happen if Ten extended their bulletin past 6pm. The Brisbane storms provided an opportunity for the 5pm bulletin to run 90 minutes last night, it produced an inflated result for the net.
You can see here a table showing The Simpsons’s 6pm Audience for Brisbane and on the same night nationally – this was from approximately a week ago with no big news stories on the night. In the Brisbane market The Simpsons got a 17.54% commercial audience share, on the same night nationally they managed 20.47%
Now look at last night – Ten News produced a 26 share – translated nationally that would improve Ten’s performance in the slot by 6% and mean an extra 180k watching the net at 6.
This is by no means a detailed or even competent analysis and there are an endless amount of naysayers who will tell you that messing with the news = ratings death, but I think it’s worth a look – if The Bold and The Beautiful fails to lift ten’s 6pm game – then start spreading the news.
