People Meter Madness - Tuesday 11 November 2008

Another Tuesday, another clean sweep for Seven, leaving Nine and Ten to fight over the scraps.

Nine came out better earlier in the night with The Chopping Block posting an encouraging number and their other shows holding that crowd through the night.

Ten on the other hand peaked for NCIS and... that was it.

One thing that is becoming clear after 3 weeks is that Will & Grace is probably hurting Ten just as badly as the rest of their 7pm disasters this year, how else do you explain a figure for the Simpsons that's barely 20,000 people more than the 6pm rerun??

Perhaps the Simpsons' core audience has hollowed out to the point where there are only half a million dedicated followers anymore, perhaps it was barely promoted during the week, perhaps it was so gut bustingly funny that several people meter users forgot to press the button while it was on only to have the unfunny Shane Jacobsen snap them back to reality, or maybe - just maybe Will & Grace is driving viewers away. Now I don't pretend for one minute that a lot of Neighbours viewers switch to Home & Away at 7pm - that's pretty logical really, which makes 7pm a switch on point for viewers and that 7m show just ain't bringing the numbers.

At the other end of the night there'll be a whole stack of people happy that Rush has been renewed for a second season but what the hell do we make of a well promoted episode, where a character dies no less, rating lower than the rest of the season?

Late Edit: There may be something wrong with the figures for The Simpsons THE SIMPSONS TUES Ten 653,000 289,000 140,000 101,000 122,000 it only covers four cities and it's not clear which ones but it's likely that either Sydney or Melbourne is missing from that list which would explain a whole lot, including why this is a rant and not a factual analysis :D

Seven's problems are other nets fantasies - Tuesday 28 October 2008

Last night was a very low rating night – unless you were channel seven that is with Packed to the Rafters and All Saints boosting their numbers from last week.

The biggest drop was to The Simpsons which lost 125,000 viewers week on week whereas it’s stablemate Kenny’s World actually got a lift as did The Chopping Block, however with both shows staying under 900,000 I doubt either will earn a second season.

8.30 seems to be a major switch on point and it’s a fair assumption to note that there a lot of people who on average now are only watching one hour of TV per night – that has probably always been the case to some extend but the proportion of folks who only stay for the 8.30 hour is growing.

At 7pm the 3 commercial nets attracted 3,084,000 people to the box, at 8.00 that number grew to 3,549,000. For the 8.30 hour it pumps up again to 4,133,000 essentially adding 500,000 people per hour, then an 9.30 a million people take off leaving only 3,163,000 holding a remote which is tuned to 7, 9 or 10. It’s a good bet that not all of these people are heading to bed – a good proportion would be headed to cable, with a lot more firing up the internet, even DVDs and Video Games would get a look in – the choice is endless. In the future 9.30 programs pulling over 1 million are going to get a lot rarer.

What about the retention from 8.30 to 9.30 – well unsurprisingly Nine fared the best but only because they had the least to lose with 20 to 01 retaining 91.3% of it’s lead-in, Rush retained 78.8% of it’s lead-in – you would think Ten would be aiming for at least 85% given the strong NCIS marquee and the fact that Rush is a similar show in content, but no amount of promotion seems to able to give it a lift – the show appears to have found it’s audience and is settled between 900,000 and 1 million. Ten needs to put in a concerted promotional push to get new viewers to sample the show because Rush is now decoupled from it’s lead in.

All Saint fared the worst in terms of retention with only 67% but it almost doesn’t matter because the show is streets ahead of it’s rivals – it does however present seven with a future dilemma – here they have a show, a steamroller in Packed to the Rafters which could be used to launch or boost anything on their schedule, yet if they move either it, or All Saints they risk killing the Golden Goose – of course, Nine or Ten would kill for a problem like that right now!

Chink in the armour – Tuesday 14 October 2008

Not much of one – but enough to provide a ray of hope to the other nets particularly Ten. Whilst Seven’s 7.30 hour increased week on week, Packed to Rafters reduced by 93,000 viewers and All Saints lost 175,000 week on week

Most of those viewers must’ve found their way up the dial. Ten recorded increases for NCIS (40,000) and Rush (94,000), and Nine increased Two and a Half Men by 93,000 viewers.

The prescence of The Chopping Block was a blow to Nine’s 7.30 hour and seemed to bolster the fortunes of Seven’s 7.30 shows – especially RSPCA which gained almost 100,000 viewers week on week.

Kenny’s Toilet Tour benefited from the move to Tuesday nights but still lost viewers from The Simpsons. Which is vernturing back into more respectable territory increasing week on week by 49,000 people (and by 145,000 over last weeks new 7.30pm ep!)

Overall it was a fairly stable night with some good gains to ten, they now have three shows over the million and have improved there other timeslots, can they keep it going or will they falter again with House tomorrow night, it remains to be seen but the can be encouraged by the stronger performance for Rush, one of the year’s best new shows – here’s hoping it’s numbers improve.

As for Nine – it is hard to imagine where else they could put The Chopping Block, but Nine doesn’t tolerate sub-million figures for long (Battlefronts has just been axed), Tuesday night has been a free-for-all up to The Olympics at which time Seven got the night in a headlock, the other two will be lucky just to keep their head above water on this night – and for the most part last night – that’s what they did.