Tennis on Seven squeezed by cricket and Oprah

The Winners: Australians still love a winner, so Oprah In Australia was watched as was cricket on Nine.

Nine News (6pm) — 1.768 million
One Day Cricket, 2nd session (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.508 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.367 million
Oprah In Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.333 million
One Day Cricket, 1st session (Nine, around 2 – 6 pm) — 1.061 million

The Losers: Seven’s tennis, squeezed again by the ODI and Oprah In Australia. Australia, the movie, on Ten after Oprah. Only 643,000 people watched, unfortunately.

News & CA: Nothing important in news last night. The cricket boosted Nine, the tennis didn’t for Seven. Sunrise was beaten by Nine’s Today only because Sunrise was pre-empted in Perth by the tennis. The reality is that Sunrise got to within 8000 viewers of Today in only four of the five markets.

Nine News (6pm) — 1.768 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.367 million
ABC News (7pm) — 754,000
Ten News (5pm) — 434,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 182,000

In the morning:

Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 298,000
Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 290,000

The Stats:

FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 37.1%, from Seven (3) on 23.9%, Ten (3) on 21.0%, the ABC, (4), was on 12.8% and SBS (2), 5.3%.
Main Channel: Nine won with a share of 29.2%, from Ten with 18.1%, Seven on 17.4%, ABC 1, 11.1% and SBS ONE, 4.6%.
Digital: the 10 digital channels had an FTA share of 19.6% last night, with GO winning with 5.2%, from 7TWO on 3.7%, 7Mate on 2.7%, Gem with 2.6%, Eleven on 2.3%, ABC 2 was on 0.9%, SBS TWO was on 0.7%, News 24 was on 0.5% and ABC 3 finished with 0.4%. The 10 channels shares in the five metro markets ranged from a low of 17.6% in Sydney to a high of 23.5% in Perth and 20.8% in Brisbane.
Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 30.7%, from Seven on 19.7% (3 channels), Ten (3) was on 17.4%, pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 14.5%, the ABC (4), was on 10.6% and SBS (2), finished with 4.4%. The Pay TV shares ranged from the usual high in Sydney of 17.4% to the usual low in Adelaide of 10.2%; in Perth, Foxtel had a share of 16.5%, which was quite solid.
Regional: Nine won of course, thanks to the cricket. WIN/NBN finished with a total share of 38.4% for the three channels, from Ten (3) with 22.8%, Seven (3) on 21.9%, the ABC (4), on 12.5% and SBS (2) on 4.4%. The digital channels battle was won by GO on 5.5%, from 7TWO on 3.9% and Eleven on 3.3%. The Ten digital channels had an FTA share total of 22.1%.

Major Markets: Nine won everywhere, Ten was second in Sydney and Perth in both the overall and main channels and seven in the main channels in Adelaide. Seven was second in Melbourne and Brisbane, and second overall in Adelaide. Its seems Oprah’s biggest fans were in Sydney and Perth. Go won Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. 7TWO won Sydney.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Cricket and Oprah In Australia meant Seven’s night of tennis was third. Seven won last week thanks to a very sold Saturday night (or rather, Bernard Tomic playing Nadal), and the absence of cricket on Nine (which had won Friday night).

TONIGHT: Ten’s new news line up with 6PM with George Negus and the 6.30pm local news for each five metro markets. It must be big because The Australian carried two essentially similar bits of analysis this morning, one in the news section and one in the business section. There will be a lot of immediate, lightweight reaction tomorrow and in following days to the ratings for these two new programs (odd how newspapers still can’t bring us next day sales figures, isn’t it?).

Seven and Nine will be busy spreading the downside of the figures because they have the most to lose if Ten’s two programs start attracting viewers and hold them. Ten will now have two and a half hours of news and views, from 5pm to 7.30pm Monday to Friday, which is a big gamble, but in these days of multi-channels, well worth the risk. Ten doesn’t have to get Seven or Nine figures at 6pm to 7pm to justify the experiment.

If Ten does build an audience, watch Nine and Seven pour in the resources to try and force Ten’s programs off air. The 6pm to 7pm slot is a high stakes battle.

Elsewhere tonight, Seven has the tennis (which is struggling in the face of the one day cricket), The 7pm Project and the ABC has not very much at all.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports