Bring back Kerry O'Brien

Nothing has changed except the qualities Kerry O'Brien brought to The 7.30 Report are now absent, and viewers are poorer for it.

The Winners: Another night for Seven, though Nine was a bit more competitive. The Farmer Wants a Wife, 950,000 at 8.30pm, RPA – Where Are They Now? at 9.30pm, 865,000. Ten was weak.

My Kitchen Rules (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.325 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.186 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.116 million
Criminal Minds (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.116 million
Nine News (6pm)– 1.062 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.024 million
The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.005 million

The Losers: Ten’s Modern Family repeats at 8.30pm, 533,000, and 9pm, 449,000. Not good enough. City Homicide on Seven at 9.30pm, 621,00 … fading….

News & CA: Much closer at 6pm with Seven in front, but Nine winning Sydney and Brisbane close in Melbourne and Adelaide. But that didn’t help ACA, which lost ground and viewers and lost all five metro markets to Today Tonight by wide margins. ACA had another bra update story (consumer guide), it flopped. Ten’s 6PM With George Negus and the 6.30 Evening News both had better figures last night. TEN’S Evening News added more than 90,000 viewers and seems to have hurt ACA more than TT.

Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.186 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.116 million
Nine News (6pm)– 1.062 million
ABC News (7pm) — 916,000
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 840,000
The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 734,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 726,000
Ten News (5pm) — 686,000
6PM With George Negus (Ten) (6pm) — 372,000
Ten Evening News (6.30pm) — 354,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 243,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 219,000
6PM With George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 186,000
Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 136,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 121,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 99,000

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 386,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 300,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven won (3 channels) with a share of 32.6% from Nine (3 channels) on 27.4%, Ten (3 channels) was on 19.3%, the ABC (4) channels, 16.3% and SBS (2), was on 4.3%. Seven leads the week with 32.5% from Nine on 26.2 and Ten on 20.3%.
Main Channel: Seven won with 25.0%, from Nine on 21.6%, ten was on 13.2%, just in front of ABC 1 with 12.8% and SBS ONE was on 3.7%. Seven leads the week with 25.3% from Nine on 19.8% and Ten with 15.7%.
Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 4.3%, from Eleven on 3.8%, 7Mate was on 3.3%, GO, 3.2%, Gem, 2.6%, ONE, 2.3%, ABC 2, 2.1%, News 24, 0.7% and ABC 3 and SBS TWO were each on 0.6%. That’s a FTA prime time total of 23.5% for the 10 digital channels. 7TWO leads the week on 4.0%, from GO on 3.6% and 7Mate and Eleven on 3.3% each.
Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.6%, from Nine on 22.4% (3 channels), Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 15.9%; Ten (3) was on 15.8%, the ABC (4), finished with 13.3% and SBS (2) was on 3.5%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of prime time viewing last night of 84.1%, made up of 19.2% for the digital channels and 64.9% for the five main channels. Over 35% of the TV audience was tuned to either the digital channels or Pay TV last night.
Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with 33.8%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 30.1%, from SC Ten (3) 19.3%, the ABC (4) on 16.3% and SBS (2) 4.3%. Prime/7Qld narrowly won the main channels with 25.0% to WIN/NBN’s 24.8%, 7TWO won the digitals with 5.5% from Eleven on 4.3% and 7Mate on 3.3%. Prime/7Qld leads the week on 33.3% from WIN/NBN on 27.2%
Major Markets: Seven won overall and the main channels in every market. Nine was second, Ten third except in Sydney and Adelaide where the ABC slipped into third spot. 7TWO won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Eleven won the digitals in Melbourne. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in every market.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Bring back Kerry O’Brien. Leigh Sales is not up to it and Chris Uhlmann’s editorialising last night was unworthy of the ABC and what Kerry O’Brien, Bill Peach and others have done at The 7.30 Report down the years. There’s no need for it. Explain, don’t tell viewers.

The 726,000 last night was about par for the course for the old 7.30 Report. Nothing has changed except the qualities Kerry O’Brien brought to the program are now absent, and viewers are poorer for it.

TONGHT: Seven’s female viewer orientated night when a host of female skewing programs (How I Met Your Mother, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives) goes up against the returning AFL and NRL Footy Shows. Seven has not committed to a main channel NRL show this year. It will try and get one up on 7Mate, so no Matthew Johns, for the moment.

Ten has The 7PM Project and then The Good Wife. The ABC’s highlight is a British semi doco on small shop keepers in UK high Streets called Turn Back Time: The High Street. SBS has two imported foodie shows and one local.

Next Tuesday night’s episode of Packed To The Rafters is the final for at least 12 weeks. The week after Seven is due to debut a new soapy drama, Winners and Losers, which will skew towards female viewers. It won’t do the 1.8 million and more of Packed To The Rafters, but should do OK first up. The test will be the second and subsequent episodes and the number of returning viewers.

A gamble from Seven, and it will make the night and the week closer. If it works, it will make the headaches at Ten and Nine even fiercer.

Ten has Offspring to come later in the year, Nine has very little in this area.

And what’s this about budget cuts across the board at the Ten Network from interim CEO, Lachlan Murdoch? Revenues are week, costs are up and the cost cuts are out already. It will be a long bitter winter at Ten (and a mean Spring as well, MasterChef and all).

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports