ABC strong despite At Home with Julia losing viewers

Like its namesake, At Home with Julia suffers from a touch of tedium and is already losing its appeal with viewers/voters.

The Winners: Seven’s night but 8.30-9.30 again was solid for the ABC, which it won.

Episode two of At Home with Julia at 9.30pm on ABC 1, 889,000 compared to the 1.066 million viewers it had on its debut a week ago. Like its namesake, the program suffers from a touch of tedium and is already losing its appeal with viewers/voters.

The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.457 million
The Gruen Transfer (ABC) (9pm) — 1.269 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.236 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.174 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.105 million
Spicks and Specks (ABC) (8.30pm) — 1.055 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.039 million
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour (Seven) (8.45pm) — 1.020 million

The Losers: Ten: very weak. Nine was poor. The ABC was strong. The Renovators on Ten at 7.30pm, 659,00. The 8.30pm repeat of Glee, 450,000, the 9.30pm second episode, 375,000. A tragic outcome for Ten.

News & CA: Nine News and ACA again won Sydney helped by the 49,000 margin in favour of Hot Seat over Deal or No Deal in that market at 5.30pm. Nine News beat Seven by 41,000 viewers, ACA won by just 6000.

Seven news and TT had solid wins in the four other markets. ACA is heading for its worst week in years. If it has less than a million viewers tonight and tomorrow night, it will be the first time in a while that it has failed to crack this level on at least one night.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.236 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.174 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.039 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 905,000
ABC News (7pm) — 901,000
The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 740,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 591,000 (+37,000 on News 24 simulcast)
Ten News (5pm) — 530,000
6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 396,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 225,000
Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.30pm) — 214,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 169,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 93,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 93,000 (+ 36,000 on News 24 at 8.30pm)

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 382,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 340,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 34.8% from Nine (3) on 23.2%, the ABC (4) was on 19.9%, Ten (3) was on 18.0% and SBS (2) finished with 4.2%. Seven leads the week with 34.2% from Nine on 25.8% and Ten on 19.3%.
Main Channel: Seven won with 25.7% from Nine on 16.5%, ABC 1 was third with 15.3% and Ten was on 11.8%, with SBS ONE on 3.7%. Seven leads the week with 26.5%, from Nine on 19.5%, Ten on 13.0% and ABC 1 on 12.8%.
Digital: 7TWO won with 5.0%, from GO on 4.6%, Eleven was on 4.2%, 7mate was on 4.1%, ABC 2 was on 3.2%, Gem was on 2.1%, ONE was on 2.0%, News 24 was on 0.8%, ABC 3, 0.6% and SBS TWO was on 0.5%. That’s an FTA viewing share of 27.1% last night. 7TWO leads the week on 4.5%, from Eleven on 3.9% and GO on 3.7%.
Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 36.2%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 26.5%, with the ABC (4) on 18.8%, SC Ten (3) was on 14.6% and SBS (2) ended on 3.9%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 25.6%, from WIN/NBN on 19.9%, ABC 1 on 13.2% and SC Ten on 8.6%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.6% from 7mate on 5.0% and Eleven on 4.6%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share of a high 29.4% last night. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 35.8% from WIN/NBN on 27.8%. The top five programs in regional areas were: 1. The X Factor, 626,000; 2. Seven News, 491,000; 3. Nine News, 490,000; 4. ACA, 488,000; 5. Home and Away, 438,000.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 28.8%, from Nine (3) on 19.0%, the ABC (4) was on 16.5%, pay TV (200-plus channels) was on 14.9%, Ten (3) was on 14.8% and SBS (2) ended on 3.4%. The 15 FTA channels had an 85.1% viewing share of TV in prime time last night. The 10 digital channels had a total share of 22.3% and the five main channels, 62.8%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox 8 (2.94%)
Fox Sports 1 (2.37%)
Lifestyle (2.13%)
TV 1 (2.11%)
111 Hits (1.71%)

The top five pay TV programs were:

AFL: AFL 360 (Fox Sports 1) — 104,000
Glee (Fox 8) — 75,000
Deadliest Catch (Discover) — 74,000
Family Guy (Fox 8) — 70,000
RWC: Tonga v. Canada (Fox Sports 3) — 70,000

Major Markets: Seven, Nine and the ABC overall and the main channels, everywhere bar Brisbane where Ten managed third overall, but was shunted in the main channels by the ABC. TWO won Sydney and Melbourne, Eleven won Brisbane, 7mate won Adelaide and Perth. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in each of the five metro markets.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven won because Ten and Nine couldn’t compete. Ten and Nine either can’t afford enough fresh programming to fill every primetime slot, or they have overspent on programs such as MasterChef and The Renovators (Ten), or Top Gear Australia, which died yesterday, again, or Underbelly: Razor. Dud programming choices are another reason why Ten and Nine are weak. The failure of The Renovators is hurting Ten badly.

But Nine takes the cake.

Take next Tuesday night, Seven’s strongest night of the week. What does Nine do? Why it starts the new Two and a Half Men with Ashton Kutcher replacing Charlie Sheen, then the new Joy of Sets (a program about TV from Andrew Denton’s production company) and then a roast of Charlie Sheen. Why not Monday night when Seven is weaker?

Seven will win Tuesday night simply because the combination of Home and Away, The X Factor and Packed To The Rafters will mean female viewers will control the remotes and therefore the viewing.

Seven’s Tuesday night line up (with Winners & Losers in the timeslot) accounted for the fresh episodes of the male skewing UK version of Top Gear and Packed to the Rafters and Dinner Date accounted for the latest local version of Top Gear, which also supposed to skew to male viewers bust mostly attracted blank TV sets. Even if Nine gets higher ratings, it won’t last and it’s a stop-gap measure and nothing more.

The five most watched programs nationally last night were:

The X Factor — 2.164 million
Seven News — 1.800 million
The Gruen Transfer — 1.725 million
Home and Away — 1.626 million
Nine News — 1.569 million

Tonight: Seven has The X Factor, Nine has Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year and then the Footy Shows. Ten has Rush, after The Renovators. The ABC has Crownies. SBS has Gourmet Farmer.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports