Nine wins, viewers turn to news for Qantas info

The Winners: An easy win for Nine as Seven’s ratings sank. Viewers didn’t seem as interested in Seven’s offerings last night. Viewers were also right off Ten. Junior MasterChef on Ten at 7.30pm, 762,000. It can’t return next year with these poor figures. The ABC showed resourcefulness to get a special edition of 7.30 up last night to cover the Qantas story.

Interestingly, viewers went searching for updates on the Qantas story and liked what they found on ABC 1, News 24 and Sky News and the early 5pm Ten News.

60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.372 million
Underbelly: Razor (Nine) (8.30pm) — 1.293 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.264 million
Frozen Planet (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.236 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.125 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.009 million

The Losers: Ten, another poor night. Merlin at 6.30pm, 622,000 (it was over a million a year ago). Ringer at 9.30pm, 312,000. Mobbed at 8.30pm, 401,000 and rubbish.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney, quite easily, Seven News won the rest, very easily.

The Qantas dispute saw a perk up for Inside Business on the ABC at 10am (its audience jumped sharply) as viewers stayed from Insiders for the rare live edition that concentrated on the story. ABC News 24 saw its figures jump as well last night and yesterday, and Saturday evening when it had a 2.7% share, one of its highest ever. 60 Minutes stuck a short interview at the back of 60 Minutes with Qantas boss Alan Joyce. That put 60 Minutes ahead of Sunday Night.

Sky News also had high figures on pay TV as well as viewers searched for updates.

The ABC’s special edition of 7.30 last night showed up the commercial channels as being slow off the mark.

Ten’s longer national 5pm News had its best figures since starting (a boost from the Qantas dispute?). More people tuned into The Bolt Report at 10am and its 4.30pm repeat, but the 281,000 total was still smaller than the 291,000 who watched the single live broadcast of Insiders on ABC 1 and News 24 yesterday morning.

60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.372 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.264 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.125 million
Nine News (6pm ) — 1.009 million
ABC News (7pm) — 824,000
Ten News (5pm) — 416,000
Nine News (5pm) — 367,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 162,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 146,000
Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 143,000

In the morning:

Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 332,000
Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 318,000
Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 208,000
Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 204,000 (+87,000 on News 24 simulcast)
Landline (ABC) (noon) — 204,000
Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 179,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 135,000
Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 124,000

The Stats:

FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 33.5% from Seven (3) on 27.7%, Ten (3) was on 19.6%, the ABC (4) was on 15.0% and SBS (4) was on 4.2%.
Main Channel: Nine won with a share of 25.2%, from Seven on 20.6%, ABC 1 was on 11.6%, Ten was on 11.4% and SBS ONE ended on 3.6%.
Digital: ONE won with a share of 4.6%, from Gem won with a share of 4.2%, GO was on 4.1%, Eleven was on 3.7%, 7TWO ended with 3.6%, 7mate was on 3.5%, ABC 2, 1.8%, News 24, 1.2%, SBS TWO was on 0.6% and ABC 3 ended on 0.5%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 27.8%.

Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 27.4% from Seven (3) on 22.7%, Ten (3) was on 16.1%, pay TV (200-plus channels) ended on 15.6%, the ABC (4) was on 12.3% and SBS (4) was on 3.4%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of 84.4%. The 10 digitals channels had a share of 22.5% (quite high) and the five main channels had a share of 61.9%.

The five most watched Pay TV channels were:

Fox 8 (3.29%)
Sky News (3.27%)
Fox Sports 3 (2.81%)
TV 1 (2.68%)
Lifestyle (2.48%)

The five most-watched pay TV programs were:

The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 94,000
Cricket: NSW versus Victoria (Fox Sports 3) — 91,000
The Simpsons (Fox 8), 91,000
The Boy Who Cried Wolf (Nickelodeon) — 82,000
The Simpsons — (Fox 8) — 80,400

Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 33.1%, from Prime/7Qld (3) on 32.0%, with SC Ten (3) on 16.3%, the ABC (4) on 14.7% and SBS (2) on 3.9%. The main channels were won by WIN/NBN with 24.3% from Prime/7Qld on 23.6%. ABC 1 was on 11.1% and beat Ten’s main channel on 10.0%. GO won the digitals with 4.8% from 7TWO on 4.4% and Gem on 4.1%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share of 27.7%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

Sunday Night — 576,000
60 Minutes — 572,000
Wild Boys — 536,000
Underbelly: Razor — 531,000
Frozen Planet — 499,000

Major Markets: Nine won easily and everywhere, both overall and the main channels. Seven was second (overall and the main channels. Ten was third overall in all five markets third in the main channels in Sydney and Brisbane. ABC 1 was more popular than Ten in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth in the main channels. ONE won Brisbane and Adelaide. Gem won Perth and drew Sydney with GO. 7mate won Melbourne.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Last week was Seven’s. Nine won Sydney (by 0.4%) from Seven. Seven won the rest. 7TWO won the digital battle. Pay TV won Saturday night. Prime/7Qld won the regionals.

The five most-watched programs last week were all broadcast by Seven:

Packed to the Rafters — 2.377 million
The X Factor (Monday) — 2.116 million
The X Factor (Tuesday) — 2.007 million
Beauty and The Geek Australia — 1.965 million
Seven News (Sunday) — 1.950 million

Yesterday: Barrie Cassidy on ABC’s Insiders yesterday talking about James Packer’s network (“his network”) and inferring that Packer had influenced the stupid comments about the poker machine legislation that is causing problems for Nine. Packer doesn’t have anything to do with Nine. It is controlled by European private equity group, CVC Partners. Packer controls (with Kerry Stokes) Cons Media Holdings, which owns 25% of Foxtel and 50% of Premier Media Group (Fox Sports). Only panellist Gerard Henderson pointed out that Packer no longer has much influence at Nine. The others let it go through to the keeper.

Last Night: Nine’s night, easily, as Seven paid the price for a weak result for its news in the big Sydney market and a sharp fall in the audience for Sunday Night.

The five most-watched programs nationally were:

60 Minutes — 1.942 million
Underbelly: Razor — 1.824 million
Seven News — 1.784 million
Frozen Planet — 1.736 million
Sunday Night — 1.457 million

Wild Boys finished well outside the top five with 1.43 million. The program was more popular in the regions. Sunday Night dropped nearly 400,000 viewers on last Sunday’s 1.834 million people nationally. It was more popular last night in regional areas than in the metro markets and beat 60 Minutes there as well.

Tonight: The ABC’s usual news and current affairs line up: Media Watch might be the highlight tonight. Seven has The X Factor. Nine has The Big Bang Theory and The Mentalist. Ten has Junior MasterChef. The 7pm Project becomes The Project and starts at 6.30pm, replacing 6.30 with George Negus.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports