Almost 200K turn off The Shire

Just 754,000 viewers watched The Shire in metro markets, with around 190,000 people fewer than who watched the first episode last week.

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Monday night is The Shire‘s night at 8pm. Did viewers care? No. On the face of it 120,000 extra viewers watched the program in metro markets last night (1.062 million) but that contained some of the audience for MasterChef which ran over by 15 minutes, ending around 8.15pm. On corrected time, just 754,000 viewers watched The Shire in metro markets, with around 190,000 people fewer than the 942,000 people who watched the first episode last week.

In other words, just over 800,000 people failed to hang around from MasterChef for The Shire, or more than the total metro audience for The Shire. Based on the time-adjusted figures, The Shire lost 20% of its debut audience last night and didn’t finish 5th nationally with 1.540 million. But that wasn’t the big news from last night.

The big news was the weak performance again by Nine as it continues to run dead ahead of the London Olympic Games starting at the end of the week (that won’t be enough for Nine to win the week though). Nine was pushed into a very rare 4th spot in metro markets by the ABC (3rd) and Ten (second) behind a clear win by Seven. ABC 1 was also third ahead of Nine in the main channels. While it is a deliberate move by Nine, it must be frustrating for Nine viewers.

Tonight: Ignore Nine, unless you like to suffer The Voice from the US. Seven has Winners & Losers at 8.30pm. Ten has MasterChef from 7pm. ABC 1 has a Foreign Correspondent special on obesity around the world from 8.30pm and Insight and Dateline resume on SBS from 7.30pm. It’s a welcome return for two solid programs.

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

Revenge (Seven) — 2.197 million
MasterChef (Ten) — 2.075 million
Seven News — 1.915 million
Nine News — 1.897 million
The Shire (Ten) — 1.540 million*
Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.515 million
Home and Away (Seven) — 1.499 million
The Amazing Race Australia (Seven) — 1.448 million
A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.398 million
Australian Story (ABC 1) — 1.328 million
ABC News — 1.321 million

*Not adjusted for later starting time

The Metro Winners:

Revenge (Seven) — (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.553 million
MasterChef (Ten) (7pm) — 1.549 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.291 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.282 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.237 million
The Shire (Ten) (8.15pm) — 1.062 million
The Amazing Race Australia (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.014 million
ABC News (7pm) — 1.007 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.003 million

The Losers: Nine, from 6.30pm onwards.

Metro News & CA: A Current Affair decoupled from Today Tonight last night and had its weakest Monday night since the start of this year. That’s despite winning Melbourne. Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne, Seven News won the rest.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.291 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.282 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.237 million
ABC News (7pm) — 1.007 million
Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 938,000
Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 910,000
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 898,000
Media Watch (ABC) (9.20pm) — 837,000
Ten News (5pm) — 754,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 741,000
The Project (Ten) (6.30pm) — 714,000
Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 708,000 (+69,000)*
The Project (Ten) (6pm) — 486,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.35pm) — 346,000
Ten News (Ten) (10.30pm) — 182,000
The Business (ABC) (11.10pm) — 173,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 157,000
SBS News (10.30pm) — 38,000
The Drum (News 24) (6pm) — 37,000

*On News 24 simulcast

In the morning: Another weak start to the week from Ten’s Breakfast.

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 353,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 329,000
The Morning Show (Seven) (9am) — 183,000
Mornings (Nine) (9am) — 127,000
The Circle (Ten) (9am) — 60,000
News Breakfast (ABC) (6am) — 35,000 (+25,000)*
Breakfast (Ten) (7am) — 28,000

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 31.9%, from Ten (3) on 23.3%, ABC 1 (4) was third with 21.3%, Nine (3) slipped to a weak 4th with 19.5% and SBS (2) was on 4.0% as the Tour de France ended. Seven leads the week with 32.3% from Nine on 23.2% and Ten on 22.9%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 25.1%, from Ten on 18.0%, ABC 1 was on 16.3% Nine was on 18.0% and SBS ONE ended on 3.3%. Seven leads the week with 25.9% from Nine on 17.6% and Ten on 17.3%.

Metro Digital: 7TWO won the night with 4.1%, from GO on 3.5%, ABC 2 was on 3.0%, Gem was on 2.8%, 7mate and Eleven were on 2.7% each, ONE ended on 2.6%, ABC 3 was on 1.1%, News 24 ended on 1.0% and SBS TWO finished with 0.6%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 24.1%, 7TWO now leads the week with 3.3%, from GO and 7mate on 3.1%.

Metro including Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.2%, from Ten (3) on 19.2%, ABC 1 (4) was third with 17.5%, Nine (3) was 4th with 16.0% and SBS (2) was on 3.3%. Pay TV ended with a share of 15.7% for its 200 plus channels that was boosted by the audience for the Monday night NRL game.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox Sports 2 (4.7%)
TV1 (2.7%)
Fox 8 (2.6%)
LifeStyle & A&E (2.1%)
Fox Sports 3 (1.9%)

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

NRL; North Qld v Wests (Fox Sports 2) — 395,000
NRL: NRL XTRA (Fox Sports 2) — 211,000
AFL: On The Couch (Fox Footy) — 94,000
Family Guy (Fox 8) — 93,000
AFL: AFL 360 (fox Footy) — 85,000

Regional: No repeat of the metro result with Nine finishing second instead of fourth. Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.2%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 23.2%, SC Ten (3) on 20.4%, the ABC (4) was on 18.2% and SBS (2) was on 5.0%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 23.9%, from WIN/NBN and SC Ten on 15.4% each. ABC 1 was on 13.9%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.5% from GO with 4.4% and 7mate on 3.8%. the 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 26.2%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 32.7%, from WIN/NBN on 27.2%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

Revenge — 645,000
Seven News — 624,000
Nine News — 614,000
MasterChef — 505,000
A Current Affair — 508,000

Major Metro Markets: Nine’s weakness was revealed in the market by market analysis. Seven had a clean sweep, both overall and in the main channels. In Sydney and Perth, the ABC was second overall and in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, ABC 1 was third in the main channels. Ten was second overall in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, and second in the main channels in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Nine was third overall in Brisbane. In the digitals, 7TWO won Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, GO won Brisbane and Perth. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In Adelaide and Perth its Seven from Ten and Nine.

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

*Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports