Is Games fatigue starting to set in?

Fatigue is setting in already for me. The late finishes and early starts are rough.

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: The Games, the Games and the Games. Fatigue is setting in already for me. The late finishes and early starts are rough. Nine of course won the night. Pay TV did well, but its share dipped and it shared second with Seven for the first time since the Games started. Ten was solid, as was the ABC. Non-Games related viewing on the digital channels rose last night to just over 20% of FTA viewing last night. Games fatigue is being felt elsewhere.

Gruen Sweat was more than OK and watched by 793,000 metro and 1.041 million national viewers. MasterChef All Stars was solid with 852,000 metro and 1.133 million national viewers.

Tonight: Games on Nine and Pay TV. MasterChef All Stars on Ten. Criminal Minds on Seven. The Footy Shows on Ten (8.30pm) but none on Nine (it seems half the AFL Footy Show is in London). SBS has the cooking shows from 7.30pm. The ABC is a low view area tonight. Lewis (a repeat) on 7TWO around 8.30pm.

Games update: Nine’s audience is still stable, but it would see Foxtel’s is easing lower. Digital viewing in both metro and regional markets jumped last night to their highest levels since the Games started. Nine’s national audience averaged 2.497 million for the evening coverage last night. That was down on the night before. Nine’s metro coverage averaged around 1.688 million. The regional audience averaged 808,000. Still solid figures.

Commentary: We again saw the limited nature of the Nine coverage last night. The Australian men’s hockey team played Spain and won five-nil: we saw bits. The Australian women’s basketball team beat Brazil in a thriller, we saw bits. We also saw bits of the rowing, and the men’s time trial in the bikes. Bits, lots of bits, but nothing substantive, when Nine could have been showing the full games and events on Gem, but isn’t. That makes the overall standard of the coverage a joke.

No wonder Nine is being slagged on social media and the network and its owners are losing money on the games, which will mean greater financial pain for the network in coming months. The lack of independent coverage on Gem (or GO for that matter), has to be as a result of not being allowed to show it because of the deal with Foxtel and to protect its eight channels (which are free to subscribers anyway because people won’t pay for them in sufficient numbers to cover costs).

These Games were a chance for Nine to show what a FTA network could do in multi-channelling and it has fluffed its big chance. It’s coverage could have been so much better and reflected the changing nature of media. In Games terms, it missed the team bus to the venue and didn’t start. Which is a big pity.

Next week the track and field finals at night (our mornings) will be ideal for Nine to show whole events and bring Australia more live world class sport, as it happens (and not just the swimming).

Late News: Foxtel late this morning gave the first indications of its audiences for the London games and they are pretty impressive. It said:

An average of 617,767 viewers tuned into the coverage (all eight channels) from 6pm until 10.30pm last night (Wednesday).
946,432 viewers tuned in on Sunday between 6pm until 10.30pm.
On Monday, the average audience watching the Olympics on Foxtel’s channels was 659,247 viewers. And an average of 700,781 viewers tuned into the coverage (all channels) from 6pm until 10.30pm on Tuesday.

These are not strictly comparable to the Nine figures, which are based on a different time period — from around 6.50pm to around 11.30pm in the five major capital city markets and from 6 .30pm to midnight for regional area. But more than three million people watched the games last night from around 6.30pm onwards on FTA TV and Foxtel.

The OzTAM prime time share figures are from 6pm to Midnight, Foxtel’s shares were from 6pm to 10.30pm, so their shares are higher than OzTAM’s figures, which are more comparable with those for the FTA Networks, including Nine. For example, Foxtel said its channels had a TV share from 6pm to 10.30pm last night of 22.5%, when it was 18.5% up to midnight.

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

The Olympic Games (early evening) (Nine) — 2.514 million
The Olympic Games (evening) (Nine) — 2.480 million
Nine News — 1.920 million
Seven News — 1.725 million
Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.291 million
Home and Away (Seven) — 1.194 million
MasterChef All Stars (Ten) — 1.133 million
ABC News — 1.103 million
The Olympic Games (late) (Nine) — 1.058 million
A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.056 million

The Metro Winners:

The Olympic Games (early evening) (Nine) (6.50pm) — 1.705 million
The Olympic Games (evening) (Nine) (8.30pm) — 1.672 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.339 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.161 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1,055 million

The Losers: No one really.

Metro News & CA: A Current Affair was again pre-empted in Adelaide and Perth and in most regional markets. Nine News won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven won Adelaide and Perth.

Nine News (6pm) — 1.339 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.161 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1,055 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 914,000
ABC News (7pm) — 786,000
Ten News (5pm) — 761,000
The Project (Ten) (6.30pm) — 617,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 557,000
The Project (Ten) (6pm) –479,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 131,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.45pm) — 119,000
Ten News (10.30pm) — 118,000
The Business (ABC) (11.20pm) — 91,000
SBS News (10.30pm) — 81,000
The Drum (News 24) (6pm) — 31,000

In the morning: Today and Mornings on Nine were again pre-empted by the Games coverage. Ten’s Breakfast perked up for the second time in three days, thanks to the absence of Today?

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 371,000
The Morning Show ( Seven) (9am) — 151,000
The Circle (Ten) (9am) — 51,000
News Breakfast (ABC) (6am) — 49,000 (+22,000)*
Breakfast (Ten) (7am) — 53,000

Metro FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 40.5%, from Seven (3) on 23.3%, Ten (3) was on 17.6%, the ABC (4) was on 14.4% and SBS (2) ended on 4.2%. Nine leads the week with 41/7% from Seven on 22.9% and Ten on 17.0%. Main Channels: Nine won with a share of 36.9% from Seven on 15.8%, Ten was on 11.3%, ABC 1, 10.6% and SBS ONE ended on 3.7%. Nine leads the week with 38.0% from Seven on 17.0% and Ten on 11.8%.

Metro Digital: The 10 digital channels had their highest total share since the games started. 7TWO won with a share of 4.2% from 7mate on 3.3%, ONE on 3.2%, Eleven on 3.0%, GO on 2.9%, ABC 2 on 2.5%, Gem and ABC 3 on 0.7% each, News 24 on 0.6% and SBS TWO which finished with 0.5%. The 10 digital channels had 21.6% share of FTA viewing last night. 7TWO still leads the week with 3.4%, from GO on 3.1%.

Metro including Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 32.1%, from Seven (3) on 18.5%, Ten (3) was on 14.0%, the ABC (4) was on 11.4% and SBS (2) ended on 3.4%. The 15 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of 81.5%. The 10 digital channels had a share of 17.3%, the five main channels share was 63.8%. Pay TV’s share last night was 18.5% for its 200 channels, equal to Seven’s share.

The top five pay TV channels were: The Other Subscription Channels contain the eight Foxtel Games channels.

Other Subscription Channels (24.9%)
Fox 8 (2.3%)
TV 1 (1.8%)
LifeStyle & Fox Classics (1.3%)
W (1.2%)

Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 41.3%, from Prime/7Qld (3) on 24.7%, SC Ten (3) was on 16.7%, the ABC (4) was on 13.2% and SBS (2) ended on 5.0%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 38.2% from Prime/7Qld on 16.4%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.3% from ONE with 3.9% and Eleven on 3.7%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 24.6%. WIN/NBN leads the week with 42.4% from Prime/7Qld on 24.8%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

The Olympic Games (early evening) (Nine) — 809,000
The Olympic Games (evening) (Nine) — 808,000
Nine News — 581,000
Seven News — 565,000
WIN News — 461,000

Major Metro Markets: Nine had another clean sweep, which was to be expected. Seven and Ten were second and third respectively except in the main channels in Sydney and Perth where ABC 1 pushed Ten down to 4th. 7TWO won the digitals in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth where it shared the win with 7mate. Eleven won Brisbane. Nine leads the week in all five metro markets.

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

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports