The Celebrity Apprentice can't stop a Seven win

The Celebrity Apprentice did good figures first up for Nine last night, but let's see how it goes in a week or two's time.

The Winners: That the launch of The Celebrity Apprentice couldn’t beat Home and Away at 7pm tells us a lot about TV viewers. They have worked out how the networks launch programs and double up episodes. More than 270,000 extra people tuned in to the first episode of the program from 7.30pm.

Apart from the fresh 8pm episode of The Big Bang Theory, Seven won the two hours from 7pm to 9pm, which won’t hearten Nine. It had beaten a very loud drum to promote this program.

If The Celebrity Apprentice‘s audiences dip under 1 million Monday to Friday in the next two or so weeks, then it will be in trouble (but the final episode will see a big audience, you can bank on that).

Seven News (6pm) — 1.374 million
The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (8pm) — 1.369 million
The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.352 million
The Celebrity Apprentice (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.325 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.258 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.166 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.120 million
The Celebrity Apprentice (Nine) (7pm) — 1.052 million

The Losers: Ten. The 7pm Project with 716,000 viewers was its most watched program, it was downhill from there. Junior MasterChef (679,000 from 7.30pm) and Undercover Boss Australia (603,000 from 8.30pm) also underperformed.

News & CA: Media Watch rightly did over Today Tonight for a wrong and offensive program on refugees and how much money they had and claims of luxury. The checks with talent in the TT story by Media Watch exposed the story to be false.

In the morning, a good win to Today over Sunrise, strengthening the rationale for changes at Seven. Yesterday’s figures were a taste of what could happen more regularly next year with the momentum shifting to Today. Q&A featured the first video question asked from a bath, and the best put down of Graham Richardson by Tanya Plibersek you would ever want to see.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.374 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.258 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.166 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 962,000
ABC News (7pm) — 905,000
Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 881,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 748,000
Media Watch (ABC) (9.15pm) — 726,000
The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 716,000
Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 685,000
Ten News (5pm) — 659,000
Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 622,000
6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 501,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 294,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 210,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 156,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 110,000

In the morning:

Today (Nine) (7am) — 391,000
Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 380,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 30.8% from Nine (3) on 28.8%, the ABC (4) was on 17.8%, Ten (3) was on 17.7% and SBS (2) ended on 4.9%. Nine leads the week with 30.0% from Seven on 29.9% and Ten on 19.4%.
Main Channel: Seven won with 23.4% from Nine on 23.1%, ABC 1 was on 13.6%, Ten was on 12.3% and SBS One was on 4.2%. Nine leads the week with 24.1% from Seven on 22.6% and Ten on 13.2%.
Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 4.1%, from Eleven on 3.8%, GO and 7mate were on 3.2% each, ABC 2 was on 2.5%, Gem was on 2.4%, ONE was on 1.5%, News 24 was on 0.9%, ABC 3, 0.8% and SBS TWO, 0.7%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share of 23.4%. 7TWO leads the week with 3.8% from Eleven on 3.7%, 7mate on 3.5% and GO on 3.4%

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 25.6% from Nine (3) on 24.0%, the ABC (4) was on 14.9%, Ten (3) was on 14.7%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 14.1% and SBS (2) ended on 4.1%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share last night on 85.9%, with the 10 digital channels on 19.4% and the five main channels on 66.5%.

The five most watched Pay TV channels were:

Fox 8 (3.08%)
TV1 (2.19%)
Lifestyle (2.04%)
111 Hits (1.90%)
UKTV (1.75%)

The five most watched Pay TV programs were:

Australia’s Next Top Model (Fox 8) — 160,000
Rove LA (Fox 8) — 112,000
Phineas and Ferb (Disney) — 79,000
The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 71,000
Eastenders (UKTV) — 65,000

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.5%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 29.2%, the ABC (4) was on 17.1%, SC Ten (3) was on 15.8% and SBS (4) ended on 4.4%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with a share of 25.2%, from WIN/NBN on 22.5%, ABC 1 on 12.2% and SC Ten on 10.4%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.0% from GO on 3.6% and Eleven with 3.5%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share of %. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 32.6% from WIN/NBN on 30.0%.

The five most watched programs in regional markets were:

The X Factor — 649,000
Seven News — 581,000
Nine News — 520,000
Body of Proof — 488,000
The Mentalist — 455,000

Major Markets: Nine won Sydney overall and the main channels. Seven won the rest. The ABC (and ABC 1) was third overall in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. ABC 1 was also third in the main channels in Melbourne and Brisbane, so a very weak night for Ten. 7TWO won the digitals in Melbourne and Adelaide. Eleven won Sydney and Brisbane. GO won Perth. Nine leads Seven and Ten in Sydney and Brisbane. Seven leads Nine and Ten in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The Celebrity Apprentice did good figures first up for Nine last night, but let’s see how it goes in a week or two’s time. The contestants (you can’t really call them celebrities) include Pauline Hanson who was wrongly described as a politician. The others are a collection of people who feature in the gossip columns of the Murdoch tabloids or the magazines of ACP (owned by Nine) or Pacific (owned by Seven West Media).

The Celebrity Apprentice aired at 7.30pm on WIN and wasn’t split into two programs. The hour averaged 424,000. Averaging the two metro figures for the programs (1.324 million and 1.059 million) you get a figure of 1.192 million for the hour. With the regional figure, you get a national audience of around 1.616 million. But the program finished out of the Top 5 and Seven won by a bigger margin in regional markets as well.

The Nine Network also has a 19.9% stake in Bouris’ financial company Yellow Brick Road valued at $13 million, that is being paid for in ads over the next five years to the value of 50% and the rest in cash. The question therefore arises whether the Yellow Brick ads seen in the program last night (plus all the on air mentions) were revenue of payments under the equity deal?

The top five programs nationally last night were:

The X Factor — 2 million
Seven News — 1.955 million
The Big bang Theory — 1.737 million
Nine News — 1.682 million
Home and Away — 1.596 million

Tonight: The X Factor and Packed to the Rafters on Seven, which is a surprise end of year final. Seven thinks having won the year, it can keep seven fresh episodes of the program for 2012, even though production on the new series started earlier this month. Nine has the increasingly bizarre Two and a Half Men. Ten has a fresh NCIS. The ABC has Foreign Correspondent and SBS has Insight.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports