Nine strikes gold with Beaconsfield

Beaconsfield had a very high 2.54 million viewers, including 119,000 in Tasmania where the mine cave in happened.

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: An even bigger win last night for Nine than a week ago, thanks to The Voice and the telemovie Beaconsfield. Seven’s Dancing with the Stars struggled again and failed to get a million viewers.

The Voice averaged an incredible 3.776 million people across the country, including more than 1.08 million in regional areas. Except for NRL grand finals and State of Origin games it is very rare for a program to top the million viewer mark in regional markets.

Beaconsfield had a very high 2.54 million viewers, including 119,000 in Tasmania where the mine cave in happened. 903,000 people watched Beaconsfield in regional areas.

The A League grand final yesterday on Fox Sports averaged 200,600, but was beaten by the 224,000 or so viewers for the Geelong v Richmond game in the AFL and the Melbourne v Footscray game which was watched by nearly 210,000 people.

Nine won last week, however it didn’t get a clean sweep: it won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but Seven won Adelaide and Perth.

Nine also won regional markets which will relieve WIN, which owns the weak Nine stations in Adelaide and Perth.

The most interesting audience figure last week was the more than 1.5 million people who watched Friday night’s Rugby League test between Australia and NZ from Auckland. Sports luvvies and some in the media with an axe to grind bagged Nine for delaying the broadcast because it started earlier in NZ. Well it started at 6.15 pm Sydney time, which is right in the middle of the news.

As it was the moans fell on deaf ears and the biggest football audience of the year so far watched it, with 516,000 people in Sydney, 365,000 in Brisbane and a huge 615,000 in regional NSW and Queensland alone.

That, more than any other football audience this year, tells us that the NRL deserves to get more money from the TV networks than the AFL. Rugby League is far more popular than AFL. And it has an international flavour with the test and the involvement of the Auckland team every week.

The high audience for regional NSW and Queensland was bigger than the Sydney audience. That won’t have escaped notice at Seven and other networks. It is the key difference with the AFL. It’s only regional strength is in country Victoria, and parts of South Australia and WA.

Tonight: The Voice and The Block on Nine. Seven has Australia’s Got Talent and Revenge, plus Pictures of You. The ABC has its hours of news and current affairs. Bob Brown goes solo on Q&A. Ten has the weak NCIS Los Angeles and Hawaii Five-O, after The Biggest Loser.

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

The Voice (Nine) — 3.776 million
Beaconsfield (Nine) — 2.540 million
Nine News — 2.200 million
Seven News — 2.073 million
Dancing with the Stars (Seven) — 1.408 million
Bones (Seven) — 1.407 million
ABC News — 1.220 million
Two On the Great Divide (ABC 1) –1.102 million
The Biggest Loser (Ten) — 1.085 million
Modern Family (Ten) — 1.035 million

The Metro Winners:

The Voice (Nine) (6.30pm) — 2.691 million
Beaconsfield (Nine) (8.30pm) — 1.637 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.489 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.409 million
Bones (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.001 million

The Losers: Ten was squeezed badly again. No rest for the network.

Metro News & CA: Nine won Sydney and Melbourne easily, Seven won Brisbane narrowly, and Adelaide and Perth by wider margins, but Nine has more metro viewers.

Nine News (6pm) — 1.489 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.409 million
ABC News (7pm) — 866,000
Ten News (5pm) — 519,000
The Project (Ten) (6pm) — 395,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 203,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 100,000

In the morning: The new couch version of Inside Business doesn’t seem to be appreciated by viewers. Audiences are weak this year compared with 2011.

Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 381,000
Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 278,000
Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 217,000)
Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 157,000 (+47, 000)*
The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 132,000
Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 115,000
Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 112,000
Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 109,000

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Nine, (3 channels) won with a share of 43.5%, with daylight second and third. Seven (3) was back on 23.7%, Ten (3) was on 16.2%, the ABC (4) was on 12.4% and SBS (2) ended on 4.2%. Main Channels: Nine won with a share of 38.2%, almost double Seven’s 19.3%. ten was on 13.1%, ABC 1, 10.4% and SBS ONE was on 3.6%.

Metro Digital: A weak night as Nine dragged viewers to its main channel and held them. Gem won with a share of 2.8% from GO and 7mate on 2.5%; 7TWO was on 2.0%, Eleven and ONE were on 1.6% each, ABC 2 was on 1.2%, SBS TWO was on 0.6%, News 24 finished with 0.5% and ABC 3 was on 0.4%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share of 15.7% last night, one of the lowest in the past year.

Metro inc Pay TV: Nine, (3 channels) won with a share of 36.7%, Seven (3) was back on 20.0%, Ten (3) was on 13.7%, Pay TV (200 plus channels) was on 12.9%, the ABC (4) was on 10.5% and SBS (2) ended on 3.5. The 15 FTA channels had a very high low last night of 87.1%. The five main channels share was the highest this year with 87.1%, and the 10 digital channels share the lowest with 13.1%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox Footy (5.8%)
Fox Sports 2 (2.9%)
Fox 8 (2.5%)
Fox Sports 1 (2.2%)
TV 1 (1.8%)

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

AFL: Geelong v Richmond ( Fox Footy) — 224,000
AFL: Melbourne v Footscray (Fox Footy) — 209,500
Football: A League Grand Final (Fox Sports 2) — 200,600
Football: A League Post Game Show (Fox Sports 2) — 156,700
AFL: Sydney v North Melbourne (Fox Sports 1) — 140,900

Regional: As expected a very easy win to WIN/NBN (3 channels) with a share of 45.4%, from Prime/7Qld (3) on 23.4%, SC Ten (3) on 13.8%, just in front of the ABC (4) with 13.5% and SBS (2) on 4.0%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 39.7%, more than double Prime/7Qld’s 18.5%. ABC 1 was third with 10.6%, just in front of SC Ten on 10.5%. The digitals were won by Gem with 2.9% from GO on 2.8% and 7TWO on 2.5%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA share last night of a low 17.4%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

The Voice — 1.083 million
Beaconsfield — 903,000
Nine News — 711,000
Seven News — 564,000
Dancing With The Stars — 417,000

Major Metro Markets: A clean sweep to Nine, overall and in the main channels. In the digitals Gem won Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. 7mate won Melbourne and Perth.

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

*Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports