Terry Television crunches the number on federal election night viewing numbers all the way back to 1996.

So how do election counts rate in terms of viewer involvement? Well, around four million people in total watched Television, including the election counts on each of the poll nights 1996, 1998, and 2001.

Nine’s audience peaked in 1996, the start of the Howard years, and has shrunk since, while the Ten Network has seen its audience grow by only giving cursory coverage through updates and preferring to entertain voter-viewers.

In 1996 when the Prime Rodent was first elected, 3.937 million people watched free to air television on the night of Saturday March 2, with the Nine Network a clear winner with 1.555 million people tuning in to the Sphere of Influence and his team over the four and a half hours from 6.30 pm to 11 pm. The coverage continued to midnight from memory.

The audience would have peaked higher and bottomed towards the end. These are averages.

The ABC ran second with an average of 920,500 people. Ten was third with 722,700 people and Seven was watched by 624,000.

The 1998 poll on October 3 saw 4.065 million people tuning in to TV that night. Nine won with 1.315 million, down from 1996. The ABC audience increased to 1.011 million but that wasn’t enough to avoid being pushed into third place by Seven which was watched by 1.038 million. Ten’s audience went backwards, with only 617,900 people tuned in that night. Of course the total audience was larger from 1996 to 1998 due to population growth.

By 2001, the TV audience on the night of November 10 poll was slightly larger. That’s because the audience was bigger, but then the competition from Pay TV was larger. That competition will be greater this Saturday night, thanks to the stepped up coverage of Sky News, and the cricket from India plus the greater attraction of other programs also on Pay).

A total of 4.098 million people watched the count or other TV in 2001. Nine’s audience was down, to 1.220 million people, Ten, without a full cover of the count (regular updates) saw its audience almost double to 1.185 million people. The ABC audience had shrunk sharply to 726,000 people.The SBS audience was the highest of the three poll nights at 223,300 people.

This week Iron Mark’s address to the National Press Club on Wednesday on lunchtime was watched by the grand total of 93,500 people, while the Insiders election special on the ABC on Wednesday night was watched by 363,600. That’s just over twice its audience last Sunday morning (from 9 am to 9.45 am) of 148,900. It was easily beaten by Forensic Investigators on Seven, Without a Trace on Nine and The Panel on Ten.

This Saturday night The Sphere will dominate Nine’s effort, with red Kerry in charge of the ABC’s coverage. Both Ten and Seven will have updates, as will SBS. Ten’s night will be dominated by its collection of under-performing US crime related programs. They have failed to grab viewers over the past couple of weeks. Will they do the same when viewers could watch either the Prime Rodent or Iron Mark being victorious?

Seven has three movies, all repeats, starting with Toy Story for the kids and jaded voters at 6.30 pm, followed at 8.30pm (when it could be over or a cliffhanger) by the Bruce Willis epic Die Hard 2 at 8.30.That’s for mature viewers, unlike the election campaign!

However, Seven has bowed to the pressure from who knows where and will now schedule an election update on Saturday evening at 11.00pm. A movie was called Company Business was programmed at 11.10 but that will now start half an hour later to accommodate the wrap.

Hard to say who will win. Nine probably, but Seven’s movie coverage is promising. But so is the cricket from India!