Sunday’s cricket ratings

So how
did the cricket on Sunday night really rate? Well, the early Oztam figures gave an average of more than 464,000 people,
but that was taken across the entire scheduled telecast covered by the Oztam figures: which was from around 7:30pm to 1:59am.

Because
the game went for only two hours, the final figures were not produced until later on
Monday and showed an average audience of 1.11 million over the two and a bit
hours and a peak audience of two million around 9:00-9:15pm, when the match
reached its amazing climax.

Last night’s TV ratings

The Winners

Seven, Desperate Housewives (average 2.290 million) News (1.528
million) and Today Tonight (1.545 million), and Grey’s Anatomy (1.419 million, sort
of). Nine’s The Alice reprieved as the audience edged higher past a million (1.041
million).
The Losers

Ten with a share under 20%. Without Big Brother Ten would have been a black hole! The
Alice,
a winner and a loser – a winner because the average audience was up
51,000 on a week earlier, a loser because it’s still a clear third
behind Big Brother and The Great Outdoors and looks like continuing there
for a while.
News & CA

Seven news and Today Tonight won
nationally, mainly because of big wins in Adelaide and Perth. Seven News though
again won Sydney, but narrowly, Today Tonight was beaten by A Current Affair in
Sydney because of a strong naughty teacher with young female student exclusive. In Melbourne, though, Nine News won, narrowly from Seven and Today Tonight won
with a stronger local story over ACA. Nine won both slots in Brisbane. ABC News
and the improving Felicity Davey was watched by 1.177 million and Red Kerry
O’Brien by 961,800. Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope had its best show in three weeks
and viewers responded with 985,000. Media Watch and Four Corners though
saw their audiences fall to 746,300 and 747,400,
respectively.
The Stats

Seven rebounded from its poor Sunday night thanks to the
last episode of Desperate Housewives. Its share across the five major markets was
32.1%, followed by Nine with 25.7%, Ten with 19.6%, the ABC with 16.5% and SBS
with 6.1%. Mythbusters on SBS was in repeat and was only watched by 684,000
people. Seven won all markets.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments

A big viewing night with 17 programs drawing a million or more
viewers. Grey’s Anatomy did OK for Seven running straight after the housewives
of Wisteria Lane with a “secret scene from Housewives” buried in Grey’s. 1.419
million will be encouraging, but 1.7 million would have been a bit more
convincing. Ten’s medical drama House debuted more strongly with a weaker
lead-in. Seven will have a bit of a battle winning Monday nights from now on.
The final Big Brother next Monday night will make it very hard that night. Nine
will take some heart for the perk up in The Alice, but it’s not a big winner and
is destined to build slowly, if the planets converge. With the housewives gone,
Nine’s programming from 8:30pm onwards on Monday nights will draw more viewers.
Tonight it’s True Stories on Seven that’s the program to watch. Will a clumsy
promo for the program which tells you that the young mother is going to die,
turn viewers away? You need to sell a story like that with something
positive attached.