The many gigs of Ellen Fanning

Ellen
Fanning, the go anywhere girl of the Nine Network’s
news and current affairs department, has yet another stand-in gig: doing the
Nightline shuffle while regular host Helen Kapalos is
on holidays.

But what was interesting about her hosting this week was Tuesday night
when she interviewed John Howard. A good get by any measure and an
interesting decision by the Prime Minister’s handlers to put him on
such a program.

After
all, he’s had nowhere to go at Nine since Steve Liebmann departed Today and A Current Affair concluded that
appearances by the Prime Minister caused viewers to change
channels. With
only a couple of appearances on the Sunday program with Laurie Oakes, it was a
chance to get his head up on commercial TV outside early morning viewing times.

Fanning’s Nightline gig marks yet another program for
her:

First
there was 60 Minutes, which she joined after leaving the ABC. Then
she stood in for Ray Martin on A Current Affair and for Tracey Grimshaw on Today. And she’s also done time on ABC 702 radio in Sydney filling in for
former mornings host, Sally Loane.

But
where is Vicky Jones, the Network stylist, when she’s
needed. Ellen
Fanning wore the same clothes Thursday night as she wore on Wednesday night. I
know continuity is important in TV, but that’s taking it too
far. Variety
is the spice of life in nightly TV news and current affairs.

Last night’s TV
ratings

The Winners

Seven, big time, as the final episode of Lost for the year did
the business with 2.083 million.
Combined with the cricket on SBS, it simply blew the opposition away, as did
good performances by Seven News (second with 1.45 million), Today Tonight (third
with 1.382 million), The Mole (which started last night and
finished 4th with 1.352 million) and Home and Away
(5th with 1.317 million). SBS’s cricket coverage (which seemed to have
more ads than previous matches) finished fourth – in front of the ABC
and just behind Ten. The cricket audience peaked at 1.128 million
people between 8.15 and 8.30pm and it ran second behind Seven from
8.30pm to 9.30pm. Nine briefly dropped to fifth and last between 9pm to
9.15pm. The Footy Shows (955,000)
battled back well against the cricket, but Seven’s Alias (1.015 million) won the
argument.
The Losers

After strongish performances Sunday to Wednesday,
Nine was down sharply. Ten was hammered by Lost and the cricket, finishing just in
front of SBS on the night. Getaway was weakened by The Mole on Seven and lost a couple of hundred thousand viewers to finish with 1.195
million people. Body Work also fell to 767,000 from more than a million people
the week before. I Can Change Your Life at 9pm for Nine isn’t changing anyone’s
mind among the viewers – it was watched by only 651,000 people and is a
failure.
News & CA

Seven News and Today Tonight
again won nationally, and in Sydney where the news was 120,000 in front. Nine
won Melbourne but they split Brisbane with TT beating ACA. Seven won Adelaide
and Perth.
The Stats

Seven won 31.3% to 25.5% for Nine. Ten was well back on
15.9%, just in front of SBS on 15.2% and the ABC was on 12.1%. Seven won
everywhere thanks to the last episode of Lost. SBS beat Ten into third in
Melbourne and Adelaide.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments

The rising interest in the cricket on SBS took its toll on all
networks last night. Without it Seven may have ended up with the biggest
audience for Lost this year. Nine’s 8.30 to 9.30pm timeslot is a real weakness.
Ten’s weakness on Thursdays is from 7pm onwards at the moment (last year it
was one of its strengths).The big win by Seven has seen it
pull to within 0.3% of Nine in the race for the week: 28.6% to 28.3%. The AFL
and NRL should do the job tonight, even though the cricket will bleed viewers.