Nine claims another weekly ratings win

Yet another late week fade by the Seven Network as Nine stays the course to
win – a common theme for much of this
year. After
Wednesday night Seven led the week, narrowly. But
on Thursday, Friday and Saturday it lost ground thanks to inferior
programs.

After
Wednesday, Seven led 28.9% to 28.0%, but by the end of
Saturday night, Nine led 29.9% to 27.8%. Ten was third
as usual back on 21.0%, the ABC was on 15.7% and SBS on
5.6%.

Nine
won Saturday night with a 31.6% share to Seven, and Ten tied in second with
22.9%, ABC on 16.8% and SBS on 5.7%. Ten’s
decision to switch Men in Black 2 and Charlie’s Angels into Saturday night from 6.30pm (replacing the poor-rating Oprah special, Monk and another movie) proved to
be a good move and gave Ten its second highest audience share of the week after
the previous Sunday.

There’s only four more weeks of ratings fun, frivolity and outrageous claims to
go and Nine
will try and end with a rush, while Ten will hope that the audience re-discovers
Australian Idol. And
Seven is now looking forward to next year when it will
have a few more programs to help it win more nights.

Seven’s
summer hope, Headland, starts November 15. If it
works, then Blue Heelers is gone next year after April. If it doesn’t (and there
are some at Seven who are very worried that it won’t)
then Blue Heelers lives on. And won’t Southern Star be happy.


Last night’s TV
ratings

The Winners Nine won but Ten showed the rest of the industry that there’s
life in the mini-series after all. The first part of Mary Bryant
was the most watched program last night (it concludes tonight). It’s a costume
drama set in early Sydney, but we haven’t had something
like it for a while so it’s somewhat of a breakthrough series. The audience
averaged 1.566 million people, beating Nine’s first run CSI episode with 1.536
million in the 8.30pm timeslot. Seven’s best was the Celebrity Spelling
Bee with 1.259 million, but that was well beaten by Nine’s Celebrity Overhaul at 6.30pm (1.419 million).
The Losers

Seven’s Criss Angel Mind Freak at
6.30pm – down to 832,000 and dying. Ten’s Australian Brainiest Kid (833,000) was
around 400,000 down on what Seven was getting last December on a
Sunday night. Only a slight lift (20,000 people) in the audience for Australian Idol
(1.294 million). But it still worked for the 16 to 39s. Daylight saving was a
definite factor with audiences into the evening lower than a week earlier,
especially in Melbourne.
News & CA Sunday night and Nine News again did well with 1.408
million, Seven News was well beaten with 1.156 million. 60 Minutes attracted
1.433 million, the ABC 7pm news 1.083 million. In the morning, Sunday’s
383,000 average for 9am to 11am was a high figure considering daylight saving
cut Weekend Sunrise’s audience to 223,000. But Nine’s Business Sunday also had
a high 193,000 watching. Insiders on the ABC was watched by an average 133,000,
but that didn’t help Inside Business which tumbled to 76,000. Meet The Press on
Ten was down with just 59,000 watching
The Stats Nine won with a share of 30.4% to 27.4% for Ten, 24.1%
for Seven, 13.6% for the ABC and 4.5% for SBS. Nine won Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide but Ten
won Melbourne and Perth.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments		 Strange isn’t it – Mary Bryant doing better in Melbourne and
Perth than in Sydney, while Brisbane almost ignored it in favour of Nine.
But it’s a good pay-off for Ten, which took a risk with the story, and
for Sue Masters, the Network’s drama head. It does show up the lack of
risk-taking at Nine these days. Tonight’s a different story: Seven News
and Today
Tonight, not to mention Home and Away, will be more competitive, as will The
Great Outdoors and Grey’s Anatomy. But the second part of Mary Bryant should do
well for Ten, while the question is how many viewers from Idol last night won’t
return tonight? Seven seems bored with 24 and has sped up the clock
with two episodes to air this week (tonight and Thursday). Not before
time.