Glenn Dyer reports:



The Winners Seven had the top seven programs yesterday. In
fact TV couldn’t miss with Divas dominating the screen yesterday. If it wasn’t a
record 2.506 million watching the four legged one make history just after 3pm,
it was the flock of two legged fillies and “mares” flouncing around Flemington
and the last trio of high steppers on Dancing with the Stars. The latter really won
the night for the Seven, helped by the usual suspects: Today Tonight, the News,
Home and Away and All Saints. Nine’s best was Temptation at 7pm with 1.276 million, compared to 1.464
million for Home and Away. Ten’s best was a Simpsons repeat episode
with 1.013 million.
The Losers None really on a night dominated by one program.
The biggest audiences were the 1.2 million in Melbourne for the Cup and the 595,000 that watched Dancing in Sydney.
News & CA A win naturally for Seven News and Today Tonight, even in Melbourne (the audience for the Cup was double that in Sydney). The only hold
outs were in Adelaide where Nine News beat Seven, but Today Tonight beat ACA, and
in Brisbane where Nine News also won narrowly. In Sydney Nine
News was 30,000-45,000 behind Seven News, as was ACA. The ABC news was watched
by 946,000 on average. The 7.30 Report with 764,000 was again crunched by the divas on
Dancing.
The Stats Seven won with 36.2% to 25.5% for Nine, 20.1% for Ten,
13.1% for the ABC and 5.1% for SBS. Seven won everywhere because of the Dancing
show and I suppose a bit of a glow from the
Cup.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments		 In terms of prime time
ratings, the 2.5 million plus average audience for Seven for the Cup was
meaningless: more important was the 1.276 million who stayed tuned right up to
5.30pm – 6 pm, boosting Seven News, Today Tonight and the rest of the Network. It is a textbook example of how TV
networks use big sporting events out of prime time, to build a prime time
audience. The
audience for the racing didn’t include the millions watching in pubs,
clubs, bars and at other race meetings and functions around the country. Seven’s
audience could have easily been double what it was. Tonight it’s McLeod’s on
Nine vs Seven’s Beyond Tomorrow, followed by House on Ten up against CSI Miami and Spicks and Specks.