Nine’s Comm Games stumble. For a
TV Network that paid $56 million for the broadcast rights to the Commonwealth
Games, Nine seems to be still behind the eight ball. There
was the silly banning of swim team captain Grant Hackett from the pool deck at
the Games. Hackett
is working for Seven Network, after Nine allowed him to
slip free late last year. No-one
thought he was worth keeping but with his shoulder problem keeping him out of
the pool, Hackett would have added to the high level of technical expertise
already on the Nine commentary team. Seven
had great fun Sunday night whacking Nine over the ban,
with sympathetic comments from swim team officials. Nine has alienated the high
profile swim team. The
inability of Nine to hammer home its exclusive
Comm Games arrangement is odd given its expertise in these areas in the past, especially
with AFL and NRL telecasts. The
Games have been structured for Nine’s benefit to give it a chance of winning two
weeks of ratings with the 11 day telecast. The
opening ceremony and then competition Thursday, Friday and Saturday should help
Nine win this week: broadcasting all of next week will
ensure a win. If the
Games had started on a Friday night to allow spectators to attend over the
weekend (like the Sydney Olympics) then Nine would have only won one week at
best. – Glenn Dyer

Bono
doesn’t pull viewers like Billy Connolly? Looks
like it after last night’s interview with the U2 frontman on the
ABC. Perhaps
a harsh reading from the performance of the last minute interview special of
Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope that was rushed to air on the ABC at 9.30pm, but do
the ratings lie? The special averaged 772,000
people, compared to the 1.286 million for the Billy Connolly three weeks
ago. The
special did very well in Sydney, beating Cold Case on Nine (312,000 to 305,000),
but only 190,000 in Melbourne, 99,000 in Brisbane, 66,000 in Adelaide and
104,000 in Perth. There was a small turn-on in Sydney to Denton. – Glenn Dyer

Foxtel’s audience grows… but not that much. Has Free TV
Australia backed away from comparing the performance of the commercial networks and the
Pay TV mob? For the past two weeks there’s been no sign of the usual
flow of info each Monday detailing the performance of Free To Air
stations in Metropolitan and Regional areas, and the performance of Pay
TV channels (in terms of share and audiences). Yesterday there was a
press release detailing the performance of Free To Air stations and Pay
TV in terms of prime time share in the first ratings survey that ended
last Saturday night, but no break down between metro and regional
areas, as was the case earlier on in the survey. Did this have anything
to do with an improvement in Foxtel’s performance over the past two
weeks of ratings? – Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV
ratings

The Winners Monday night and it was Seven with Desperate Housewives
with 1.842 million (down around 160,000 from last week), Seven news (1.483
million), Today Tonight (1.464 million). Then Ten’s elimination episode of The
Biggest Loser (1.396 million), Nine’s best was 20 to 1 which was next (5th) with
1.396 million. Seven’s Home and Away was 6th with 1.313 million, Nine News was
next with 1.306 million. Commander in Chief was 8th (and fading) with 1.293
million, A Current Affair was 9th with 1.286 million and Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire was 10th with 1.238 million. The ABC News at 15 was its best with
964,000. Mythbusters was SBS’s best at 503,000.
The Losers Losers? Temptation on Nine: not a loser, nor a winner.
But the stunt pre-Games special doesn’t drag em in, not when The Biggest loser
and Home and Away are dominating the 7 pm timeslot. Temptation averaged 987,000.
Bert’s Family Feud bounced back to 508,000 on a higher viewing
night. Courting Alex on Ten (915,000 at 8pm) failed to hold
much of the audience from The Biggest Loser hour elimination. Numb3rs on Ten at
8.30pm slipped to 878,000. Ten lost the 16 to 39 battle to Seven because of
Desperate Housewives.
News & CA Nine News and ACA had higher audiences, being a Monday
night, but Seven still won, thanks in part to the weakness of STW 9 in Perth
(Impostor TV it could be called). Today Tonight won nationally and everywhere.
Seven news won Sydney, Melbourne and in Perth. Nine won Adelaide and
Brisbane. Ten News at Five averaged 927,000 and won the 5pm to 6pm timeslot. deal or No deal averaged 841,000 at 5.30pm.
The Stats Seven with 31.1(32.2% the previous Monday night),Nine
with 27.7% (28.4% the previous Monday when the Oscars were on), Ten unchanged
with 19.9% and a one trick network (The Biggest Loser) on Monday nights, the ABC
15.1%, thanks Andrew Denton (13.1%) and SBS 6.4% (6.2%). Seven won Sydney,
Melbourne and Perth, Nine won Brisbane and
Adelaide.
Glenn Dyer’s comments Monday night and Nine’s audience was higher in the
early evening, Seven’s was weaker in the mid to late evening as was Nine’s. The
ABC snaffled a lot of those floaters with Four Corners (846,000) and Media
Watch 789,000, were up on a week earlier. Four Corners added around 200.000
viewers, Media Watch around 250,000 on a week earlier. Denton’s interview with
Bono averaged 772,000 and that was a slight turn-off from Media Watch and a
bigger one from Four Corners. Given his popularity that was an odd
occurrence. Tonight it’s Dancing With The Stars and Seven’s night.