The Winners Seven won the night, thanks to Dancing With The
Stars, which continued its success, attracting an audience of 2.208 million.
Anzac Day’s AFL blockbuster on Nine averaged 1.157
million people, which helped boost Bert Family Feud to a new high of
743,000, and the helped out Nine News, coming second with 1.671 million. But viewers
didn’t stay around on Nine and 340,000 or more had deserted by the
time A Current Affair was well underway. It was a very noticeable shift, with 100,000 of those coming from Melbourne alone. All Saints rode on Dancing
With The Stars‘ coat-tails, averaging 1.571 million people. Seven News was
5th with 1.481 million, Big Brother was 6th with 1.380 million (above the Monday
to Friday average of last year), ACA was next with 1.332 million, Home and Away
was 8th with 1.257 million, Temptation jumped to 1.227 million (The Biggest
Loser is not there) and the all new Simpsons on Ten was 10th, averaging 1.188
million.
The Losers Losers? Not Bert or Temptation. Eighteen programs
averaged a million or more viewers. (People were at home and watched the box.)
Deal or No Deal averaged 1.012 million people but that wasn’t enough to get
Seven News home. Survivor Panama was pushed under a million viewers by Dancing,
averaging 986,000.
News & CA Seven News lost to Nine nationally and everywhere except Perth. It was the impact of the lead-in for the AFL Game and Bert’s Family Feud.
But a point has to be made about Bert. The AFL rated 1.157 million, Bert,
743,000. Four hundred thousand people left Nine after the AFL finished, but more
than half a million returned for the news at 6 pm. It isn’t as cut and dried as
that but there was enough of a turn-off to show that viewers are not big fans of
Bert and Family Feud. The Melbourne audience for BFF of 418,000 (the AFL averaged
537,000) was around 200,000-220,000 (higher than its normal level), which will be
apparent tonight. Strip that figure out of the Melbourne audience alone and
Seven News wins Melbourne and nationally. The turn-off from Nine News to ACA
would have also been troubling for Nine, while there was a solid turn-on to Today Tonight
from Seven News. The ABC News at 7 pm averaged 1.037 million but the 7.30 Report
only managed 657,000, another significant turn-off.
The Stats Seven with 36.5% (36.2% last week), Nine with 26.3%
(25.1%), Ten with 20.2% (20.4%) The ABC with 11.9% (13.3%) and SBS with 5.0%
(5.0%) Seven won all metro markets.
Glenn Dyer’s comments So will the news and current affair hour now return to normal viewing
patterns over the next week as holidays end? Nine News has certainly
had a good fortnight thanks to holidays and football – well that’s
what Seven will be putting it down to. The revival at Nine in Sydney has
happened again. Will it last or fade like it did in February? The AFL
Game helped Bert but that won’t be around tonight. Deal or No Deal was high last night because of
the holiday boost and not from the content. Tonight is the best night of the
week with Thank God You’re Here and a new House on Ten, McLeod’s Daughters back
on Nine and a new Without a Trace, while Seven has a new Beyond Tomorrow and
then a new Prison Break. And on the ABC it’s The New Inventors, Spicksand Specks
and The Worst Week of My Life. It will be an interesting night. Will Ten’s sour
and cynical Big Brother at 7pm help or hurt the more broadly appealing Thank
God at 7.30 pm?