Satin watch. First the Sky News presenters. Then Virginia Trioli . Now, one Crikey reader has alerted us: “The satin scourge has spread to Adelaide TV News!” Here’s Jane Doyle on Channel 7 in a navy blue affair that twinkles more than the Adelaide night sky:
Budget special at the NT News. An army of keen Budget journalists at the NT News produced what was perhaps today’s most insightful coverage.
Punny headline of the day. Hats off to the subs at news.com.au for ‘Cereal killer warning over Cornflakes’ for a story about climate change leading to “killer cornflakes”, with the most potent liver toxin ever recorded.
Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Seven News was tops with 1.590 million, with Seven’s 7.30pm program, Australia’s Got Talent next with 1.430 million. Today Tonight was 3rd with 1.390 million and Ten’s NCIS was 4th with 1.388 million at 8.30pm. Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares was 5th with 1.337 million also at 8.30pm and A Current Affair was next with 1.327 million. The 7pm ABC News was 7th with 1.278 million and Seven’s All Saints was 8th at 8.40pm with an average 1.219 million. Nine’s 20 to 1 averaged 1.197 million at 7.30pm and Nine News was 10th with 1.194 million. Nine’s 7pm repeat of Two And A Half Men averaged 1.179 million, Ten’s 8pm program, Bondi Rescue finished with 1.162 million and Home and Away was third in the 7pm slot with 1.159 million. Ten’s repeat of NCIS at 9.30pm averaged 1.094 million.
The Losers: Big Brother: 925,000. That’s poor compared to previous years, but about par with the current series, once it settled down. Almost as many people watched The Treasurer’s speech (919,000) and more watched the analysis afterwards from 8pm (943,000). No traction there for BB. The all new Simpsons with 985,000 viewers was also weaker: was it Australia’s Got Talent on Seven or the budget on the ABC? Mistresses on Seven at 10.45pm, 284,000. Even the budget wraps on other stations was more interesting.
News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market. It beat Nine by 156,000 viewers in Sydney! Today Tonight won nationally but lost Melbourne and Brisbane to ACA. The 7pm ABC News finished second in Sydney ahead of Nine, and beat Nine and Seven in Melbourne. It had 456,000 viewers in Melbourne to 412,000 for Seven and 343,000. Different timeslot etc etc, but Nine News used to be the market leader and for the ABC to beat both is worth noting. The 7.30 Report‘s performance of Swan Lake, starring Wayne Swan as Treasurer did well with budget fans with 919,000 viewers; and the chat afterwards averaged 943,000. Lateline was mostly budget and averaged 256,000 at 10.30pm and Lateline Business has lots of budget and averaged a solid 188,000. Nine’s Nightline was mostly budget and averaged a solid 389,000 at 10.30pm. Ten’s late News/Sports Tonight was heavily budget and averaged a very good 503,000 at 10.30pm. So the winner of the 10.30pm budget wrap battle was… Ten. Ten News earlier averaged 844,000. SBS News averaged 229,000 at 6.30pm on SBS. Insight averaged 268,000 at 7.30pm and the late News, 161,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise, 376,000, 7am Today, 298,000. Sunrise is finding it harder to stay above 400,000 viewers each morning.
The Stats: Seven won 6pm to midnight all people with 28.1% (26.1%) from Nine with 27.2% (26.5%); Ten with 24.9% (28.4%), the ABC with 15.1% (13.6%) and SBS with 4.8% (5.4%). Seven won Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, lost Melbourne and Adelaide. Nine still leads 29.2% to 28.2% for Seven. In regional areas a win for Prime/7Qld with 31.3%, from WIN/NBN with 25.1%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 23.7%, the ABC with 14.5% and SBS with 5.4%. Ramsay isn’t as popular in the regions as in the city: it only made number 10 on the most watched list.
Glenn Dyer’s comments: The Ramsay bandwagon has been trimmed to two appearances a week for Nine, with Hell’s Kitchen switched from 8.30pm tonight till tomorrow night to replace one of the Nightmares. Last night’s episode was solid, did well in all the right demos for Nine, but it must be getting close to the end of the series. Canal Road has been sent to rest where all failed programs “rest”. It was at 10.30pm a week ago.
Nine goes a movie tonight at 8.30pm, a bit like Seven’s approach to Wednesday nights for the past three months or so.
Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports
The most surprising thing about the NT News front page was the lack of the usual crocodile story.
My bullshit detector goes off when I read about NT police giving ‘impartial’ evidence about sensational stories. Was the child actually travelling in the lap of one of the adults and then sitting on the floor scared of the policeman’s intervention, strangeness, whiteness? Was English 2nd or 3rd language hence the reported incomprehension upon getting a fine? Was it one of those places where the motor registry is 1000km away? Was it damn, damn hot and not conducive to seat belt wearing? How fast was the car going anyway? And how dangerous would an unsecured box of bottles be if a critter crossed the road requiring emergency braking? Did the journalist get the blackfellas version of events or was that unnecessary because you know … they were black? Or was the driver as guilty as sin as we are meant to believe? You would never know based on NT police humbug and the NT News.