Glenn Dyer’s TV ratings — viewers turn off Ten and Nine’s expensive prime-time turkeys

Seven’s night in metro and regional markets — surprisingly slow as MasterChef’s grand finale exploded with all the impact of a wet sponge. But at least the winner announcement cracked the million viewer mark in metros and nationally (1.410 million national/ 1.057 metro/ 353,000 regional viewers for the winner’s announcement and 1.261 million national/ 921,000 metro/ 340,000 regional viewers for the lead up part of the program).  Father’s Day seems to have some impact on some programs during the day.

While last night’s figures for MasterChef seem OK, when compared to 2012, they are devastatingly bad. The winner last year averaged 3.057 million viewers in metro and regional markets — so this year’s audience was more than 1.64 million lower (or over 50%). While the Grand Final averaged 2.595 million viewers last year, more than 1.3 million above this year’s average.

Ten says the MasterChef spin offs All Stars, The Professionals, Celebrity MasterChef and Junior MasterChef have all been axed because the audience is tired of the format which needs to be refreshed. Now Blind Freddy could have told Ten that, but they have deliberately run these series trying to trade off the core popularity of the original program. But all greedy Ten and Shine (the format owner and Murdoch family production company owned by 21st Century Fox) have done is devalue the standing of the key marquee program. For the sake of a short term ratings fix or boost, Ten has cost itself millions of viewers and millions of dollars this year. And who was in charge? Lachlan Murdoch and the current board!

The encouraging thing about last night was that there was a small tune in for the winner’s announcement — 119,000 nationally, but that’s not to be sneezed at by a struggling network. But in that vein, don’t mention Ripper Street — 317,000 national/ 239,000 metro/ 78,000 regional viewers — it means roughly a million people didn’t stay from MasterChef to watch. I don’t know about you, but that looks like a big thumbs down from the audience.

The other quite noticeable move last night was Nine doubling up episodes of Underbelly: Squizzy which is tantamount to admitting that this series of Underbelly is a disaster and a loss maker. Nine would tell us it doubled the epispdes to make way for the silly Packer-Murdoch mini series which starts next Sunday night. But if Underbelly had been dragging in more than 1.5 million viewers a night, do you reckon Nine would have run two episodes last night?

The first episode from 9pm had 777,000 national/489,000 metro/ 288,000 regional viewers and the 10pm second episode had 574,000 national/ 381,000 metro/ 193,000 regional viewers. This is by far the worst performance of the Underbelly series so far for Nine. No wonder next year’s will be the last. The losses from this series will be significant.

The X Factor was the most watched program last night  (2.083 million national/ 1.360 million metro/ 723,000 regional viewers) and made Australia’s Got Talent on Nine (1.571 million national/ 1.124 million metro/ 447,000 regional viewers) look like talent night at the local bowlo.

Insiders (462,000 nationally on ABC1 and News24) again beat The Bolt Report (192,000) by daylight and a bit more, again underlining that viewers want a non-partisan coverage of politics. Next Sunday, Insiders is 90 minutes  (from an hour) for its post poll coverage, but The Bolt Report remains at half an hour, with Meet the Press to follow for an hour. Surely the idea would have been to combine the two and run an election special? That’s if Ten wants relevance.

Seven won last week in metro and regional markets by a solid margin, thanks top the twin successes of The X Factor. In the regions, Ten (13.3%) (Southern Cross) was whacked by the ABC, (19.7%) underlining how unattractive much of Ten’s offering remains in regional markets (and to think Southern Cross is paying an extra 6% of revenue for the dubious joy of screening stuff viewers don’t on the whole much like). The ABC repeated the result last night as MasterChef faded.

Network channel share:

1. Seven (32.9%)
2. Nine (29.4%)
3. Ten (18.6%)
4. ABC (15.1%)
5. SBS (3.9%)

Network main channels:

1. Seven (26.1%)
2. Nine (20.7%)
3. Ten (14.2%)
4. ABC1 (12.0%)
5. SBS ONE (3.2%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. GO (5.3%)
2. 7TWO (3.9%)
3. Gem (3.5%)
4. 7mate (3.0%)
5. Eleven (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. The X Factor Live (Seven) — 2.083 million
2. Seven News — 1.992 million
3. Nine News — 1.777 million
4. Australia’s Got Talent (Nine) — 1.571 million
5. Bones (Seven) — 1.554 million
6. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.452 million
7. MasterChef Australia Winner (Ten) — 1.410 million
8. ABC News — 1.291 million
9. Masterchef Australia  Grand Final (Ten) — 1.261 million
10. Dream Build (ABC1) — 1.096 million

Top metro programs:

1. The X Factor Live (Seven) — 1.360 million
2. Seven News — 1.306 million
3. Nine News — 1.275 million
4. Australia’s Got Talent (Nine) — 1.124 million
5.  Masterchef Australia Winner (Ten) — 1.057 million
6. Bones (Seven) — 1.023 million

Losers: Underbelly: Squizzy on Nine, Ripper Street on Ten, The Bolt Report and Meet The Press on Ten in the morning.Metro news and current affairs:

1.  Seven News — 1.306 million
2. Nine News — 1.275 million
3. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 984,000
4. ABC  News — 857,000
5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 1.031 million
6. Ten News At Five — 355,000
7. SBS World News — 215,000
8. The Observer Effect (SBS ONE) — 104,000

Metro morning TV:

1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 364,000
2. Insiders (ABC1, 194,000, 110,000, News 24) — 304,000
3. Weekend Today (Nine) – 292,000
4. Financial Review Sunday (Nine) — 191,000
5. Landline (ABC1) — 191,000
6. Offsiders (ABC1) — 134,000
7. The Bolt Report (Ten) — 125,000
8. Inside Business (ABC 1) — 121,000
9. Meet The Press repeat (Ten) — 85,000
10. The Bolt Report repeat (Ten) — 80,000
11. Meet The Press (Ten) — 76,000
12. News Breakfast (News24) — 58,000

Top five pay TV channels:

1. Fox Sports 1 (4.1%)
2. Fox Sports 2 (3.3%)
3. Fox Footy (3.1%)
4. Fox 8 (2.1%)
5. Sky News (1.9%)

Top five pay TV programs:

1. AFL; Collingwood v North Melbourne (Fox Footy) – 173,000
2. NRL: Cronulla v North Qld (Fox Sports 1) – 149,000
3. Soccer: Liverpool v Man United  (Fox Sports 1) – 133,000
4. AFL: After The Bounce (Fox Footy) – 108,000
5. AFL: Footscray v Melbourne (Fox Footy) – 92,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2013. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) and network reports.