Four Corners last night laid it all out for viewers to see about the debacle that was the Lindt Cafe siege in late 2014. This was a far more definitive look that anything we have seen before, thanks to Sarah Ferguson’s great reporting skills and the powerful contributions of the families of victims Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson. It grabbed 905,000 national viewers and deserved more. Sympathetic but hard-edged reporting from Ferguson — it showed why she is head and shoulders above anyone else on Australian TV.
But it was Seven’s House Rules that starred — its second big audience of the season, 1.704 million, the same as Sunday Night’s. It had 1.026 million in the metros and 677,000 in the regions. The program is now clearly ahead of The Voice on Nine (1.420 million) and Masterchef Australia (1.275 million viewers nationally). That’s 4.4 million people watching these programs on Seven, Nine and Ten, which makes a mockery of all the puffery from the digital urgers that linear legacy TV is dead. I bet there weren’t 4.4 million people watching Netflix and Stan last night. And any of the 4.4 million were sharing their screens with Facebook, Twitter etc. Many should have been watching Four Corners, or stayed with TV and changed to the ABC.
Seven won the metros overall and just fell short in the main channels — but in the regionals it was a solid win for Seven as it won the top five spots on the most watched list – Seven News was tops with 720,000, House Rules was second with 677,000, Seven News/TT was third with 561,000, then Home and Away with 541,000 and The 5.30pm bit ofThe Chase was 5th with 497,000
The ABC and News 24 took half an hour or more to get up a live feed from Manchester (by 9.14am), while Seven, Nine and even Ten had live feeds before 9am. News 24 and the ABC had vision from a smartphone in the aftermath of the reported bangs, but then went back to the studio.
Network channel share:
- Seven (28.9%)
- Nine (26.5%)
- Ten (22.0%)
- ABC (17.5%)
- SBS (5.0%)
Network main channels:
- Nine (20.3%)
- Seven (20.1%)
- Ten (16.1%)
- ABC (13.0%)
- SBS ONE (3.2%)
Top 5 digital channels:
- 7TWO (4.3%)
- ONE (3.6%)
- 7mate (3.0%)
- ABC 2 (2.8%)
- Gem (2.5%)
Top 10 national programs:
- Seven News — 1.851 million
- House Rules (Seven) — 1.704 million
- Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.597 million
- Nine/NBN News (6.30pm)— 1.482 million
- Nine/NBN News — 1.4126 million
- The Voice (Nine) — 1.420 million
- A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.320 million
- Home and Away (Seven) — 1.301 million
- Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.275 million
- The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.230 million
Top metro programs:
- Seven News, Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.131 million
- Nine News — 1.073 million
- Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.036 million
- House Rules (Seven) — 1.026 million
Losers: No one really – perhaps those who missed Four Corners.
Metro news and current affairs:
- Seven News, Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.131 million
- Nine News — 1.073 million
- Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.036 million
- A Current Affair (Nine) – 948,000
- 7pm ABC News — 773,000
- The Project 7pm (Ten) — 653,000
- 7.30 (ABC) — 610,000
- Australian Story (ABC) — 606,000
- Four Corners (Ten) — 603,000
Morning (National) TV:
- Sunrise (Seven) – 535,000
- Today (Nine) – 448,000
- The Morning Show (Seven) — 250,000
- News Breakfast (ABC, 174,000 + 71,000 on News 24) — 245,000
- Today Extra (Nine) — 167,000
- Studio 10 (Ten) — 131,000
Top five pay TV channels:
- Fox 8
- LifeStyle
- TVHITS
- UKTV, Fox Classics
Top five pay TV programs:
- AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 110,000
- AFL: On The Couch (Fox Footy) — 79,000
- Monday Night With Matty Johns (Fox League) — 73,000
- NRL 360 (Fox League) — 63,000
- Chronicles of a Champion Golfer (Fox Sports) — 57,000
*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.
I fully agree with the comments about last night’s Four Corners on ABC – TV journalism at its very best.
What I find puzzling is that today I have combed through The Guardian and Fairfax sites plus the ABC’s own site and cannot find one word of comment. I know that the Coroner’s Report is due out tomorrow but I thought the program itself deserved some comment.
I also wonder why there was so little press coverage of the inquest itself. It might have been difficult to report on since so many names appear to have been suppressed but it’s not as though the court journos have not faced similar limitations in other cases. Thank goodness for the ABC.