Sunday saw another reveal night on The Block and that was it — Nine won easily. The Block had 1.49 million viewers nationally and topped the night around the country. Apart from the usual suspects among the Sunday night news and current affairs pretenders, the ABC drama Total Control was the next most watched program with 729,000 viewers. The gap tells us how bad the offerings on Seven and Ten were.
(It’s a different story on Ten tonight with Have You Been Paying Attention at 8.30pm). Before that is The Amazing Race Australia. Seven has already had this one and wrung every available rating point out of it before dropping it.)
Saturday’s Rugby World Cup win by England over the All Blacks was watched by 678,000 on Ten (and 276,000 on Fox Sports). Sunday night’s second semi won by South Africa over Wales was only on Fox Sports and averaged 301,000. For whatever reason Ten didn’t think it worth it showing this game on one of its digital channels — it would added a couple of hundred thousand viewers. Insiders had 480,000 nationally from 9am, and in regional areas The Block and Seven News shared the night with 403,000 viewers each. The 7pm ABC News was next with 321,000, then Nine/NBN News with 274,000 and 60 Minutes with 258,000.
Network channel share:
- Nine (35.8%)
- Seven (25.8%)
- ABC(15.3%)
- Ten (13.7%)
- SBS (9.5%)
Network main channels:
- Nine (25.6%)
- Seven (17.4%)
- ABC (10.6%)
- Ten (9.3%)
- SBS ONE (6.2%)
Top 5 digital channels:
- GO (4.2%)
- 7mate (3.6%)
- Gem (3.5%)
- 10 Bold (3.0%)
- ABC Kids/Comedy (2.9%)
Top 10 national programs:
- The Block (Nine) — — 1.490 million
- Seven News — 1.304 million
- Nine/NBN News —1.141 million
- 7pm ABC News —954,000
- 60 Minutes (Nine) — 867,000
- Total Control (ABC) — 729,000
- Bride & Prejudice (Seven) — 665,000
- Grand Designs – The Street (ABC) — 650,000
- Sunday Night (Seven) — 602,000
- BTK (Nine) — 592,000
Top metro programs:
- The Block (Nine) — 1.087 million
Losers: None really, well Seven and Ten No juice last night.
Metro news and current affairs:
- Seven News — 901,000
- Nine News — 867,000
- 7pm ABC News — 633,000
- 60 Minutes (Nine) — 610,000
- Sunday Night (Seven) — 376,000
- Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 353,000
- Ten News First — Pre-empted
- Sunday Project 6.30pm — 227,000
- SBS World News — 148,000
Morning (National) TV:
- Insiders (ABC, ABC News) — 480,000
- Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 388,000
- Landline (ABC) — 325,000
- Weekend Today (Nine) — 266,000
- Offsiders (ABC) — 220,000
- Sports Sunday (Nine) — 165,000
Top five pay TV programs:
- RWC: Semi Final 2, Wales v South Africa (Fox Sports 503) — 301,000
- Supercars Gold Coast (Fox Sports 504) — 217,000
- Cricket: Twenty20, Aust v Sri Lanka, Game 1 Innings Break (Fox Cricket) — 207,000
- Supercars Gold Coast (Fox Sports 504) — 200,000
- Cricket: Twenty20, Aust v Sri Lanka, Game 1 (Fox Cricket) — 197,000
One has for feel some sympathy for Angus Taylor. Does he apologize for maliciously misquoting the figures the Sydney City Council spent on travel? An unattractive option but perhaps better than admitting what is probably the truth. That, perhaps late at night and maybe after a few whiskeys, the bumbling minister on a $200,000 salary simply confused 1.7 million with 1.7 thousand and 14 million with 4 thousand. The numbers were fine – it was just the magnitude that left him bamboozled. He probably feels it is better to be thought a villain than proved to be an idiot.
I applaud the media in this country for banding together to raise the issue of lack of transparency in government business which is evident in many ways, including less and less information being released under FOI. However, if you really want to get some traction on this issue, maybe you could consider thinking of the affect of this lack on Australians who are not journalists? The fact that the plight of whistleblowers, if reported, is usually almost as an afterthought – it’s all about the journalists – doesn’t sit well with would be whistleblowers. And, when it comes to the FOI Act, let’s not forget that it is “An Act to give to members of the public rights of access to official documents of the Government and of its agencies.” It is supposed to be there for all Australians (not just journalists) to promote better informed decision making, increase scrutiny, discussion, comment and review of Government activities. If an individual seeks access to say, documents from an agency about the guidelines relating to its core business in an effort to better understand a decision made that affects them and they can no longer get such access where once they could then the FOI Act is not achieving its objectives. That’s bad news for Australians. Just a thought. I know the message has to be short to cut through. But is also has to be relevant to your audience ie. ordinary people.