Throwing in the towel was the TV programming strategy on Sunday adopted by Seven and the ABC.
COVID-19 is over — the ABC last night stopped showing The Virus, its nice little 10-minute update from 7.30 to 7.40pm. It was a neat way to highlight interesting stories from the previous week, and it rated very nicely off the back of the ABC News at 7pm. The ABC should be giving us as many news updates and summaries of the pandemic and the aftermath as possible. So why throw in the towel (number one) on a successful idea?
There was also no update on the progress of the virus on Insiders yesterday morning. Call that throwing in the towel number two.
And from Seven, throwing in the towel number three — a repeat of Cast Away, the 20-year-old Tom Hanks movie, which attracted just 377,000 national viewers from 8.30pm. That’s not throwing in the towel, that’s hurling it as low as it can go!
The finale of Lego Masters had 1.61 million national viewers. Very solid, but 3000 less than the episode last Sunday. Peak Lego, I think, for Nine, which saw it easily win the night. Nine’s 60 Minutes did better last night than a week earlier — 981,000 nationally, up more than 200,000 from the previous Sunday’s 772,000.
The ABC’s Insiders did 699,000 nationally yesterday morning and was again the most watched daytime program.
On Saturday night, Nine snuck in a new program, A Current Affair, for half an hour from 7, its usual Monday to Friday timeslot — 775,000 viewers and number five nationally on the night.
In the regions, Seven News, 644,000, 7pm ABC News, 413,000, Lego Masters, House Rules, 390,000, House Rules 1, 383,000, Nine News, 372,000.
Network channel shares
- Nine (33.5%)
- Seven (23.3%)
- Ten (20.1%)
- ABC (15.4%)
- SBS (7.7%)
Network main channels:
- Nine (26.2%)
- Seven (16.8%)
- Ten (15.5%)
- ABC (11.4%)
- SBS ONE (4.9%)
Top 5 digital channels:
- 10 BOLD (3.1%)
- GO (2.8%)
- 7TWO (2.7%)
- 7mate (2.6%)
- ABC Kids/Comedy (2.1%)
Top 10 national programs:
- Seven News — 1.88 million
- Lego Masters (Nine) — 1.61 million
- Nine/NBN News — 1.49 million
- Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.23 million
- 7pm ABC News — 1.21 million
- House Rules (Seven) — 1.02 million
- 60 Minutes (Nine) — 981,000
- Mystery Road (ABC) — 916,000
- The Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 808,000
- Grand Designs NZ (ABC) — 785,000
Top metro programs:
- Seven News — 1.23 million
- Lego Masters (Nine) — 1.22 million
- Nine News — 1.12 million
Losers: Seven
Metro news and current affairs:
- Seven News — 1.23 million
- Nine News — 1.12 million
- 7pm ABC News – 814,000
- 60 Minutes (Nine) — 725,000
- The Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 574,000
- Ten News First — 368,000
- The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 321,000
- SBS World News — 292,000
Morning (National) TV:
- Insiders (ABC, ABC News) – 699,000
- Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 503,000
- Landline (ABC) — 423,000
- Weekend Today (Nine) — 285,000
- Offsiders (ABC) — 223,000
- Sports Sunday (Nine) — 195,000
Top five pay TV programs:
- Outsiders (Sky News) – 80,000
- Outsiders (Sky News) – 75,000
- Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 58,000
- Blue’s Clues & You (Nick Jr) — 45,000
- Paw Patrol (Nick Jr) – 40,000
And what towel would that be? How is the ABC not contributing something to programming with the first run of an extremely well-made Australian series, Mystery Road? Personally I found your review of weekend programming lacking in much other than statistics; perhaps you might actually review the programming content. Possibly there is not much other to add to the COVID19 debate this week when it’s the first weekend out of isolation for many states especially Victoria. Perhaps we all had something better to do, like mixing with people we hadn’t seen for quite some time. Perhaps there isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said or covered. Judging by the amount of people I noticed not social distancing this week, how much are people actually absorbing from what they are told? You can lead a horse to water…… but try putting viewing figures in context.
Could it be connected with funding cuts that the ABC has to cut some programmes?