United in boredom: UAP special flops

Did anyone notice the United Australia Party special on Ten last night? No one did, it seems. Just an average of 59,000 in the five metro markets across the hour from 9.45 — the best audience across the five capitals being Melbourne, where an average of 19,500 tuned in.

So while the lead-in program, First Dates Australia, averaged 288,000 in the metro markets, the Clive Palmer/Craig Kelly bore-athon went unwatched, losing 229,000 viewers. In Perth in the final quarter-hour, just 1000 watched. In fact, for that final quarter-hour, an average of just 9000 people were watching across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. That is the TV equivalent of gone to black and bed! Let’s hope Ten was paid a lot of money for giving up its valuable late prime-time slot.

(To top it off, Wednesday night’s broadcast was advertised in Thursday’s The Sydney Morning Herald on page 19 — just in case you missed it!)

The collapse in Ten’s audience saw it finish well behind the ABC in third place. Nine won the night. In breakfast, Today brought in 284,000 viewers, spending another morning at less-than-peak levels and tied with News Breakfast on the ABC.

Network channel share:

1. Nine (28.1%)
2. Seven (27.5%)
3. ABC (18.9%)
4. Ten (16.8%)
5. SBS (8.7%)

Network main channels:

1. Seven (20.0%)
2. Nine (18.1%)
3. ABC (14.8%)
4. Ten (11.5%)
5. SBS ONE (4.5%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. 7mate (4.2%)
2. TTWO (3.7%)
3. GO (3.6%)
4. 10 Peach (3.2%)
5. ABC News (2.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. Seven News — 1.563 million
2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.492 million
3. Nine News — 1.153 million
4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.131 million
5. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 949,000
6. 7pm ABC News — 917,000
7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 908,000
8. Travel Guides (Nine) — 868,000
9. Home and Away (Seven) — 825,000
10. Gruen Nation (ABC) — 818,000

Regional top 5: Seven News, 583,000; Seven News 6.30, 564,000; The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 354,000; Home and Away, 341,000; Nine News, 300,000.

Losers: MasterChef Australia — oh, and yes, Big Brother, still 20 years out of date.

Metro news and current affairs:

1. Seven News — 978,000
2. Seven News 6.30 — 955,000
3. Nine News — 835,000
4. Nine News 6.30 — 807,000
5. 7pm ABC News — 604,000
6. ACA (Nine) — 603,000
7. 7.30 (ABC) — 504,000
8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 400,000
9. Ten News First — 302,000
10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 245,000

Morning (national) TV:

1. Sunrise (Seven) — 400,000/237,000
2. News Breakfast (ABC) — 284,000/192,000
3. Today (Nine) — 284,000/183,000
4. ABC News Mornings — 229,000
5. The Morning Show (Seven) — 226,000
6. Today Extra (Nine) — 154,000
7. Studio 10 (Ten) — 44,000

Top 5 pay TV programs: N/A

1. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 86,000
2. Selling Houses Australia (LifeStyle) — 80,000
3. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 63,000
4. Credlin (Sky News) — 61,000
5. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) — 46,000