David Speers from Insiders (Image: ABC)
David Speers from Insiders (Image: ABC)

Insiders had its biggest-ever audience on Sunday as the 90-minute program cracked one million viewers nationally for the first time. The 1.077 million on ABC TV and ABC News was up strongly from the 886,000 in 2019 and 896,000 in 2016. The 2019 edition was Barrie Cassidy’s final edition. Yesterday’s episode was David Speers’ first election edition of the program and saw Insiders finish as the fourth-most watched program nationwide.

Across news programs, the 7pm ABC News last night featured an integrated election wrap with figures, interviews and commentary, averaging almost one million with 991,000. However, Seven News brought in 1.618 million (boosted by a late AFL game) and Nine News had 1.323 million (with the help of the afternoon NRL game), meaning they were the top two programs on the night, followed by The Voice on Seven with 1.181 million.

Nine also returned Celebrity Apprentice (why?), bringing in 539,000 and ranking ninth nationally. Over on 60 Minutes — 578,000 — the election coverage was comprised of Chris Uhlmann being interviewed for his analysis. Weak. Should have worked to get an interview.

The big media story from Saturday night’s election extravaganzas on free-to-air and pay TV is how it fell flat for the commercial networks and News Corp’s Sky News, as the ABC was again (very easily) the network of choice for Australia. At its peak — 9.30pm to midnight — the ABC’s national audience of 1.206 million easily outrated the efforts of Nine, Seven, Ten and Fox News — sorry, Sky News. That figure was just under the 1.211 million for the May 2019 federal election and down from the 1.272 million for the count after the 2016 poll.

Nine’s coverage averaged 475,000 from 7pm to past 11pm, Seven 504,000, Ten 384,000, and Sky News 125,000. Sky’s coverage finished 10th in the pay TV rankings (the ABC ranked first and second). Sky News’ coverage was outranked by NRL and AFL games and associated programs. The top program on Foxtel on Saturday night was the North Queensland Cowboys thrashing the Melbourne Storm 36-6 with 249,000 — double the election count audience.

The 7pm to 9.30pm slot also saw the ABC easily outrate the opposition with 1.110 million viewers.
The high audience numbers saw the ABC outrank the rest of the networks with a share of 44.3% from Seven with 24.5%, Nine with 19.6%, and Ten with 6.7% — although the analysis by Peter van Onslen and Waleed Aly on Ten was top-drawer stuff.

Regional top 5: Seven News, 546,000; The Voice, 400,000; Nine News, 362,000; 7pm ABC News, 323,000; Grand Designs Australia, 219,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (33.6%)
  2. Nine (24.8%)
  3. Ten (17.8%)
  4. ABC (15.5%)
  5. SBS (8.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (24.6%)
  2. Nine (18.1%)
  3. Ten (11.6%)
  4. ABC (9.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. ABC News (4.4%)
  2. 7mate (4.3%)
  3. 7TWO (3.5%)
  4. 10 Bold (2.8%)
  5. GO (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.618 million
  2. Nine News — 1.323 million
  3. The Voice (Seven) — 1.181 million
  4. Insiders (ABC, ABC News) — 1.077 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 991,000
  6. Grand Designs (ABC) — 633,000
  7. MasterChef Australia (Ten) — 595,000
  8. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 578,000
  9. Celebrity Apprentice (Nine) — 539,000
  10. 7News Spotlight — 522,000

Top metro programs: 
1. Seven News — 1.072 million

Losers: 60 Minutes — a weak post-election effort

Metro news and current affair

  1. Seven News — 1.072 million
  2. Nine News — 961,000
  3. 7pm ABC News —668,000
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 400,000
  5. Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 374,000
  6. Seven News: Spotlight — 374,000
  7. The Project 6.30pm (ABC) — 278,000
  8. Ten News First — 251,000
  9. SBS World News (ABC) — 154,000

Morning (national) TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC, ABC News) — 1.077 million
  2. Weekend Sunrise (Nine) — 436,000
  3. Landline (ABC) — 387,000
  4. Weekend Today (Nine) — 304,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) — 324,000
  6. Sports Sunday — 191,000

Top 5 pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Gold Coast vs Cronulla (Fox League) — 202,000
  2. NRL: Souths vs. Canberra (Fox League) — 193,000
  3. NRL: Sunday Ticket (Fox League) — 180,000
  4. AFL: Hawthorn vs. Brisbane (Fox Footy) — 169,000
  5. AFL: Fremantle vs Cronulla (Fox Footy) — 152,000