Glenn Dyer reports:







The Winners

Ten, of course, thanks to the final eviction on Big Brother.
The audience for the announcement was put at 2.214 million people in the early
figures and, Ten put the final number at 2.28 million. For the stuff leading up
to the actual eviction at 8.42 pm, the program averaged 1.801 million people.
But talk about a padded out, overblown production that dragged on. The Sunday
night effort finished at 8.46 pm after aiming to finish at 8.30 pm
(making the audience for Small Claims even worse) but last night the final was
supposed to finish at 9 pm, but went on and on until almost 9.30. The final
evictee and winner was revealed at around 9.20 pm. It is objectionable and Ten
is sure to do the same with Australian Idol as that moves towards yet another conclusion in
November. No wonder viewers are upset at the timing of shows. Andrew Denton’s
Enough Rope at 1.127 million people and Four Corners and Media Watch at 809,000
and 785,000 respectively were winners for holding up in the face of the BB
finale. Denton’s program, 10th nationally, started at the end of BB and ran a
respectable second behind Ten’s new US show, Numb3rs, with 1.340 million (but
that was influenced by the late start and late finish of BB.) Numb3rs ended up
starting at around 9.30 pm and ran for an hour. The Oztam figures give Ten an
audience averaging only 1.096 million in that timeslot. Ten said it averaged 1.14
million. Denton’s program which had its second highest audience of the year so
far.
The Losers

No one because the Big Brother festival distorted
viewing habits last night. On the face of it The Alice’s drop to 851,000 viewers
would be probably terminal, while Seven would be horrified if Grey’s Anatomy was
watched by 915,000 next Monday night. But such was the pressure from BB that
viewers were sucked away from the other networks for almost 150 minutes till
just on 9.30 pm. But Nine’s weakness in the face of BB was interesting,
especially in Perth where it ran last! Who Wants to be a Millionaire? was
squashed by BB to only 1.02 million
people.
News & CA

Seven News and Today Tonight
thanks to big wins in Sydney and Perth and a solid win in Adelaide. Nine News
and A Current Affair won Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven News won Sydney by a
massive 110,000 people, a huge win by any standard. ABC News was watched by just
over one million people but the 7.30 Report suffered from the BB festival with
its audience at 811,000.
The Stats

 Ten, Seriously, because of the BB festival. Ten won with
a 28.5% share, to Seven second with 21.3% and Nine third with 20.8%. SBS ran
fourth with the final day of the third test and picked up a 15.1% share. The ABC
was fifth with 14.3%. Ten won everywhere and Seven was second in Sydney, and
Perth, while Nine was second in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. In Perth Nine
was fifth and last, beaten by SBS with the cricket and by the
ABC.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments

In all the hooha about BB, SBS and the last day of the third
test cricket was watched by an average 501,000 people, with the SBS News at 9.30
pm picking up 552,000 people. It doesn’t sound much, but on a normal night SBS
would probably average between 200,000 and 250,000 viewers over prime time. And
on a night like last night with the BB festival, its audience would have been
lower. But having the cricket kept around a quarter of a million people or more
away from Ten and the other networks. Tonight, watch Ten go backwards, despite a
big Idol semi final night. But Ten will rebound Wednesday with more Idol, House
and Rock School.Seven’s True Stories backs up again tonight at 8 pm. Will the
novelty still be there after last year’s good start?