Testing time in Teleland

Seven
loses Lost this week but regains The Mole,
an unequal exchange given the relative performances of the
programs. Lost‘s final episode on Thursday
night at 8.30pm will draw a two million plus audience, while The
Mole has already had four outings between 2000 and 2003 when it ended with indifferent
ratings. But
Seven does have the third series of Dancing with the
Stars to return shortly, along with another
series of The Amazing Race.

Monday
night is the most testing for Seven and Nine. It’s when we’ll start finding
out if The Alice is going to work for Nine and whether
Grey’s Anatomy can fill the hole left by Desperate Housewives for Seven at 8.30pm. Ten’s US series Numb3rs, which did OK off the
back of the BB final eviction last Monday night, is also a contender for Monday nights – up against Grey’s at
8.30pm. There’s
quite a lot riding on these shows. And
then there’s Nine’s stalwart, Who Wants
To Be A Millionaire. Perhaps its time Eddie’s mob stepped up for Nine after being pounded by the Wisteria Lane belles all this
year.

One
other thing to watch is the Temptation/Home and Away battle at 7pm Monday
to Friday. Last
week was Temptation’s worst week since being brought back by Nine in May. Home and Away had three wins in five
nights. It could have been better story lines on the Seven show, or nothing more than viewing blips, but Temptation is
busily promoting a contestant “going for the big one.”

The football fight over ratings

The
Rugby Union Test between Australia and South Africa saw the Wallabies post their fourth loss in a row – their
worst performance since 1982. Seven’s
telecast of the Rugby didn’t have the same impact for the network that the
Australia-All Blacks Test had a week earlier when it enabled Seven to draw the
week with Nine. In fact
Seven ran third on Saturday as Ten (25.4%) won the night narrowly
from Nine (25.3%), with Seven on 24.4%.

Friday
saw the NRL and AFL games boost Nine to a winning lead after it won the night
with a share of 31.6%. That
saw Nine win the week 27.4% to 25.9% with Ten on 22.3%,
the ABC with 15.6% and SBS with 8.7%.

The AFL
finishes this weekend for Nine, making them vulnerable
on Friday nights and reducing the lead in for the Sunday night news in southern
states. The NRL still has six week to run for Nine in
Sydney and Brisbane.

Last night’s TV
ratings

The Winners

Nine won, Seven did better and the ABC was strong. Ten was
down, but it was a competitive night for all. Nine had five of the top six
programs: News (1.865 million), 60 Minutes (1.809 million), CSI (1.557 million),
Backyard Blitz (1.499 million) and You Are What You Eat (1.356
million). Seven News was at No. 5 with 1.379 million but what kept it in the game was
the Bond movie Die Another Day which averaged 1.173 million viewers from 8.30-11.15pm, while Ten was buoyed by its 40th Anniversary special (1.314
million) from 8.30-10.30pm.
The Losers

On a night when there were 15 programs with a million or
more viewers, no real losers. Even Seven’s BBC special Massive Nature did 1.13
million viewers in an encouraging improvement on its opening a week earlier.
Nine’s new CSI New York with 1.129 million at 9.30pm would have been a
disappointment. Ten’s Jamie
Oliver thing, The Naked Chef, also underwhelmed at 6.30pm with 703,000
people.
News & CA

Nine won, of course, with a
strong night for 60 Minutes. ABC News also was strong with an average 1.283 million people
watching the broadcast. The Sunday morning chat shows saw sharp falls
in the audiences for Nine’s Sunday (276,000, down 40,000) and Business Sunday (140,000, down 33,000). The ABC’s
Insiders jumped 36,000 to 180,000. Inside Business on the ABC shed 7,000
viewers to 85,000 and Ten’s Meet The Press lost 8,000 to 60,000. Sports World on
Seven was the most popular with 287,000 people, which was also down on a week
earlier.
The Stats

Nine won 29.3% to Seven on 26.0%. Ten finished with a
23.3% share.The ABC was on a strong 17.2% and SBS was on a 4.2% share. Nine won
everywhere bar Perth, which Seven won. Seven finished third in Adelaide behind
Nine and Ten.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments

Although Nine had the honours at the top of the leader board in a big way, clever
programming by Seven and Ten kept them in the game. But without its one-off
special, Ten would have had a black hole of a night. The 90 minutes of Australian
Idol only averaged 1.156 million people and that will be a worry for the
Network. Tonight it’s The Alice on Nine versus Numb3rs on Ten and Grey’s Anatomy
on Seven in the battle of the second stringers. Will Eddie McGuire finally do
the job for Nine after losing to a bunch of
women?