Sydney leads commercial radio rebound. With the Sydney radio market continuing to rebound, ad revenues for metropolitan commercial radio rose almost 10%, to $165.5 million in the three months to the end of September. According to figures released by Commercial Radio Australia all markets performed well in the quarter with Sydney up 4.6%; Melbourne up 10.9%; Brisbane up 12.9%; Adelaide up 6.2% and Perth up 23.3%. All markets also did well with overall growth of nearly 9% on September 2006. Sydney grew by nearly three per cent to a total of $19.6 million; Melbourne was up 11% to $16.2 million; Brisbane grew by 14% to $9.1 million; Adelaide grew four per cent to $5.4 million and Perth up 21% to $6.9 million. Sydney accounts for around 35% of the national market, so when it’s doing well, the whole industry is buoyant. The growth in ad revenue will be of interest to Fairfax which is buying the AM (and a couple of FM) talk stations of Southern Cross Broadcasting in the break up with Macquarie Media. — Glenn Dyer

Hello, what do you think is wrong with AFR.com? It’s amazing, but true. Fairfax has commissioned someone to call AFR subscribers and users of afr.com to ask them what they think. The caller — believed to be ANOP — starts with questions about the Fin Review and then moves to afr.com and how it is regarded/read/accessed. Could this be linked to the mooted changes promised by well known Fairfax World Cup correspondent, David Kirk, at an alumni meeting at the University of NSW in late August? But the key question is whether AFR editor, Glen Burge and his boss, Michael Gill, will listen to the comments from the market research and do something about the problems. With the New York Times and Financial Times both relaxing the restrictions on paid content on their websites and Rupert Murdoch talking up plans for the Wall Street Journal website (even though it’s profitable), Burge, Gill and Kirk will be under pressure to do something radical to protect the AFR ‘s position before it wastes away. — Glenn Dyer

Massive job cuts forecast for BBC. There isn’t much sympathy for the BBC in Britain at the moment. It angered the Queen with a deliberate lie (and saw the head of the BBC 1 TV channel resign), and there have been around ten cases of what amounts to a fraud on TV viewers and radio listeners by BBC program producers, editors and managers in the past six years. Now, according to  reports in London media overnight, the BBC is looking at chopping staff numbers by up to 12%, with most of the cut to occur in the factual programming area. The cuts could total 2,800 when announced next week and follow budget cuts of 6% a year for each of the next five years after a $A4 billion plus hole was left in the budget by a smaller than expected settlement on the new TV licence fee. The licence fee will rise at less than the inflation rate over the next five years, forcing the broadcaster to find efficiencies. Fancy having the luxury of 1) a licence fee extracted from all TV viewers, not just BBC viewers, and 2) having it rise each year, even at the new, lower rate. Sheer luxury. No wonder the BBC is overstaffed, fat and self-congratulatory. According to the London reports, the BBC won’t close services but will hack into staff numbers in its core broadcasting areas: around 23,000 people are employed, including 18,000 in the core. — Glenn Dyer

Tasteless TV promo of the week. And the award goes to Seven’s promotions department for featuring Madeleine McCann in its trailer for new fictional missing child drama Torn: The Mystery Event.

 

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Another benefit night for Seven. Dancing With The Stars  averaged 1.906 million people (peak of 2.06 million), followed by Home And Away with 1.409 million, Today Tonight (1.385 million), Seven News (1.367 million), All Saints  (1.306 million), A Current Affair (1.246 million), Nine News (1.211 million), The Simpsons at 8 pm (1.2 million), Temptation  (1.190 million) and the first Simpsons repeat at 7.30pm (1.149 million). NCIS averaged 1.080 million at 8.30pm for Ten and the 7pm ABC News had 1.071 million. The Sopranos averaged 409,000 at 10.30pm. The Losers: Nine from 7.30pm… again. Surprise Surprise Gotcha at 7.30pm, 801,000 and fading fast. It’s so boring, even for a repeat of a 90s idea.  Surprise Surprise was beaten by Seven (understandable) but also repeats of The Simpsons. And beaten by large margins. That naturally didn’t help a fresh ep of CSI Miami (828,000), which was beaten by a repeat of NCIS on Ten. So Ten had success with repeats, Nine didn’t with fresh programs.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Melbourne. Today Tonight won everywhere bar Melbourne and Brisbane (more people again watched the 7pm ABC News than the Nine News in Sydney, 311,0000 to 310,000). Ten News averaged 775,000; the Late News/ Sports Tonight , 436,000. Nine’s Nightline , 198,000 at 11.30pm or thereabouts. The 7.30 Report was weak with 744,000 (crunched by Dancing ); Lateline , 221,000. SBS News, 156,000 at 6.30 pm; 100,000 at 9.30pm; Insight , 289,000. 7am Sunrise up to 445,000, 7am Today down to 273,000 after the adventure over 300,000 on Monday morning.

The Stats: Seven won by almost 16 points. It averaged 38.1% (37.6% a week ago) from Nine with 22.3% (unchanged), Ten with 22.0% (21.5%), the ABC with 13.8% (14.0%) and SBS with 3.7% (4.7%). Seven won all five metro markets and leads the week, 34.6% to 23.8% with Ten there with 21.5%. In regional areas it was a win to Prime/7Qld with 37.4%, Southern Cross (Ten) was second with 23.2%, Nine was third through WIN/NBN with 22.3%, the ABC was on 12.8% and SBS, 4.3%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: A dependable result and while good for Seven, not good for viewers generally: no choice and no competition makes for boring nights. Ten’s relative success with repeats will only encourage it, but when Nine has nothing strong, who can blame Ten for trying to keep its hand in a cost effective manner? Tonight Seven will again be competitive with RSPCA Animal Rescue and Medical Emergency . Las Vegas won’t be interesting and  Prison Break might be “fast tracked” but that’s all you can say about it. Nine has McLeod’s Daughters , a fresh Cold Case and Damages after Temptation . Ten has Fifth Grader (it will fade), House and Life . The ABC of course has Spicks and Specks , The Chaser and Summer Heights High . It’s a very competitive night, viewers have choices, life is wonderful in front of the box (and there is always the off button!). Shaun Micallef’s Newstopia starts on SBS at 10pm. Should be worth a look.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports