Last night: A bit of voter/viewer hangover, but joy for Insiders yesterday morning on the ABC, bringing in a combined national audience of just over 900,000 and the tenth most watched program for the day on the ABC’s main channel and News 24. That was the highest for the program for a 90 minute post-election special.
That was also viewer recognition of the best program on TV for the campaign and political discussion and analysis. Insiders was one of the few TV programs on free to air that benefited from its coverage. 7.30, ABC News, Lateline, and Four Corners struggled to keep their viewers over the eight weeks when they concentrated on politics, especially interviews for Messrs Turnbull and Shorten. Q&A did well on Monday nights and it will be a test of that resilience with tonight’s episode. On Sky News Andrew Bolt and Paul Murray Live also did well (and had a good audience numbers during the campaign) covering the right wing side of Australian politics, well Liberal Party factional politics.
Sky News’ coverage on Saturday night averaged around 100,000 from 7pm to around midnight and was easily beaten by that night’s coverage of the NRL and AFL. That night’s games filled the top seven places on Foxtel on Saturday night whereas the ABC’s coverage was the highest rating program on free to air TV.
Last night’s Seven’s night in total people in the metros and Nine’s in the main channels as House Rules ended its season in a stronger position with viewers (especially those in metro areas) than it started with a couple of months ago. Seven won the regionals, as the top five most watched programs confirmed.
Nine’s The Voice did OK, but for a semi-final, it had a weakish night: Masterchef battled on and between the trio around 4.4 million people watched last night. Another example of the pulling power of some programs on free to air TV. The winner’s announcement on House Rules had just over 2 million viewers, The Voice around 1.3 million and Masterchef a solid 1.2 million.
In the regions, the House Rules winner announced averaged 841,000, with the Grand Final part next with 800,000. Seven News was on 706,000, Sunday Night was on 530,000 and Nine News was fifth with 504,000 viewers.
Sunrise won breakfast last week, 310,000 to 300,000 for Today.
Tonight Nick Krygios plays Andy Murray at Wimbledon.
Network channel share:
- Seven (29.8%)
- Nine (28.6%)
- Ten (20.1%)
- ABC (15.5%)
- SBS (6.1%)
Network main channels:
- Nine (21.7%)
- Seven (21.0%)
- Ten (15.5%)
- ABC (10.5%)
- SBS ONE (4.4%)
Top 5 digital channels:
- 7mate (3.9%)
- 7flix (2.9%)
- GO (2.8%)
- Gem (2.6%)
- 7TWO, ONE (2.5%))
Top 10 national programs:
- Seven News — 2.074 million
- House Rules Winner (Seven) — 2.014 million
- House Rules Grand Final (Seven) — 1.950 million
- Nine News — 1.768 million
- The Voice (Nine) — 1.317million
- Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.217 million
- Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.200 million
- ABC News — 1.173 million
- The Queen At 90 (ABC) — 944,000
- Insiders (ABC, News 24) — 906,000
Top metro programs:
- Seven News — 1.368 million
- Nine News — 1.264 million
- House Rules Winner Announced (Seven) — 1.249 million
- House Rules Winner Grand Final (Seven) — 1.149 million
Losers: No one really – there was enough last night to satisfy most viewers.
Metro news and current affairs:
- Seven News — 1.368 million
- Nine News — 1.264 million
- Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.037 million
- ABC News – 798,000
- Sunday Night (Seven) — 740,000
- 60 Minutes (Nine) — 534,000
- Ten Eyewitness News — 379,000
- SBS World News (Ten) — 221,000
Morning TV:
- Insiders (ABC, 466,000, 191,000 on News 24) — 667,000
- Weekend Today (Nine) — 380,000
- Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 321,000
- Landline (ABC) — 253,000
- Offsiders (ABC) — 226,000
- The Morning Show (Seven) — 158,000
Top five pay TV channels:
- Fox Footy (3.7%)
- Sky News (3.4%)
- Fox Sports 1 (3.3%)
- Fox Sports 4 (2.0%)
- Foxtel Movies Premiere (1.9%)
Top five pay TV programs:
- AFL:Melbourne v Adelaide (Fox Footy) – 252,000
- NRL: Souths v North Qld (Fox Sports 1) — 208,000
- NRL: Canberra v Newcastle (Fox Sports 1) — 176,000
- F1: Austrian Grand Prix (Fox Sports 5) – 130,000
- AFL: Bounce (Fox Footy) – 116,000
*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2016. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) and network reports.
In my opinion “Insiders” has kept and/or increased its viewing audience because it is intelligent and unbiased. By contrast “7.30” is extremely biased, with Leigh Sales constantly interrupting and making assertions which she fails to back up with facts. I find her style of interviewing rude and unpleasant. Those being interviewed have a right to be treated with at least the respect of being listened to except when they are politicians deliberately avoiding answering the question. By contrast, Sarah Ferguson is polite, incisive and frequently funny.
Leigh Sales snapping at Bill Shorten to “wrap it up!” during an answer he was giving on last Thursday’s 7.30 was telling.
Why she is given so much air time remains a mystery while a thorough professional like Sarah Ferguson is in circulation. I’d prefer to see Ferguson host 7.30 while Sales does Four Corners intros. But politicians probably wouldn’t appear on 7.30 knowing they’d be pitted against Ferguson.
I like Leigh Sales’ persona but I, too, was truly peeved when she ordered Shorten to ‘wrap it up’. Then there was Annabel’s Kitchen Cabinet with Malcolm Turnbull when she kissed her interviewee and his family upon her arrival.
Personally, I don’t care for whom either of these two journalists vote but I really can do without seeing their biases, which I think unprofessional.