AFL can’t make a dent in Sydney

Sometimes you have to wonder if the AFL’s assault on
Sydney is just
plain fruitless. The battle of the football codes over the weekend was a hands down win to the AFL – except in Sydney.

Ten had the Swans in a final on Friday night but still finished fourth in Sydney, despite winning the national battle, and
on Saturday night – with AFL coming from Adelaide –
Ten finished second behind Nine nationally, but it was again in fourth behind
the ABC in Sydney.

Take
Friday night. The Swans vs Eagles final was watched by 1.452 million, with 593,000 of those in Melbourne,
339,000 in Perth (naturally) but only 213,000 in
Sydney. The
last Friday night home and away NRL game on Nine was
watched by 649,000: 407,000 in Sydney and 242,000 in Brisbane.

The AFL
is basking in a very good season for crowds and TV audiences (like the NRL in
many respects), but the first finals match involving the Swans just failed to attract and hold viewers. Ten and
some supporters talk about the peak audiences, but they are fleeting moments:
the average audience tells you how well a program holds viewers
and the AFL wasn’t in the hunt on Friday night.

This Friday night there will be another dose of realism: the Swans play
Geelong at the SCG and it will be a full house, while over at Telstra Stadium
the first rugby league final will see Wests Tigers playing North
Queensland. The ground crowd might be a touch smaller but the TV audience will be much bigger than the AFL’s. And on
Saturday, Ten has all but acknowledged the fruitless
nature of broadcasting the AFL into Sydney by scheduling the Saturday night final
at 10.05pm.

Great
timing or unfortunate coincidence?

The Seven Network’s movie next Sunday night is currently listed as Oil Storm – a 2005
production with the following story line: “After a
hurricane hits the coast of Louisiana, an
important portion of the oil industry’s infrastructure is taken out, leaving
America with a critically low oil
supply.”

Life
imitating art, or art anticipating life?

Last night’s TV
ratings

The Winners Nine easily. Daylight was second, another replay of some of
the winning Sunday nights the network enjoyed last year. Ten slipped into
second. 60 Minutes
was the most watched program with 1.95 million people from Nine News
with 1.55 million. Nine News is down 200,000 or so viewers because
there’s no AFL to boost audiences in Melbourne and Adelaide. The NRL
helps in Sydney and Brisbane. Backyard Blitz was watched by 1.339 million people
in the more expensive hour segment (which also generates more money from
advertisers). Ten’s best was Law and Order Criminal Intent with 1.196 million
people and then NCIS with 1.037 million. New Tricks and the ABC 7pm News also
did well with 1.19 million and 1.325 million people. Seven News was watched by
1.346 million and it was down hill from then on for the
network.
The Losers

Seven. After peaking with the News, viewers just didn’t
like the fare on offer. The Guinness World Records gathered a respectable
1.185 million people, Massive Nature at 7.30pm, 994,000 but the movie We Were
Soldiers fell to only 605,000 people. That left Seven running fourth behind Ten,
Nine and the ABC: New Tricks and Canterbury Tales were more popular. Ten’s
Australian Idol was neither up nor down but 1.188 million is just on the edge of
OK.
News & CA Nine News, naturally because
it’s a Sunday night. On Saturday night Georgie Gardiner returned to Nine to read
the 6pm News in Sydney, thus relieving Mike Munro of that onerous task. 60
Minutes
did very well, as did Seven News and the ABC News. All up possibly due
to the crisis in New Orleans and the efforts of their respective news
teams reporting and rescuing Australians. Audience levels were higher
on the Sunday morning chat shows with Father’s Day and poor weather in
Sydney helping. Sunday
regained the lead with its average audience rising to 363,000 while Weekend
Sunrise on Seven (8am) jumped to 339,999 and easily beat Nine’s Business
Sunday with 192,000 people. That was up sharply from a week earlier. Insiders on
the ABC was higher on 147,000, Meet The Press on Ten also up on 90,000, but
Inside Business on the ABC fell to only
70,000.
The Stats Nine, 32.9% to Ten with 23.6%, Seven with 22.6%, the ABC
with 17.5% and SBS with 3.6%.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments		 Only 11 programs with a million or more viewers and it would
seem that after 60 Minutes had finished, the audience dropped away from Nine and
spread itself across channels, or simply tuned out. Nine’s audience plunged from the 1.956
million average of 60 Minutes to the 1.178 million average of the movie, Catch
Me if You Can. Seven’s audience went from the 994,000 average for Massive
Nature to the 605,000 for the movie We Were Soldiers. (the drops would have
started much later in the movies as the audience became bored). Ten’s audience
however was relatively steady (Idol averaged 1.188 million to 9pm then lifted
to 1.196 for Law and Order). The ABC’s audience peaked with the News at 1.325
million, down to 941,000 for the Broadway Musical series at 7.30pm, then back
to 1.190 million for New Tricks, then down to 637,000 for Canterbury
Tales.