The Winners Nine, easily again, on the back of the long plug for Qantas on
This Is Your Life and the low figures for Headland on Seven. This is Your Life
was the most watched program with 1.263 million people, which Nine and Qantas
will lap up. ACA was second with 1.184 million, followed by Seven News (1.133 million), Nine News (1.087
million) and Today Tonight (1.075 million). ABC News was again strong with
1.016 million. The last episode of The
Surgeon on Ten averaged 623,000 – not bad for a badly-treated
program!
The Losers Headland, again, slipping a few thousand more to
757,000, which is probably around its
bottom. Seven remains determined to make
it work and argues that it can afford to do so out of survey because of the
line-up of strong programs from elsewhere. Other poor performers were Tommy Lee Goes To College on Seven at 9pm (641,000) and the Billy Connolly tour of
New Zealand (623,000) – both are “don’t care, its summer programs.”
News & CA Mixed. ACA beat Today Tonight, despite the latter’s usual
strong showing in Perth and a close loss in Sydney. ACA
had big wins in Brisbane and Melbourne, where there could be changes in
staff next year. Seven News beat Nine nationally and in Sydney,
Adelaide and Perth. That was enough to offset Nine’s wins in Melbourne
and Brisbane. The 7.30 Report on the ABC
was watched by 874,000, its lowest audience of the week.
The Stats Nine with a solid 33.6%, Seven with 23.6%, Ten with 21.8%,
the ABC with 15.5% and SBS with 5.5%.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments		 The
Walkley Awards went to air on SBS last night
between 10pm and 11.30pm and averaged just 131,000 people, with 43,000 of
those watching in Sydney and 42,000 in Melbourne. Meanwhile, in the Nine-ABC tussle for West Wing – no settlement. Nine has
set a price which the ABC is finding it hard to meet. Nine still wants the
program, but has difficulties making it work in its post 9.30pm
line-up. Ten’s buy from Nine, Smallville was watched by 784,000. Not brilliant,
but there’s enough 16 to 39s watching to make Ten feel happy. It paid Nine the
same price as Nine is paying Warners. Cost recovery, Willoughby style, which is
the name of the game now.