Audience fragmentation arrives as primary channel share drops below 75% for first time
Primary channel viewing fell below three-in-four free to air viewers for the first time last night.
According to preliminary overnight ratings from OzTam, Thursday night saw the secondary channels take a 26.3% share to the five primary channels’ 73.7%.
The previous highest ever secondary channels share was 22.3% on election night.
In part, the large share for the Freeview channels was partly driven by Network Ten’s sports channel One’s biggest share to date of 7.9% which came from its Commonwealth games coverage simulcast with Ten.
Last night is also thought to be the first time that only one primary channel – Seven – got more than 20% of the free to air audience.
Last night’s share:
- Seven: 20.2%
- Ten: 19.2%
- Nine: 18.6%
- ABC1: 10.4%
- One: 7.9%
- GO!: 7.4%
- SBS1: 5.3%
- 7TWO 3.2%
- 7mate: 2.9%
- ABC2: 1.4%
- Gem: 1.4%
- SBS2: 1.0%
- ABC3: 0.6%
- ABC News 24: 0.5%
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You air poor content and no one will watch.
Who would’ve guessed?
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MattP: Unfortunately, you’ve clearly missed the entire point of this story.
Let me guess… Gen Y and working in digital?
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Wrong and wrong.
Doesn’t change the fact that the content on the primary channels last night was poor which would explain the move to the secondary channels.
Another anonymous comment which misses the entire point of my comment. 🙂
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Matt, 1 quarter of the audience is not what I’d call a massive shift due to poor content. Its called choice- and more people realising everyday they’ve got more channels to view.
Pipe up once it hits 50/50 and I may take your comments a bit more seriously.
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Of course, an alternative view is that if you offer MORE content then people will willingly follow it and watch it. I’d call the Comm Games fresh new content and it’s garnering an audience.
Apart from that Matt, we’re talking about viewing shares here – not the amount of TV viewing.
By the way, yesterday 3-in-4 people watched TV in the Metro areas, so one has to suspect that those 3-in-4 people found some content to their liking.
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Referring to “Gen Y” as a group is like expecting “Asians” to act in the same way or thinking that all “Geminis” are the same because there’s only 12 types of people in the world
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@Me Genius.
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I’ve read my earlier comments again and s-l-o-w-l-y too. Can’t see where I’ve said people are no longer watching TV or the shift is massive.
Please feel free to put more words in my mouth. Yawn.
And anyone who thinks their comments are ever taken seriously needs to get off the coolaid.
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@Anonymous 4:15PM, who I’m guessing is MattP:
Nice 180.
You say poor content is what drove viewers to the secondary channels. I’m arguing that it’s not poor content content at all. its choice.
As I said, if it was poor content, don’t you think that more than 25% of the total viewing audience would have followed suit?
As John Grono pointed out, 3 out of 4 people yesterday watched TV. So how poor can the content be?
I know you’d love to think everyone was sitting around all night on the internet staring at the latest internet flash banner, but sadly for you, that’s not the case.
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Apologies my 4:15pm comment did not identify me. My bad.
Correct, poor content means those viewers made the choice to switch channels.
Another delightful conclusion about internet banners. More words in my mouth.
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Was it poor content, or maybe, it was that the content on the secondary channels appealed to them more?
I’m sorry, but again, you cant say its poor content when “more people than not” stayed tuned in.
You make absolutely no sense.
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