Royal Baby specials don’t deliver
Extensive coverage of the arrival of the royal baby did not shift the regular favourites from the top of Tuesday night’s television ratings with The Block remaining the most watched show of the night with 1.372m metro viewers.
Seven’s first outing of Anh Does Britain scored an audience of 1.006m across the five cities at 7.30pm. The second season of the show follows on from Anh Does Vietnam, his journey through the country of his birth, which was a top-rated show for Seven attracting over 1.6m viewers in October.
Last-minute schedule changes to cover the birth of the royal baby made little difference to ratings for Seven, which ditched Today Tonight in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to provide extended coverage from Melissa Doyle and foreign correspondent Mike Amor in London.
Localised versions of Today Tonight aired in Adelaide, although beleagured host Helen Kapalos stumbled with her cross to colleague Melissa Doyle, and in Perth.
The Seven News bulletin had 251,000 viewers in Sydney, 305,000 in Melbourne and 179,000 in Brisbane, which combined with ratings for Today Tonight in Adelaide and Perth had a total of 1.055m viewers across the five cities, compared with 1.134m metro viewers for Today Tonight on Monday night.
The ABC, which ditched the 8.30pm show New Tricks in favour of the documentary, Born to Be King, had a metro audience of 622,000, and was followed by a repeat episode of QI with an English focus, which had 604,000 metro viewers.
Ten’s special Will and Kate: A Royal Arrival, scheduled in place of a repeat episode of The Simpsons at 6pm, had just 364,000 viewers in the five cities.
It was still a good night for Ten, however, which secured 16.2 per cent of the audience share including 967,000 metro viewers for the latest outing of American drama Under the Dome, broadcast hours after the first US broadcast, and MasterChef’s 844,000.
Nine’s third outing of The Great Australian Bake Off held on with 944,000 viewers, however there was a big drop in audiences for two new episodes of The Bible, which had 601,000 viewers from 9pm to 10pm, compared with 867,000 from 8.45pm to 9.45pm last Tuesday.
In the morning battle, the extended Sunrise program, providing additional coverage of the royal birth and overriding the Morning Show, was broadcast live in Adelaide and Perth, and broadcast news of the birth before Today. However, with a total metro audience of 388,000, Sunrise failed to top Today, which also had extensive coverage of the royal baby news, and won 422,000 viewers.
Nine won the night with 23 per cent of the audience, and Seven was not far behind, with 20.2 per cent of the audience share.
Tuesday’s top 15 shows:
- The Block Nine 1.372
- Nine News Nine 1.363
- Seven News Seven 1.250
- A Current Affair Nine 1.170
- Today Tonight Seven 1.055
- Anh Does Britain Seven 1.006
- Home and Away Seven 0.996
- Under the Dome Ten 0.967
- The Great Australian Bake Off Nine 0.944
- ABC News ABC 0.931
- Winners and Losers Seven 0.872
- Masterchef Ten 0.844
- Hot Seat Nine 0.755
- Ten News Ten 0.745
- 7:30 ABC 0.728
Tuesday’s share:
- Nine 23.0%
- Seven 20.2%
- Ten 16.2%
- ABC1 11.9%
- 7TWO 4.8%
- GO! 4.2%
- SBS ONE 4.0%
- ELEVEN 3.1%
- ABC2 2.9%
- Gem 2.9%
- 7mate 2.4%
- ONE 1.8%
- ABC News 24 1.1%
- ABC3 0.8%
- Network SBS 2 0.6%
- Network NITV 0.1%
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