Agony Uncles’ debut takes 408,000 for ABC
The debut of comedy self-help series Agony Uncles, which saw Wilfred’s Adam Zwar interviewing Australian male comedians and entertainers about the intricacies of dating, took 408,000 viewers for the ABC last night.
It was beaten in the 9.30pm time slot by Please Marry My Boy on Seven, which took more than double the audience, Unforgettable on Nine, which rated with 516,000 and Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and The Good Wife on Ten, according to OzTam’s preliminary results.
Seven was the only network to rate over 1m viewers for a non-news show, with Home & Away claiming 1m and the night’s winner, My Kitchen Rules, taking 1.744m.
Ten’s top show was again The Biggest Loser, rating 830,000. It was the tenth most-watched show of the night, but ranked third in the 16-39 and 18-49 demos.
Ten’s broadcast of the 2012 Australian Swimming Championships, on at 8pm, took just 530,000 viewers in 17th place, although it was not broadcast in Perth.
Nine’s highest rating show was Nine News in fourth place with 1.07m. It also had The Mentalist and two episodes of The Big Bang Theory in the top ten.
SBS1’s highest rating show, Arctic with Bruce Parry, took 322,000, in 31st place.
Wednesday’s top 15 shows:
1. My Kitchen Rules Seven 1.744m
2. Seven News Seven 1.216m
3. Today Tonight Seven 1.095m
4. Nine News Nine 1.070m
5. Home and Away Seven 1.009m
6. Please Marry My Boy Seven 0.985m
7. ABC News ABC 0.982m
8. A Current Affair Nine 0.850m
9. The Big Bang Theory – 8:00pm Nine 0.849m
10. The Biggest Loser Ten 0.835m
11. The Mentalist Nine 0.796m
12. The Big Bang Theory – 7:00pm Nine 0.793m
13. The Big Bang Theory – 7:30pm Nine 0.691m
14. Ten News – 5:00pm Ten 0.647m
15. 7:30 ABC 0.587m
Wednesday’s channel share:
Seven: 27.4%
Nine: 17.5%
Ten: 13.1%
ABC1: 10.1%
SBS1: 5.4%
Eleven: 4.4%
7mate: 4.3%
7TWO: 3.8%
GO!: 3.8%
ABC2: 3.0%
One: 2.3%
Gem: 2.2%
SBS2: 1.3%
ABC News 24: 0.7%
ABC3: 0.6%
Gordon Street lead-in was 495. Uncles gets 408. That’s not disappointing. Why try and bring a show down that basically held? This is a slot that got 168 with Outland. Surely, this is a build. Watch for jaundiced reporting.
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The advertisers won’t be happy. Oh wait, hang on…. what do ratings mean to the ABC again?
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Reminded me a bit… well, OK, a lot… of “Grumpy Old Men” and, in doing so, highlighted that Australia doesn’t have a lot of very interesting people to appear on a show like this.
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@Cameron – you’re a fool. They may not have casted as well as could be for this show but what an ignorant thing to say regardless. Interesting Australians are perhaps just a little less keen to spout forth their opinions on everything than are, for instance, the English. Or Americans.
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@Rawnocerous My comment, “Australia doesn’t have a lot of very interesting people to appear on a show like this…” is actually what you just said, yourself, ie: for a show like this, the potential pool of candidates is shallow. You might need a moment for that to process before you see that you just argued for exactly what I had already said.
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I stumbled onto agony uncles last night and I stayed till the end of the show.
I really enjoyed it and I had a good laugh at something John Singleton said. When I first saw Singo I thought “What is that old guy doing in this show ?” but then he pulled off one of the best lines in the show. I think the tv show worked becuase it represented so many different opinions. I liked the discussion on the “3 day rule” and how for some guys it worked and for others it didn’t.
I will be watching again next week.
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As a bone fide born again Chrishyan and Irish git I resemble that remark – but I will say ‘Good Luck Gunts”
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@ Cameron. That was an interesting comment.
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@ Michael, where did the article describe the result as disappointing? That’s your own interpretation. Chastise yourself
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Hi Darcey,
In fairness to Michael, it did briefly. About the same time he posted that comment, I was toning down our terminology as I felt we were initially a tad too harsh.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Michael, you’ve just compared the last episode of a show (with very little ABC on-air promotion) with the first episode of a new series (with moderate on-air promotion), of course the numbers will be higher. Traditionally ABC 9.30 comedies lose a third of the audience for the second episode (Laid went from 610 000 to 450 000 between eps 1 and 2, Outland went from 327 000 to 210 000). So expect Agony Uncles to be around 300 000 next week.
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I don’t have access to the demo stats but something has certainly changed for ABC Wednesdays. When a ABC2 show rating hire than a ABC1 show (Anabel Crabb vs Outland) something strange is going on. Less than 300,000 for Woodley is a shame. Personally I’m not watching anymore because I have no desire to sit through an hour of Adam Hills’ show which I find self-indulgent . I’d sit through half and hour. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hills is turning off younger viewers but Agony Uncles keeping most of it’s lead in at 9.30 at night is I think a pretty decent showing. It was cheap fun tv. I’d rather watch that than swimming, cooking or a U.S sitcom.
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@Cameron – Zwar got his mates involved, he didn’t cast for this & find the best/most interesting/most suited…
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Thanks Tim (Mumbrella) for toning down your intro. I thought the show was great as did the majority of Twitter. As someone said it was cheap, fun television about relationships. I’m guess that the producers got men to be on the show who were willing to talk about relationships. Considering most men don’t really talk about relationships, surely that’s reflected in the celebrity arena as well. Tough ask. But, still, I love the idea.
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