Audience deserts TV networks on Thursday night
The free TV networks saw the kind of small audiences on their main channels more usually associated with summer viewing on Thursday night.
Seven News, Nine News and Today Tonight were the only programs that attracted audiences of more than 1m, according to preliminary overnight ratings from OzTam.
Ten’s The Biggest Loser rated 961,000 while Seven’s Grey’s Anatomy rated 916,000. For Nine, CSI rated 912,000.
And Ten’s 6PM With George Negus was outrated for the first time by both Seven’s morning show Sunrise and Nine’s Today.
The top rating show on a digital channel was Neighbours on Eleven which rated 347,000.
Thursday’s top 15 shows:
- Seven News Seven 1.165m
- Today Tonight Seven 1.082m
- Nine News Nine 1.023m
- The Biggest Loser Ten 0.961m
- Grey’s Anatomy Seven 0.916m
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – 8:30pm Nine 0.912m
- Home and Away Seven 0.909m
- A Current Affair Nine 0.904m
- How I Met Your Mother – 8pm Seven 0.898m
- ABC News ABC 0.859m
- RBT Nine 0.805m
- Getaway Nine 0.800m
- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – 9:30pm Nine 0.762m
- How I Met Your Mother – 7:30pm Seven 0.762m
- Ten News – 5pm Ten 0.731m
Meanwhile, the digital channels’ share was well above 20%.
Thursday’s share:
- Seven: 22.8%
- Nine: 21.5%
- Ten: 15.8%
- ABC1: 12.2%
- SBS1: 4.1%
- 7TWO 4.0%
- GO!: 4.0%
- 7mate: 3.5%
- Eleven: 3.5%
- Gem: 3.3%
- ABC2: 2.4%
- One: 0.9%
- SBS2: 0.9%
- ABC3: 0.6%
- ABC News 24: 0.6%
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TV is only one part of the rich media mix available today.
Ratings are all about media oricing; TVCs are probably overpriced in an ever shifting media landscape but are still an important, but not singularly, part of a coordinated campaign.
Still, if I was launching a new brand or product category I’d still go with TVCs as the centre of my strategy.
We all still watch TV, just not as much.
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Here’s a reason – there was nothing good on – people watched a DVD or went out
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The fail in numbers is what happens when you continually push bland content out in a bid to attract more 25-54’s.
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Can we get George Negus to interview Ben Elton? I just wanna test a theory about negative viewer numbers.
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as a consumer, i watch more tv on thursday nights than any other (some recorded)- but none featured on this list – SGU, Megastructures, Low Down, Party Down, 30 Rock…guess no one thinks I’m gunna buy any KFC…
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watching TV for 3 hours per day emits 0.1 tonne of CO2 per year.
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I no longer have a tv in my lounge, I have a 4:3 CRT, quite a nice telly… but it was collecting dust and I really needed the room for something else. I can understand having the telly on if you’re a family… but as I live by myself, my choice to be a part of something online, is far better than watching a one way media.
However I still do watch iview, it’s lovely to watch something when I’m good and ready, I don’t have to sit through 15mins of nonsense like sports or whatever before my show comes on, and there’s no ads.
I’ve also been very much into watching vimeo.
Sometimes I go next door and see programs and ads that I had no idea even existed, but have no urge to watch at home.
A TV ad would have no effect on the likes of myself.
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Anon, you’re pretty much spot on with one small exception.
If we look at ALL television viewing (FTA + Subscription TV + Community TV) then for all-day All People viewing across the 5 metros combined, the average audience was up +5.1 for calendar 2010 on calendar 2009.
Part of that was population growth (+2.2%) and of course 2010 included Time-Shifted Viewing which wasn’t included.
What IS happening is that with the proliferation of FTA and STV channels, the viewing to individual channels is fragmenting and declining as viewers exercise choice across more viewing options. This gives the appearance that as a population we are watching less television when in fact we aren’t.
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Lets be honest, the TV choice is pretty pants poor on most nights, let alone a Thursday. The only show that people watch at the moment is MKR which isn’t on on Thursdays.
If free to air TV continually relies on poor reality TV & even poorer US sitcoms like How I met your mother, then they deserve all the low ratings they can get.
Disgruntled!
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Last night I watched shows on tivo that I had recorded earlier in the week like Big Love and Californication. That’s how I roll these days. I hardly ever watch live TV.
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Totally agree John. It also appears that there are more programs rating between 600k-900k than in previous years
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I watch the tv show “The Middle” and thats about it. TV free to air is very poor these days. I never watch ten, seven or nine. Middle on Go thats it
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TV is like the shops. Full of stuff that I have no desire to get.
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