Australian Idol finale fails to draw big audience
Sunday night’s finale of Australian Idol on Ten failed to reach the ratings levels of last year as Stan Walker was announced as the series winner.
According to preliminary OzTam figures the first part of the programme, Live from the Opera House was watched by over 1.1m viewers which was down on the 1.3m it attracted last year. The Final Verdict part of the show attracted over 1.2m, also down last year’s 1.6m.
During the Announcement of the Winner segment, there were just under 1.5m viewers, again down on last year’s 1.6m.
Overall however, Idol helped push Ten’s channel share for the night to 22.1%, which was higher than the 19.1% it reached the previous Sunday. But the channel still finished third behind Seven and Nine.
In other results, Seven led the ratings race with The Force and Seven News. Nine’s digital channel Go pushed ahead of SBS1, with a 4.8 per cent share, compared to the latter’s 4 per cent.
Sunday channel share:
- Seven: 27.8%
- Nine: 24.2%
- Ten: 22.1%
- ABC1: 12.6%
- Go: 4.8%
- SBS1: 4%
- 7Two: 2.6%
- One: 0.9%
- ABC2: 0.8%
- SBS2: 0.1%
Sunday’s top shows:
- The Force – Seven 1.6m
- Seven News – Seven 1.5m
- Australian Idol – Announcement of Winner – Ten 1.5m
- Border Security – Seven 1.4m
- Bones – Seven 1.3m
- Australian Idol – Final Verdict – Ten 1.2m
- Sunday Night – Seven 1.2m
- Nine News – Nine 1.2m
- All Star Twenty/20 – Nine 1.1m
- Australian Idol – Live from the Opera House – Ten 1.1m
- Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation Christmas Special – Ten 1.1m
- ABC News – ABC 0.929m
- 60 Minutes – Nine 0.928m
- Castle – Double Episode – Seven 0.78m
- Just for Laughs: Best of British – Ten 0.761m
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I would say the 10%-15% viewer drop off places an almost exact value on the decision to prematurely axe Kyle. Like him or not he provided the essential ingredient for the judging panel to work off. Obviously JayDee will not be back and chances are Kyle will.
the other disaster was dropping the slot for the exiting singer to have a last song. As the show went on this became more and more missed. Especailly for the last 3 to leave, Toby, nathan and James. All of whom had fully earned and their fans expected an encore. Shame on whoever made that call.
This year’s talent, in spite of a slow start, proved to be a good bunch with 4 serious contenders all of whom improved through the show.
Also the star turns brought in were hit and miss and again shows lack of judgement by the producers. eg James Morrison – puhlease
The format has plenty of life in it just needs to be managed properly.
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the format is old tired and extremely bland. The best things about the whole series was the firework display – ahhh lovely fireworks.
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My 12-y-o son kept Australian Idol alive in our home week after week. However, even he was torn last night when presented with the option of seeing Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath bowl again in Twenty/Twenty cricket on Ch. 9.
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Yes, it’s an old format that needs some work although Stan is a great story and quite a unique result. There’s a lot to be said about the voters that chose him. Great result.
I agree that JD may not have the flamboyant flare that Kyle might but PLEASE do me a favor – Kyle is an insult to our intelligence. He’s a moron and a freak. He should never been allowed a stage. He’s a sexist and he just makes the typical Aussie look bad. I hope we’re over this bad mouthed style. It’s a talent show not a “who can use the most inappropriate language celebrity wannabe show”. Come on Australia – grow up and join the rest of the civilized TV world. Boobs and bad mouth presenters is so passe
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They are definitely preliminary figures, because the final ratings show that the 2009 Australian Idol Grand Final audience peaked at 1.71 million, with an average audience of 1.49 million.
http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/e.....31109.html
And yes, the show is coming back next year.
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Hi JP,
That’s the same figures we’ve got. The 1.49m you are referring to is the 20 minute or so ‘Announcement of Winner’ segment we refer to above as having “just under 1.5m viewers”.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Great! Another year of generic drivel to look forward to on Channel 10. It astounds me that a channel that can come up with such a successful format at Masterchef has to rely on this boring crap. It’s really shocking to compare the ratings and just the general buzz around this programme to the X Factor in the UK. It seems that the UK is just gripped by the show and it definitley has people talking.
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“Australian Idol finale fails to draw big audience”
This headline is completely incorrect if you ask me … it rated 1.5m … I’d say it’s a pretty bloody big metro figure. Most media brands would kill to have 1.5m people tune in/watch/read on average for their show/website/magazine
C’mon Mumbrella’s … some of these headlines are certainly eye grabbing and pageview generating … but stretch the truth a little.
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I think 1.5m is a very poor result for such an expensive and hyped show. They should be embarrassed!
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Hi Larry,
Thanks for your comment.
Australian Idol was split into three segments last night as far as programming data goes (the audience wouldn’t have known it though as in the TV guides it appeared as one show).
Those three parts averaged 1.5m, 1.2m and 1.1m. The segment that averaged 1.5m was the shortest, at only around 20 minutes long.
And, yes, for the climax of a network’s second biggest franchise to rate 1.5m is not a big audience in my view.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Ch. 10 should give me a job. I could turn the show around.
The main issue is that they took away an integral part of the show, the results. Now while this may seem small…all it meant is that consumers had less time with the contestants and therefore did not feel as emotionally invested in the format.
The talent this year was not the problem at all..Stan and Hayley are both very marketable and will do well.
What they need to do next year is the following;
– Bring back Kyle Sandilands
– Integrate Twitter into the show– put live comments from users while the idols sing
– Let the fans choose what the idols sing
– Invite fans along to the auditions and let them help select the finalists.
They need to give fans the opportunity to actually be engaged with the concept of the show.
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1.5m people is 1.5m people – regardless of franchise – isn’t it?
Isn’t the real commercial/media story in how it’s performing for the key demos? Not the total mass audience? Admit that it’s not the beast it has been previously but the figures are decent nonetheless.
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Agree on all points. Good call.
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Doh. PAUL! I agree on all points. Good call.
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Larry,
1.5M for 20 mins is not good at all. How many commercials appeared in this slot?
Overall the program rated less and reached a lot less people than it used to. The Idol flame is fading fast and no matter how much rejigging and reformatting 10 are doing they cant seem to plug this leaky, once large ship. Specifically it was down this year overall and breaking it down by segments. whichever way you cut it no advertiser would be stoked with these results.
Advertisers would be happy with the 1.5M for the Force and 7 News and would still be happy with the 1.4 delivered by Border Security. All just regular weekly programs and not Event television.
For the premiums that 10 charge in a finale program like this you would have to say that anyone who bought here based on last years audience levels would be underdelivering.
Got Makegoods?
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Gasp…what a surprise that this tired format and waste of space show had “failed to draw” a big audience…are they expecting 2M “people” to watch this rubbish – after the 1st season it was B O R I N G…
Memo to Ten, send Aus Idol the way of BB….to the axed pile!
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BIggest Loser and Masterchef, both broadcast 6 nights a week, are far more important to Ten than Idol (1 night a week).
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I thought the big difference this year was John Foreman’s exit and his replacement’s the el blando musical direction. No matter how many musos they packed in the studio, it still sounded like a backing tape. No wonder many performers came off as bogans who follow the kareoke guy around the outer suburbs.
Also, the moment the nuttier than a fruitcake, Mark Holden left the show was always going to struggle. He was the only judge who could issue Touchdowns.
The Touchdown is one of TVs most ridiculous and absurd concepts in years.
But it worked.
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