Chaser audience down about 20% on series opening
The Chaser’s first “normal” night on the TV schedule after the controversial dying kids sketch has seen a fall of about 20% on its series opening.
Wednesday night saw The Chaser’s War On Everything pull in an audience of 1.2m, according to preliminary figures from OzTam. That compares with an audience of just over 1.5m for the the beginning of the series.
The second episode, which included the much-debated Make A Reasonable Wish Foundation sketch was on the same night of State of Origin on Nine. It was then followed by a layoff while editorial policies were reviewed, with last week’s return also being on a State of Origin Night.
Previously The Chaser had a similar audience to Spicks & Specks, which preceeds it. However last night, The Chaser was around 200,000 behind.
Meanwhile, all three of the main commercial networks had strong nights. Ten’s MasterChef was winner of the night with just over 1.7m viewers. Seven’s Thanks God You’re Here also performed well. And Nine had a strong evening too.
Last night’s share: Seven 27.4%; Nine 26.3%; Ten 24.9%; ABC 17.4%; SBS 4%.
Wednesday’s top rating TV shows:
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Masterchef – Ten 1.7m
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Seven News – Seven 1.6m
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Thank God You’re Here – Seven 1.5m
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Today Tonight – Seven 1.4m
- Spicks and Specks – ABC 1.4m
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A Current Affair – Nine 1.2m
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Nine News – Nine 1.2m
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Criminal Minds – Seven 1.2m
- The Chaser’s War on Everything – ABC 1.2m
- RPA – Nine 1.2m
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Chaser have lost it – just not funny anymore
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Not a regular watcher, but the recent controversy peaked my curiosity as to how they would respond and subsequently, I have watched the last two shows.
I am not a fan of the singing sketches, but I did have a great laugh at the PC v Mac sketch.
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The Chaser boys are one a a few clever and funny comedy acts in Oz. They are certainly better than the annoying Will Anderson and if anyone classifies Rove’s pathetic attempt at night time entertainment as comedy, then you must be slightly bonkers.
The Chaser lads are excellent and there will be a few solo shows that emerge from this pack for sure.
A question here – how do they work out the tv ratings? I have never had anything to do with TV. Do 1000 people get asked what channel they were watching…?
I would be interested to know 🙂
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Hi Adam,
I’m sure that somebody will be able to answer that question with more detail than me (John Grono: Are you about today?)
But broadly, a cross section of Australian homes gets asked to take a box into their house and press buttons to let it know who’s in the room at various points as it records what channel the TV is on.
I heard a great tale from someone who now heads trading for a media agency. He described how he managed to get something with a very low audience – ballet or something along those lines – to rate very well after visiting someone’s home who had a box and pressing a few buttons to say that a houseful were watching it…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Let’s hope that’s that the 20% of people who write letters to complain have buggered off.
They’ll have a field day with Little Britain.
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Thanks Tim,
Very interesting; a special box you say, with buttons!
I have aksed all the people I know and no one has ever participated in such a television monitoring process…
The thing I love about online is that it is so accountable. With other media we have to take other peoples word for it: “We asked 1000 people if they listen to, read, watched etc” Online you get clear stats of clicks and views – it is so transparent.
Few, waffle over,
cheers again.
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I watch chaser on the web, were these ratings included in there figures. I’m thinking they were not included
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Hi Todd,
They wouldn’t have been. That’s a growing issue.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella