Nine’s moved Schapelle drama gets just over half the viewers of INXS drama on Seven
Channel Nine’s last-minute gambit to capitalise on the news around Schapelle Corby’s release from prison by moving docudrama Schapelle forward a day to Sunday could not shake Seven’s dominance of the night with the biopoic about INXS getting 1.974m viewers compared to Nine’s 1.022m.
Seven has promoted INXS: Never Tear Us Apart, a two part teleseries concluding next week, as the TV event of the year, scheduled to launch on the first official night of the ratings season last night.
It was announced on Friday the much-anticipated Schapelle, a telemovie made by Fremantle Media, would move to Sunday from Monday and run from 8.40pm to 10.40pm, following news she would be released from prison imminently. INXS ran from 8.35pm to 10.35pm.
Channel Nine acknowledged it was a disappointing result for Schapelle, with Nine sources telling Mumbrella CEO David Gyngell this morning quipped to executives in the wake of the ratings result: “If only Schapelle could sing”.
The show also lost out in Sydney and Adelaide to Ten’s coverage of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle final, where Australian hopeful Torah Bright could only manage seventh spot in the first of her three events, which averaged 996,000 from 8.15pm to 9.35pm, according to OzTam’s preliminary overnight metro ratings.
In Melbourne the shows had an equal number of viewers, however in Brisbane, Schapelle was more popular, while the snowboarding did not air on the primary Ten channel in Perth, giving it a zero rating in that city.
Meanwhile ABC1 launched the first episode of Rake series three which rated 645,000 at 8.30pm up against INXS, Schapelle and the Sochi Games.
Ten’s first outing of So You Think You Can Dance Australia, a revamped local version of the successful American dance competition show with judge Paula Abdul and host Carrie Bickmore, averaged just 466,000 at 6.30pm as Seven’s My Kitchen Rules dominated the timeslot with 1.64m metro viewers.
My Kitchen Rules was the second most popular entertainment show of the night, followed by The Block: Fans v Faves, on Channel Nine, which had 1.274m metro viewers from 6.30pm.
On Friday the final of the T20 Big Bash League won Ten 22.1 per cent of the audience, well ahead of Seven’s 18.3 per cent and Nine’s 15.4 per cent. An estimated 1.15m viewers watched the Perth Scorchers triumph over the Hobart Hurricanes, with 1.093m watched session two and 851,000 watched session one.
Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland, said moving the Big Bash League to free to air this year was an important part of their strategy of “putting fans first”. He said: “Ten’s coverage of the BBL has delivered in every way; it has turbo-charged interest in cricket among kids and families and played a significant part in what has been a magnificent summer of cricket.”
Hamish McLennan, CEO of Network Ten, said: “The first season of the KFC T20 Big Bash League on Ten has been an outstanding success. Our viewers and advertisers engaged with the competition from the very first game. The results in terms of ratings and feedback from our viewers have been better than we expected and everyone at Ten is already excited about the 2014-15 season.”
Ten’s preview of Sochi Live, ahead of the opening ceremony at 2.40am averaged 776,000 on Friday night and the Games continued to win viewers for Ten on Saturday with live coverage on Saturday evening averaging 697,000 for the network, ranking seventh in all programs, and 686,000 for Saturday’s evening session.
Network Ten’s digital channel One, also running coverage of the Games, won a 7.2 per cent share of the audience last night, just below the 8.5 per cent share secured by ABC1.
Seven’s INXS and My Kitchen Rules, bolstered by high ratings for Sunday Night and Seven News gave Seven the top four programs of the night and helped the network win a 33.1 per cent share of the audience. Nine had 21.7 per cent audience share on Sunday and Ten’s was 11.1 per cent.
Sunday’s top 15 shows:
- INXS: Never Tear Us Apart 1.974m
- Sunday Night Seven 1.793m
- My Kitchen Rules Seven 1.64m
- Seven News Seven 1.292m
- The Block: Fans v Faves Nine 1.274m
- Nine News Sunday Nine 1.223m
- Schapelle Nine 1.022,m
- Sochi Live Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final Ten 996,000
- 60 Minutes Nine 866,000
- ABC News ABC1 790,000
- David Attenborough’s Rise of Animals ABC1 752,000
- ABC News Update ABC1 707,000
- Rake ABC1 645,000
- Bali: The Dark Side of Paradise Nine 600,000
- Ten Eyewitness News Sunday Ten 587,000
Sunday’s share:
- Seven 33.1%
- Nine 21.7%
- Ten 11.1%
- ABC1 8.5%
- ONE 7.2%
- GO! 3.1%
- SBS ONE 2.7%
- 7TWO 2.5%
- Gem 2.2%
- ELEVEN 2.2%
- 7mate 2.0%
- ABC2 1.4%
- ABC News 24 1.4%
- ABC3 0.6%
- SBS 2 0.3%
- NITV 0.1%
Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2013. The Data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM.
INXS: Never Tear Us Apart was great, even though I didn’t watch Schapelle, you would be hard pressed to work out which show had more drugs.
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Is Schapelle a two-parter?
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I thought Rake might have done better, deserves to do better in my opinion..
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I enjoyed INXS, but will forever remember “How did you know I lived in Hong Kong and studied Mandarin?” as the clunkiest piece of exposition I’ve ever heard.
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Personally I wanted to watch INXS, Schapelle and Rake. Rake I can catch up on iView. But I chose to watch INXS as nine moved Schapelle to go head to head. It pissed me off. Nine had no regard for viewers. I think most people wanted to watch both. The lead up from 2013 from both shows were ridiculous, it felt both shows were advertised forever.
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Channel 10’s coverage of the Winter Olympics is woeful! I can barely watch it with all the ads and interviews with incoherent athletes and Ten’s soporific presenters. Plus, you never know what’s live and what is replayed or delayed – it makes me assume nothing is live. I tried to watch the coverage on Ten’s iPad app, thinking it would be the same as Foxtel’s London Olympics app, but it was actually just a glorified ad for multivitamins and other snake oil supplements. My plan now is to watch BBC’s coverage online using a IP spoofer. Bad luck Channel 10 – you’ve lost me!
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I know we all feel like programmers at times like this, but in my opinion that was the worst decision nine programmers could have made. INXS was always going to resonate better with audiences (P25-54) , we are talking about a feel good story about an Australian music icon versus a convicted drug dealer who says she is innocent (that’s what they all say). It was a huge risk to think that the Australian public would support schapelle over INXS. It was like putting your horse in a race with Black caviar and hoping for a place. Perhaps they were feeling the pressure from TEN ‘s Olympic coverage as well and needed to get some runs on the board. I bet Freemantle weren’t happy.
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Spot on @Kate total disregard for the viewing public. Given the scenes that are happening on the news this afternoon, nine would have been far better to have stuck to the plan to put the show on tonight. I wanted to watch both but INXS was a far better offering.
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Good.
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@Kate, when did consideration for the viewer ever come into Australian television programmers mindset? 😉 And agreed, the promotion of those two shows was relentless…
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Started out on INXS but it was pathetic – bad, bad everything – totally cringe worthy. Switched to Schapelle which I expected to be crook, to find some of the best performances I’ve seen in Australian drama – tv or film. Schappelle’s father (Colin Friels) was goose-bumpy.
INXS’s success just proved that sex still sells.
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@Man who knows these things – I agree, Ten never seem to show a schedule of events plus most of their ‘experts’ only seem to know Torah Bright and offer no analysis or insight into what’s going on. Working toilets or not, Sochi deserves better.
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INXS was interesting enough, but why bother with a biopic unless you’re going to keep it relatively close to the truth?
So many factual errors, mixed timelines etc…
It was the same with Howzat.
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Disappointed with INXS.
Tuned in hoping it was going to be so-bad-it’s-good.
But it wasn’t. It was just meh. Not good. Not bad. Meh.
“Home and Away” with boobs and F-bombs…
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Disregard for viewers? thats a bit harsh….Celebrity Splash was disregard for viewers, not last nights effort:)
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The best review I’ve seen was that ‘INXS: Never Tear Us Apart’ was ” … like Home and Away, but with better music”. Such a shame they tried to skim over the interesting character stuff and just go for a few headline moments without any depth, portraying Hutchence as vacuous and the rest of the band except for Andrew Farris as window dressing.
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Man who knows things – Once you watch the two ads that presumably make the ap free, the olympic coverage is actually really good. I was double screening while inxs was on and I had no dramas at all.
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While there is a population of 23 million people in Australia and the highest rating TV programs receive only 2 million viewers at best , it goes to show how people are turning off their TV’s and using the net.
Because they are turned off by the trash that out of touch TV executives are trying to inflict on Australia .
What TV networks think of as being entertainment and News , most people see as being inaccurate, uninspiring , repetitive trash .
Australian TV networks are responsible for the dumbing down of Australian society.
TV broadcasting networks are both out of touch and out of time with the Australian public.
When something like the Corby soap opera is flogged for how many years is it now ?
it shows that TV broadcasting networks have completely lost the plot.
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Are the winter Olympics on in Perth at all?.. The two or three minutes ive seen weere probably 15 hours out of date?
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The Australian public got it right
2.8 million regional and city viewers versus 1.3 million.
The INXS show had great talent, music, backstory, the Kylie connection and the stor of their rise to worldwide fame.
It was obvious to me what would work last night.
Not Shapelle Corby and her family and friends.
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The Australian public got it right
2.8 million regional and city viewers versus 1.3 million.
The INXS show had great talent, music, backstory, the Kylie connection and the story of their rise to worldwide fame.
It was obvious to me what would work last night.
Not Shapelle Corby and her family and friends.
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Zara: I find your logic a bit flawed considering that Schapelle, INXS, Rake and the Olympics meant that roughly 7 million were watching Television in metro areas alone.
Add that to FOXTEL and other stations and you have almost half the country watching TV, not including regional areas.
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Great work Seven!!!programming genius at its best. Promos made u want to watch. I watched Schapelle but I am glad seven thumped the ratings. Expect bigger ratings next week MKR ,Sunday night, INXS. Why switch?
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Can we just have a discussion about the quality of the TV show on offer…it was crap!!
2.8 Million might have watched it….but what did they watch? Crap. The thing is everybody in TV land is living in this back slapping bubble, you’re producing substandard work dressing it up as genius and the backslapping yourselves becuase it rates 2 Million. Its the equivalent of everybody sitting down to eat a big mac..was it a great meal…nope…it was crap. We’ve lost site of what quality is…hello internet goodbye broadcast TV
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Ten should be worried about So You Think You Can Dance. I caught it tonight with my kids on tenplay, and think it is a mistake to can the auditions that always kick off the show but gets you in as you see those auditions that show a great dancing talent. Going straight for the group choreographed pieces took away all the drama. Ten still seems to be getting the basics of making an engaging program very, very wrong.
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Macgmuffin – what a snob. It was bloody great television. Go and watch they arts channel.
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I’d like to believe that the great Australian public are not as interested in Schapelle Corby as TV executives are. It’s the same with Pauline Hanson. Having said that, Sunday’s exclusive interview with the real Corby will probably rate well because it will attract the people who dislike her/ think she’s guilty as well as the ones who like her/ think she’s innocent.
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Two lessons to learn that Nine forgot
1. Promote, promote, promote – and include the date and time
2. Then don’t fuck with the audience or they will fuck with you.
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Dearie, dearie, dearie me Zara.
1. Remember that there are also regional TV viewers (I know – we need National TV ratings).
2. Please name me ONE programme, event, site … whatever … that can draw an audience that averages 2 million (well 2.8 million nationally) every minute for a couple of hours in Australia, or one that ever has.
3. You wouldn’t work in digital publishing by any chance would you?
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Andrew in answer to yr question ” is Schapelle a two parter- yes it is. They showed it last night as well. That is a joke by the way. No responses please!
It will be interesting to see the ratings today for the repeat
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Epic Fail for Nine
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Shows you that the public is definitely over this dragged out story…whatever happened to Mad Ron?
It shows that people enjoy music, music history and INXS was a band of definate note and reputation…rock on!
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Macgmuffin- those shows you regard as crap acutally win Logies. Watch a nomination come up for the roles in Schapelle.
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@Noelene – winning Logies is not necessarily a marker for quality. It just means something has been voted as “most popular” in what is a closed voting system, with plenty of bias.
@Macguffin makes a relevant point, in that we’re very good at congratulating ourselves on producing some fairly average fare.
Meanwhile, within seconds I can access much higher quality television and cinema for minimal to no cost online. These range from high end, multi-million dollar studio productions to low cost efforts with a genuine tale to tell – whether by students, amateurs or professionals trying new things.
I’m not suggesting that the internet will “kill” television but, as competition for quality, Australian television isn’t putting up much of a fight.
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well said on all points Andrew, lets face it, Hollywood is crap, give me Aussie or UK produced comedy or drama anyday. Noelene, dont buy the hype, remember Savage Garden winning Arias?
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Mediaman and Andrew – saying Hollywood is crap and yet knocking australian drama is contradictory statements . Andrew my comment abt the show being nominated for logies was tongue in cheek. I am saying we think the Corby movie was bad but it will actually get nom.
What abt chopper he actually killed pple and yet got so much publicity even in death.
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How about the advertiser? How many viewers flicked to the INXS / Shapelle when the ads came on?
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Hi @Georgie/Noelene – I’m sorry I didn’t read your Logies comment as tongue-in-cheek, and I’m not sure what to make of your reference to Chopper ..? Are you suggesting that there’s a moral imperative which ought to exclude a story about someone like Chopper from popular contention? If that’s so, in a discussion about “quality” of production with a compelling tale well told, surely that kind of moral subjectivity should be pushed aside?
I disagree with @mediaman’s blanket comment that “Hollywood is crap”, albeit that I know I’m not alone in thinking that quite a lot (not all) of the mainstream Hollywood product which rakes in the millions is poor quality.
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Why is Tens olympic coverage so poor ? Every time I turn over there’s a couple of peanuts droning on about some “Aussie” with no chance of winning. Even in peak viewing time. Surely they could jam in the events at least for peak viewing time. Why bother with the Australians, there’s harldy any there anyway.
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Don’t worry about Shappell or INXS, as subject, just mention any program, and you get a long and in depth commentary on the state of Australian Television.
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