Less than 200,000 see Webber’s historic moment live while Rove commits ratingcide
An average of just 187,000 TV viewers in Australia watched live last night as Mark Webber clinched his maiden Formula One victory and Australia’s first in 28 years.
The low OzTam figures came because Ten – which holds the rights – was showing the US edition of The Biggest Loser, so live coverage was relegated to its digital sports channel One.
Instead, it was the early hours before Ten showed the Aussie winning the German grand prix on delay, including his classic yell of “You fucking beauty!” from the cockpit after winning.
Ironically, The Biggest Loser rated just 436,000, so Ten might well have pulled in a bigger audience with the race.
Meanwhile, earlier in the evening, Ten travelled well with Masterchef pulling in an average of 2m viewers, which sets it up nicely for its final week. Along with Merlin’s 1.3m audience, it was enough to take the network to a victory for Sunday with a share of 25%, just ahead of Seven’s 23.7% and Nine’s 23.1%. The ABC was on 15.7% and SBS on 12.4%.
However, despite inheriting Masterchef’s audience, Rove’s indulgent farewell to Carrie Bickmore and Dave Hughes – who launch The 7pm Project next week – was ratings Kryptonite, with a fall from 2m to just over 1m.
Over on Seven the second outing of Dancing With The Stars slipped somewhat, down from around 1.6m to just under 1.4m.
- Masterchef – Ten 2m
- Seven News – Seven 1.7m
- Nine News – Nine 1.6m
- Dancing with the Stars – Seven 1.4m
- Merlin – Ten 1.3m
- Random Acts of Kindness – Nine 1.2m
- Bones – Seven 1.1m
- Rove – Ten 1m
- 60 Minutes – Nine 1m
- The Pursuit of Happyness – Nine 1m
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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It was a pretty sad state of affairs but with the competition of the Ashes and Le Tour de France the late night sporting tv audience is going to be spread pretty thin anyway.
We don’t get the Ten One channel here so thanks to twitter i knew straight away anyway!
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It’s always been tough for us F1 fans; in terms of love from television networks we’re about as popular as a lump on the groin.
Still, Mark’s triumph last night made up for the past eight years I’ve spent on the couch to three in the morning watching the bloke come 18th race after race.
For a network that calls itself the home of motorsport Channel 10 doesn’t treat its ‘jewel in the crown’ with the respect it perhaps deserves.
Go Webber. Now if we could just get those Eels across the line too.
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but isn’t it more than just numbers? Isn’t it the type of people watching? isn’t 100,000 highly defined passionate car lovers a better scenario for an advertiser than 1million eyeballs that are random and like knitting, soccer, have pimples, etc etc? If i was advertising car stuff… wouldnt i put my ads there
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If my observations on facebook and twitter were right, Rove suffered a punishment for running what amounted to an advertisement for the Labor party having Kevin Rudd on the show and giving free shots at the liberal party. Whatever your political inclination, it was hard to watch TV unless u are a Kevin 07 tshirt wearer.
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Agree 100% with Doug.
But have to disagree with Great Strategy.
For many years when Liberal were in power – I can remember Rove asking John Howard to come on the show over and over and over and over and over again! And he never did. Fair go mate!
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Doug – good point. Targeted eyeballs are worth their weight in gold. Avid motorsport fans would have been watching the F1 – what a great target market for advertisers.
As for Rove; I can understand if the ratings are diminishing and I would not blame that on Kev. Rove is simply awful and I feel that people are realising this. He is not funny, not original and might as well interview walls as opposed to people; he has no leading questioning skills. The bloke should not be where he is (how has he gained the platform that he has?) his audience is slowly trickling away.
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Adam is 100% correct. Rove’s problem is Rove. Can’t bat, can’t bowl. He’s Daryl Somers Light and they don’t come much lighter than that.
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The issue isn’t whether Howard went on Rove or not. The issue is that when Rudd and Rove get together it’s like watching and listening to two 12 y.o girls talking about the Jonas Bros. Rove cant believe how important he looks and Rudd cant believe how Rove is incapable of asking him one serious question. It’s beyond embarrassing.
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I can’t make head or tail out of the way Ch10 handles Ch1. Running sport on their sport channel should not feel like ‘relegation’ but they manage it.
Still, what the hell – who cares how it happened, I still got to watch Webber’s “you fucken beauty” moment, after all those years waiting to see him win… 🙂
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