News dominates Friday night TV, handing Seven another win
News and current affairs programs once again topped the ratings ladder on Friday night, with no shows surpassing the 1m metro viewers mark, according to OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings.
Seven News regularly wins the Friday night ratings battle
Seven News was the most-watched program for the night, drawing in 849,000 viewers across the five capital cities, while Better Homes & Gardens on the same channel was the most-watched entertainment show, with 616,000.
Nine News had 747,000 viewers, slightly ahead of ABC’s news offering which pulled 647,000. Ten’s news, which screens earlier at 5pm, had 435,000 metro viewers.
Other notable performers last night included the ABC’s British crime drama DCI Banks which had 543,000 metro viewers. Endeavour – another British crime drama – also screened on the ABC and drew in 534,000.
Ten’s most-watched program for the night was The Living Room. The lifestyle show’s final episode for 2017 saw 460,000 tune in, and was also co-host Barry Du Bois’ last episode before he ramps up treatment for multiple myeloma.
Once regional numbers were added to the mix – including viewers on affiliate broadcast partners – Seven News’ audience climbed to 1.299m. Better Homes & Gardens fell just shy of 1m viewers, with 995,000, and Ten’s The Living Room climbed to 654,000.
Overall, Seven won the night with a 21.0% metro audience share, ahead of Nine’s 17.1%. Ten had 13.2% – only just ahead of the ABC’s 13.1%. SBS had 5.4% of the audience for the night.
Seven extended its lead once the networks’ multi-channel offerings were accounted for. Seven Network (including the likes of 7mate and 7Flix) had a 30.4% share. Nine Network (including 9Gem and 9Go) had 17.1%. Ten Network slipped behind the ABC – 18.5% compared to 19.0%. SBS climbed to 7.5%.
