Source: SMH

Channel Seven really needs Kath and Kim to work for it on Sunday nights, because it is suffering serious slippage in audience.

Last week’s season final of Grey’s Anatomy should have done a lot better than 1.3 million (last year it got 1.8 million) and the new American legal series Shark should not be getting beaten on Mondays by Andrew Denton, 940,000 to 708,000.

As Seven sinks, Nine slowly rises, particularly with Sydney viewers. An ancient episode of Backyard Blitz, starring Seven’s new poster boy Jamie Durie, jumped into the top ten last week, suggesting that not every geriatric turns to the ABC on Sunday, while Sea Patrol defied the critics’ predictions and retained its 1.6 million on Thursday.

Seven averaged 27.8 per cent of the prime time audience for the week, with Nine on 27.1, Ten on 23.3, ABC on 16.6 and SBS on 5.2.

There’s no chance of Nine winning the year, but the race is going to be a lot closer than it looked in the first half.

What Australia watched, week ending August 18

1 THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE Ten 1,785,000
2 MEDICAL EMERGENCY Seven 1,734,000
3 RSPCA ANIMAL RESCUE Seven 1,731,000
4 HOUSE Ten 1,646,000
5 BORDER SECURITY Seven 1,616,000
6 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,608,000
7 SEA PATROL Nine 1,586,000
8 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – AUDITION 3 Ten 1,584,000
9 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,561,000
10 BACKYARD BLITZ Nine 1,498,000
11 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – AUDITION 4 Ten 1,474,000
12 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,470,000
13 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,461,000
14 MIDSOMER MURDERS ABC 1,435,000
15 GETAWAY Nine 1,383,000

Popularity: 1%

Media Hunter’s coverage of the region’s media news has been making a bit of a splash in the online world this year.

Advertising Age in America has begun publishing a worldwide ranking of the top marketing and advertising blogs called The Power 150.

I am proud to say that Media Hunter is currently ranked 285  in the world and 3rd in Australia. Not bad for a fairly narrowly focussed blog.

Thanks to all Media Hunter’s readers. If you would like to link Media Hunter to your site it will assist in improving on the current ranking.

Popularity: 1%

Source: Nick Tabakoff, The Australian (16 Aug 2007)

CHANNEL Nine’s regional affiliate WIN Television will today take the extraordinary step of dumping three key Nine Network programs, including Mornings with Kerri-Anne, as the programming war between the groups further escalates.

Apart from Mornings, which runs for two hours from 9am, Media understands the national Nine morning News (11am-11.30am) and cooking show Fresh (11.30am-12pm) will also be removed from WIN’s regional schedule from this morning.

They will be replaced by several programs with which WIN has its own arrangements, including the WIN-produced chat show, Susie.

In recent days, WIN has also quietly moved to replace Antiques Roadshow – running on Nine nationally at 5.30pm – with repeats of The Brady Bunch.

The move is a fresh twist in protracted and often heated negotiations as WIN tries to renew its program supply agreement with Nine, under way since early this year.

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Popularity: 1%

Source: Lara Sinclair, The Australian

THE newspaper industry is set to become its own best advocate with the launch of a $10million press campaign.

Aimed at persuading marketers to spend an extra $100million a year on newspaper advertising, the five-month advertising push, which launches on Saturday, aims to promote the ability of the medium to tell a story and engage its readers.

It is likely to be the biggest press campaign in the market in the half-year to December, and will run in every national, metropolitan and regional daily paper owned by the members of marketing body, The Newspaper Works.

Chief executive Tony Hale said the year-old marketing body had conducted research that found media buyers had pigeonholed newspapers as suitable for retail and information-heavy advertising, but not for brand advertising and repositioning campaigns.

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Popularity: 1%

Most watched programs:
1  Prime News Monday to Friday  PRIME  75000

2 60 Minutes NBN 65000

3 RSPCA Animal Rescue PRIME 62000

4 Seven News Monday to Friday PRIME 62000

5 McLeods Daughters NBN 55000

6 Cold Case NBN 51000

7 M – Hostage NBN 47000
8 Medical Emergency PRIME 47000

9 Seven News Saturday PRIME 46000

10 Without A Trace NBN 46000

Station ratings:
                Week 32
2007    Week 32
2006     Prog
2007     Prog
2006

NBN             31.4                 33.8                     29.7             29.2

PRIME         31.9                 30.5                     23.9             24.3

TEN             19.6                 19.9                     25.2             27.0

ABC             12.8                 12.5                     11.6             10.7

SBS             4.4                    3.2                      9.6                8.8

Popularity: 1%

Most watched programs:
1  NBN Evening News Sunday  NBN  126000

2 Spicks & Specks ABC 99000

3 Midsomer Murder ABC 93000

4 Sea Patrol NBN 91000

5 Thank God You’re Here 3 TEN 87000

6 A Current Affair NBN 87000

7 NBN Evening News Saturday NBN 86000

8 RSPCA Animal Rescue PRIME 85000

9 NCIS TEN 85000

10 Friday Night Football NBN 85000

Station ratings:
                    Week 32
2007     Week 32
2006     Prog
2007     Prog
2006
NBN                 32.0                     38.0                 35.0             36.9
PRIME             23.9                     22.1                 25.0             22.5
TEN                 19.3                     17.9                 17.8             19.4
ABC                18.6                     16.3                 16.3             15.7
SBS                 6.3                      5.7                   5.9                5.5

Popularity: 1%

Source: SMH Online

Channel Ten has rebounded from the humiliation that was Big Brother and is tearing younger viewers away from Channel Seven with Australian Idol, Thank God You’re Here and House.

The ABC is tearing older viewers away from both Seven and Nine with Midsomer Murders, and The Worst Jobs in History.

The result of this healthy competition was the closest-run week of the year, barely won by Seven with 27.6 per cent of the prime time audience, to Nine’s 27.0, Ten’s 23.1, ABC’s 17.3 and SBS’s 5.0.

What Australia watched, week ending August 11

1 THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE Ten 1,876,000
2 BORDER SECURITY Seven 1,828,000
3 RSPCA ANIMAL RESCUE Seven 1,684,000
4 MEDICAL EMERGENCY Seven 1,664,000
5 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – AUDITION 1 Ten 1,649,000
6 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,601,000
7 SEA PATROL Nine 1,581,000
8 HOUSE Ten 1,578,000
9 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,520,000
10 SURF PATROL Seven 1,462,000
11 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – AUDITION 2 Ten 1,455,000
12 GETAWAY Nine 1,452,000
13 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,444,000
14 ALL SAINTS Seven 1,426,000
15 MIDSOMER MURDERS ABC 1,423,000

Popularity: 1%

Source: Commercial Radio Australia

Commercial radio advertising revenue has grown to $53.1 million in the month of July 2007, a rise of 14.6 per cent since July last year.

Perth and Sydney had substantial growth, rising 24.8 per cent and 12.1 per cent respectively.

Commercial Radio Australia CEO Joan Warner said that the capital city markets all performed strongly.

    “This is a very strong start to the financial year and demonstrates that commercial radio remains a powerful force and continues to adapt successfully to a dynamic media environment.”

Investment in online and digital radio – the latter is set to be released in January 2009 – should also pay dividends, according to Warner.

“Radio and the internet are both instant, conversational media that appeal to the connected generation, so there are clear benefits in using radio and online advertising in combination.

“The launch of digital radio in a little over a year’s time will also give radio a new lease of life.”

Popularity: 5%

Source: The Spy Report

Australian viewers will be able to see top programs from the United States including House, Heroes and the controversial new series Californication within days of their American airings from next month.

Changing media use and Internet downloads have forced the hand of Australian free-to-air networks to hold off airing new episodes for five months as per normal at this time of year.

While new TV series air from September in the States, they are delayed in Australia until February when the next ratings season begins. But due to a huge jump in Internet downloads and general web chatter about programs, most of which have weekly cliff-hangers, have forced Australian networks to change their tactics.

While it means local fans will see the latest episodes within days or weeks of US viewers, the move also carries risks for Australian networks.

The Nine and Ten networks have tried the idea, with Jericho, The OC and Survivor airing in line with the States, but Seven will up the ante and will screen off-the-satellite episodes of Heroes and Prison Break from next month. Both started out as monster hits in February with more than 2 million viewers months after airing in the US – but shed half their audiences as audiences saught to find out what was in store on the Internet.

Figures reveal both were the most downloaded shows in Australia this year, and Seven is experimenting by airing them so quickly.

Ten has gone further and will air Life, about a policeman wrongly sentenced for a crime he didn’t commit, and Californication, starring David Duchovny as a sex-addicted novelist and contains extreme language, nudity and attitude, from late next month.

But the risk is both of Ten’s shows have not yet been aired in the US and could be axed within weeks of what is the US’s new season. Ten will also broadcast fresh episodes of sure fire hit House to boost its end of year ratings.

Both networks series will break during summer non-ratings period and return in February. But the downside is that both will have first-half year holes in their schedules next year when the series would otherwise air.

“There are certain shows which have such a global buzz that audiences are connected to and we have to dip our toe in the water this way to see what happens,” a Seven spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.

Popularity: 1%

Source: Glenda Korporaal, The Australian

THE 2008 Olympics in Beijing will be the first true internet Games, with the International Olympic Committee keen to exploit the advantages and reach of the new media, according to Australia’s senior IOC member Kevan Gosper.

In an interview with Media this week, Mr Gosper, who is head of the IOC Press Commission, said it was the big media groups covering the Olympics – including news agencies, newspapers and television broadcasters – that were keen to push the envelope on the use of the internet to cover the Games.

And the IOC was also keen to use the internet to promote the Games to a younger audience.

Mr Gosper said the IOC Press Commission had initially been concerned about protecting the rights of the officially accredited Olympic media when looking at issues such as whether athletes should be allow to write blogs during the Games.

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Popularity: 4%