The Newcastle Ratings, week ending April 25

Back to rating. Our local stations broke for the Easter holidays and now we are back in business. NBN is still embarrassingly smashing its competition, are you surprised?
It seems over our Easter break we got so used to re-runs, that we started switching over to more of what is going on in the world and more importantly, our town. Beating Underbelly for the first time since it started airing all those weeks ago, is the local NBN Sunday News. In fact, if it wasn’t for Primes ‘Australia’s Got Talent’ and ABC’s new program ‘The Gruen Transfer’, NBN filled every other top ten position on the most watched programs for last week. Check out the latest figures to compare who have gone up since last year or last week and who have gone down:

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A new campaign kicked off last night promoting Freeview, the new digital offerings by Australia’s free-to-air television networks. This is the second campaign in less than 6 months, coming on the heals of the much talked about November launch which promised a whole new world of options and entertainment from January 2009.

I was convinced and couldn’t wait to see what was going to be broadcast. I even installed a new set-top box in anticipation.

So how disappointed do you think I was, and thousands of other viewers, when January came and went with no new Freeview channels launching? In fact there wasn’t a commercial offering until March when the TEN Network finally unveiled ONE, their new dedicated sports channel. In the meantime, the best Freeview viewing came from an online parody of the Freeview promotional campaign, which proved to be much closer to the truth than what the campaign promised.

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Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

You can always rely on old Bill. When your audience is sinking, bring out Mr Connolly and he’ll put you back on top. Channel Seven, lacking Packed To The Rafters and with Ten eating away at its audience, was neck and neck with Nine for most of the week. But after Saturday, it ended with 28.0 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 26.1 per cent, Ten got 22.8, the ABC got 17.4, and SBS got 5.7.

Ten has a shot at the top this week, with the finals of the dancing and the losing. But Seven launches Thank God You’re Here on Wednesday.

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Newcastle and the Hunter Valley will be promoted to the nation as an ideal place to do business following the launch of the Hunter Advantage initiative last week. Here is how The Herald newspaper announced the initiative:

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This has nothing to do with media except to demonstrate how well the internet can be used to spread a message. Plus I just like this clip from Stephen Niebauer which I came across on the Only Dead Fish blog.

Watch it, tell your friends, enjoy:

Life is Beautiful from Stephen Niebauer on Vimeo.

Its been almost 6 months since the last Newcastle radio survey results were published and a lot has happened in that time. Here are some of the changes that have taken place:

• Richard King was removed from the 2HD Drive show and replaced by an extended Talkin’ Sport relay.

• Mike Rabbitt left 2HD Saturday morning show.

• Pete Davis announced he was leaving the 2HD afternoon show.

• NEWFM juggled their line-up and continued to tweak their sound.

• Don Mayo left NEWFM Breakfast.

• Rob Duckworth joined NEWFM Drive shift.

All in all its been a tumultuous period for the twin broadcasters at Sandgate and Survey 1 was going to be crucial in cementing the changes that have been made. It was also the first full Survey for NEWFM under the Guy Ashford and Steve St John leadership.

So what did the Newcastle radio listening market think? Here are the results:

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Last week Aston Kutcher helped boost his Twitter follower count with 1133 billboards around the US. While most of us will never be able to garner that sort of promotional support, one enterprising Australian company has cropped up with a novel promotional idea.

Sticky Twits is the brainchild of Sydney-based Doug Garske. He says

Sticky Twits was born out of a few Twitter nuts who wanted to post their Twitter URL offline as well as online. So a designer, a signage guy (with a really cool hi res digital printer) and a marketing guru made some stickers with their Twitter URLs and stuck them on their cars, computers, office windows, wives, children, and thought, why keep all this sticker fun to ourselves.

My mail today contained a package from Sticky Twits with sheets of MediaHunter Twitter stickers (try saying that three times quickly).

Sticky Twits - mediahunter

So, why not support a local entrepreneur and wear your Twitter handle proudly. Stick one on your car, stick one on your laptop, stick one on a billboard (maybe not).

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

You can tell it’s a non-ratings period when the most watched show of the week is the news, when six of the week’s top 20 are repeats, and when the ABC’s best performer is a repeat of a whodunit first shown on Channel Nine in 1999.

Seven’s collection of repeats earned it 26.7 per cent of the prime time audience, Nine managed 24.2 per cent, Ten 23.5, the ABC 19.4 (a big boost, due largely to Midsomer, Gruen, Specks and Poirot) and SBS 6.1 (thanks mainly to Top Gear, Trawlermen and Mad Men). Can any reader explain why Trawlermen would pull 442,000 to SBS?

The Easter silly season is over now, and normal competition recommences tonight.

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The Twitterverse, and mainstream media, have been in a frenzy this week with the Ashton Kutcher / CNN race to one million followers. It culminated with one of the biggest names in showbiz, Oprah Winfrey, publicly joining Twitter and making her first Tweet on Friday’s program.

While the general public became enthralled by the whole proceedings, the original Twitter community debated the virtues of celebrity Tweeters and the false victory of huge follower numbers.

Now, as the dust settles, the conspiracy theories are beginning to emerge.

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In the spirit of Sydney’s now famous Friday morning Single Origin tweet-ups, a group of intrepid social media fans have begun a similar weekly gathering here in Newcastle. Its called Newcastle Coffee Morning and has been on for the last month. I made my first appearance this morning and took along the new FLIP video camera to help introduce you to the rest of the crew.

Newcastle Coffee Morning from Sticky Advertising on Vimeo.

Come join in the fun every Friday at Baristaba Cafe at The Boardwalk, Honeysuckle.