ABC soars as TEN tanks

5Oct08

National TV ratings. Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

It was a humiliating week for Channels Nine and Ten. The only programs Nine could get into the top ten were two episodes of the American sitcom Two and a Half Men, while Ten discovered that it had become the fourth most watched network, dropping behind the ABC.

With Nine now showing five and a half hours of Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen has become the Gordon Ramsay of the second half-year. Nine’s hot new cop show, The Strip, has lost 400,000 viewers since its debut, and is seriously at risk of getting dumped to 10.30pm so that Charlie can move into its Thursday slot.

Ten must have agreed with this column’s assessment last week that Kenny’s World was having a trickle down effect on the new season of House, because Kenny is moving to Tuesdays. Ten is also dumping Bondi Rescue: Bali and leading into House with a new Jamie Oliver series. Last week Kenny, which started with a million viewers, drew only 664,000, while House (on 1.3 million six months ago) drew 802,000. Ten’s most watched show was NCIS, with 1.3 million.

The ABC soared with Doctor Who, Midsomer Murders and Spicks and Specks, all on 1.2m. The Australian version of Top Gear was a winner for SBS with 940,000 — much the same as the audience for the British edition. With no NRL or AFL to tempt subscribers, Pay TV was grateful for the availability of Futurama (181,000 for Fox 8), The Simpsons (178,000 for Fox 8), The Man With The Golden Gun (176,000 for Fox Classics) and Kyle XY (159,000 for Fox 8).

Channel Seven grabbed 29.9 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 26.1, the ABC got 19.4, Ten got 19.1 and SBS got 5.5. Ten’s share is down 3.3 per cent on last year, while the ABC’s is up 6.8 per cent.

What Australia watched, week ending October 4
1 PACKED TO THE RAFTERS Seven 1,825,000
2 FIND MY FAMILY Seven 1,715,000
3 CITY HOMICIDE Seven 1,666,000
4 TWO AND A HALF MEN -WED EP2 Nine 1,657,000
5 THE FORCE Seven 1,639,000
6 RSPCA ANIMAL RESCUE Seven 1,618,000
7 TWO AND A HALF MEN -WED Nine 1,513,000
8 BORDER SECURITY Seven 1,481,000
9 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,472,000
10 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,448,000
11 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,373,000
12 MEDICAL EMERGENCY Seven 1,338,000
13 60 MINUTES Nine 1,335,000
14 NCIS Ten 1,325,000
15 CRIMINAL MINDS Seven 1,312,000

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