National Ratings

1Sep09

Week ending August 29
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

These were the prime time audience shares at the end of a week without Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation: SBS2 0.4 per cent; ONE 1.1; ABC2 1.4; GO 1.7; SBS 5.6 per cent; ABC 16.7; Ten 20.6; Nine 25.1; Seven 27.4.

Note that those percentages represent a share of free to air prime time viewing. If you include subscription TV, you get a different picture. This was Pay’s account of itself: “In week 35, subscription TV was the number one source of television across Australia. STV channels represented 22.3% of all metropolitan viewing between 6am and midnight, 21.7% of all regional viewing and 57.5% of all viewing in subscription TV homes.

“As the football home-and-away schedules draw to a close, 282,000 people watched Live: NRL Titans v Wests Tigers and 232,000 saw Live: AFL Fremantle v Essendon; 105,000 people viewed Live: Cricket: Ashes: Day 4 Session 1 and 92,000 people saw Australia battle South Africa in Live: Rugby Union: Tri Nations (all on FOX Sports).

“In entertainment programming this week, NCIS on TV1 was seen by 131,000 people and Movie One’s premiere of Indiana Jones: Kingdom of Crystal Skull was watched by 127,000 viewers. America’s Next Top Model on FOX8 was seen by 116,000 people, Project Runway Australia had a season-to-date high with 108,000 viewers and iCarly on Nickelodeon also had a year-to-date best audience with 94,000 viewers. Destroyed in Seconds on Discovery Channel was seen by 84,000 people and the Michael Kanaan expose in Crime Investigation Australia on Crime & Investigation was watched by 83,000 people.”

And if you thought Australian Idol was a flop this year, examine this chart, which suggests that it is working well with its target audience …

What viewers aged 16-39 watched:

1 PACKED TO THE RAFTERS Seven 546,000

2 GOOD NEWS WEEK Ten 464,000

3 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – SEMI FINAL 1 Ten 447,000

4 ROVE Ten 444,000

5 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – TOP 100 Ten 444,000

6 RUSH Ten 432,000

7 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC1 432,000

8 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – SEMI FINAL 4 Ten 420,000

9 TWO AND A HALF MEN -WED Nine 406,000

10 THE FARMER WANTS A WIFE Nine 403,000

11 HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX Nine 395,000

12 TWO AND A HALF MEN Nine 390,000

13 20 TO 1 -RPT Nine 389,000

14 AIR WAYS Seven 388,000

15 AUSTRALIAN IDOL – SEMI FINAL 2 Ten 382,000

Popularity: 5%