National TV ratings – Easter edition

14Apr09

Source: David Dale from Sun Herald blogs

Channels Seven and Nine ended last week neck and neck, each with a modest 26.1 per cent of the prime time audience, while Ten got a healthy (for it) 23.8, ABC a mighty (for it) 18.5 and SBS a standard 5.5. You could say that was the big networks’ punishment for lapsing into repeats over Easter, but they’d say they don’t care, since “officially” it’s not a ratings period.

The big winner in times like this is Pay TV. Here is Pay’s account of itself: “Subscription TV was the number one source of television around Australia for week 15, 2009. STV channels accounted for 24.8% of all metropolitan viewing between 6am and midnight (up from 22.9% last week), was 22.8% of all regional viewing (up from 21.2%) and 62.0% of all viewing in subscription TV homes, up from 58.8% last week.

In entertainment programming, The Simpsons on FOX8 was watched by 142,000 people on Sunday night while Wednesday’s night Selling Houses Australia on Lifestyle had its biggest of the year with 120,000 viewers. Law & Order on W also had its largest audience of the year with 119,000 people on Monday night while NCIS on TV1 had 112,000 viewers on Sunday night. Gilmore Girls achieved its best result of 2009 on Arena on Friday afternoon with 93,000 people and Discovery Channel’s Destroyed in Seconds on Thursday was watched by 75,000 viewers.

“In sports programming, Live: NRL Raiders v Cowboys was seen by 297,000 people, Live: AFL Essendon v Fremantle was seen by 228,000 viewers and the one day cricket international between Australia and South Africa, Live: Cricket: ODI RSA v Aus Game 2, was watched by 148,000 (all on FOX Sports). Live: AFL: On The Couch on Monday night had its best audience of the year so far with 140,000 viewers.”

What Australia watched, week ending April 11
1 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,586,000
2 NCIS RPT Ten 1,553,000
3 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,529,000
4 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,502,000
5 60 MINUTES Nine 1,495,000
6 BONDI RESCUE Ten 1,489,000
7 NCIS EP 2 RPT Ten 1,414,000
8 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,385,000
9 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) – THE WEIGH-IN Ten 1,319,000
10 WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU Nine 1,304,000
11 SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE AUSTRALIA Ten 1,271,000
12 SEVEN NEWS – SAT Seven 1,270,000
13 CUSTOMS Nine 1,243,000
14 RPA Nine 1,240,000
15 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC1 1,219,000

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