The ratings race: Can the singers uphold the dancers’ honour?

Australian televiewers love a grand finale and last week they revelled in two of them — a Sunday freak show called Australia’s Got Talent and a Tuesday schmoozefest called Dancing With The Stars.
They were the reason Channel Seven won yet another week in the ratings
race, averaging 29.2 per cent of the prime time audience, and the
reason Seven will be worrying about retaining its lead this week.

Channel Nine won Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, and ended
up averaging 27.2 per cent for the week, a figure which is bound to
rise once Seven loses its grip on Tuesday nights. Dancing will be replaced by It Takes Two, which averaged only 1.5 million viewers last year.

Ten should have done better than 22.1 per cent, but Big Brother‘s brigade of blondes just isn’t firing this year, and on Wednesdays House is regularly blown down by Spicks and Specks and The Chaser’s War on Everything, which both attract more than 1.3 million viewers in the mainland capitals.

That’s why the ABC managed a healthy 15.6 share for the week. That left SBS with 5.6 per cent, largely due to Mythbusters (657,000) and an Inspector Rex repeat (433,000).

What Australia watched, week ending May 5, 2007

1 DANCING WITH THE STARS – GRAND FINAL Seven 2,199,000
2 60 MINUTES Nine 1,679,000
3 CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION Nine 1,643,000
4 AUSTRALIA’S GOT TALENT Seven 1,639,000
5 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,633,000
6 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,586,000

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