Nine Finally Wins a Week

28May07

Channel Nine has won its first ratings week of the year, thanks to rugby league. To put it another way, Channel Seven has lost its first ratings week of the year, thanks to rugby union.

As of last Wednesday morming, Seven was ahead of Nine in prime time audience share, but the huge numbers watching the State of Origin match in Sydney and Brisbane pushed Nine to the front by Thursday morning. Seven was able to claw back viewers on Thursday and Friday nights, so that on Saturday morning the stations were neck and neck, each averaging 28.6 per cent for the week.

Everything depended on how viewers in Sydney and Brisbane responded to Seven’s coverage of the rugby union match between Australia and Wales on Saturday night.

Well, 252,000 watched it in Sydney and 144,000 watched it in Brisbane (compared with 856,000 and 734,000 who watched the league on Wednesday). Union may be the game they play in heaven, but it’s not the game they watch in Australia.

The prime time audience shares for the week ended up thus: Nine 28.3 per cent, Seven 28.2, Ten 21.2, ABC 16.4, and SBS 5.9. Seven will be scrambling to shore up its end of week programming before the next State of Origin — and it may decide to leave future rugby union to Pay TV.

What Australian watched, week ending May 26

1 STATE OF ORIGIN RUGBY LEAGUE 1ST – MATCH Nine 2,020,000
2 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,673,000
3 60 MINUTES Nine 1,668,000
4 WHERE ARE THEY NOW Seven 1,531,000
5 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,503,000
6 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,444,000
7 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,438,000
8 STATE OF ORIGIN PRE MATCH Nine 1,434,000
9 GREY’S ANATOMY Seven 1,417,000
10 IT TAKES TWO Seven 1,414,000
11 NCIS Ten 1,403,000
12 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,401,000
13 RPA WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Nine 1,374,000
14 MY NAME IS EARL Seven 1,306,000
15 CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION -RPT Nine 1,302,000

Source: SMH

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