Ten’s souffle sinks, while Nine gets food poisoning

27Jul09

National Ratings, week ending July 25
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Thursdays and Fridays are always slow nights, so the sudden slump of The 7pm Project (down from 1.28 million on Monday to 656,000 on Friday) should induce only moderate panic at Channel Ten. It’s still doing well with the 16-39s (who go out on Fridays). But if 7pm fails to recover this Monday and Tuesday, Ten will hear Yasmin calling, and the axeman will arrive with his friends The Simpsons. (Unless Ten puts Australian Idol on every weeknight at 7 — could anybody stand that much Sandilands?)

Seven will be delighted with the 1.5 million result for Airways and World’s Strictest Parents but nervous about its new Thursday comedies. Double Take and the marginally less embarrassing TV Burp got a million viewers each. That’s nowhere near the Yasmintude of The Perfect Couple or True Beauty, but Seven will be sweating on its OzTAM data next Friday.

Nine started the week with an act of sheer stupidity – putting its $200,000 backpacker up against the final of MasterChef — and continued at this level with a launch followed by an axing of Dance Your Ass Off. This was the final result of a ratings week that started stunningly for Ten: Seven 27.3 per cent of the prime time audience, Ten 25.0, Nine 23.4, ABC 16.5, and SBS 7.8.

And this was Pay TV’s account of itself: “In week 30, Disney Channel’s contemporary take on the Prince and the Pauper story, The Princess Protection Program, premiered with 157,000 viewers. On Arena, The Debbie Rowe Interview detailed life with the former King of Pop Michael Jackson to 87,000 people. America’s Next Top Model on FOX8 was watched by 142,000 people, NCIS on TV1 was seen by 141,000 viewers and Project Runway Australia on Arena continued to grow with a season-to-date best audience of 106,000 viewers.

“Without a Trace on W had its best result of the year watched by 86,000, Dora’s Fairytale Adventure on Nick Jr. was watched by a 2009 high of 75,000 people and the movie Get Smart premiered on Movie One with 83,00 people.

“On FOX Sports, Live: NRL Eels v Storm had 306,000 viewers, Live: AFL St Kilda v Adelaide was watched by 257,000 people and, as the second Ashes test drew to a close, 214,000 people watched Live: Cricket: Ashes: Day 5 Session 1. This week, Live: AFL Pre Game Show was seen by 116,000 subscribers, Live: Golf: British Open Final Round Part 1 was watched by 79,000 (both on FOX Sports) and Sky Raceday on Sky Racing was seen by 71,000 people.

“In week 30, STV channels represented 21.5% of all metropolitan viewing between 6am and midnight, 21.1% of all regional viewing and 57.0% of all viewing in subscription TV homes.”

What Australia Watched, week ending July 25:

1 MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA – WINNER ANNOUNCED Ten 3,726,000

2 MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA – FINALE NIGHT Ten 3,293,000

3 PACKED TO THE RAFTERS Seven 1,857,000

4 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,713,000

5 TALKIN’ ‘BOUT YOUR GENERATION Ten 1,585,000

6 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,562,000

7 AIR WAYS Seven 1,549,000

8 WORLD’S STRICTEST PARENTS Seven 1,540,000

9 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,491,000

10 SURF PATROL Seven 1,485,000

11 MERLIN Ten 1,478,000

12 SEVEN NEWS – SAT Seven 1,473,000

13 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,470,000

14 TWO AND A HALF MEN Nine 1,402,000

15 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,391,000

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