Viewer inversion theory
23Jun09

Newcastle’s television viewing habits have always been a little different to the national average. Since aggregation in the early ’90s NBN has maintained its local dominance in defiance of national trends, and we’ve just come to accept that.

But lately the commercial TV viewing habits in Newcastle have been more puzzling than ever. In fact, they are inverse to the national viewing figures. Look at last weeks ratings for example:

National                                                    Newcastle

Seven 27.0                                              NBN (Nine affiliate) 31.5

Ten 25.8                                                  SC TEN (TEN affiliate)  22.3

Nine 25.2                                                Prime (Seven affiliate) 19.9

Why is the affiliate for the nation’s top rating station struggling to 3rd place in Newcastle?

Why is the affiliate for the nation’s 3rd rating station winning by a country mile in Newcastle?

Its probably easier to address NBN’s continued dominance in the face of Nine’s misfortunes. NBN was the incumbent station and has long been the dominant performer. NBN is the only local station to run a full local news service, the high-rating one hour NBN News. Newcastle is a Rugby League town and NBN enjoys healthy ratings during league season for their NRL coverage on Friday nights, Sunday afternoons and The Footy Show.

News is probably the key to the inverted Prime/Seven results too. Three of Channel Seven’s top 10 programs last week were news. Today Tonight was also in the top 10. So clearly news gives Seven a great leg-up each week and delivers audience to their nightly programs.

In Newcastle, Prime doesn’t run a local news and NBN does. While Nine’s national news is not as popular as Seven’s, NBN’s local news is enormously popular. The Seven News that is so powerful nationally is rendered irrelevant in Newcastle against a strong local program.

Meanwhile, TEN / SC TEN tend to fight a different game. Their news is at 5pm and their programming is tailored to a younger demographic.

In previous years when Prime had some very strong nightly content they managed to minimise the lack of local news issue. But currently Seven’s non-news product isn’t rating well (only one non-news program in Top 10) meaning that their affiliate starts well behind and never catches up.

So my viewer inversion theory is that no news is bad news for Prime.

What do you think?

Popularity: 5%

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2 Responses to “Viewer inversion theory”

Nine… oh yes, that’s the station with a movie on latenight sometimes. Only time I ever watch it. (Station of last resort).

I do know I head for the remote pronto when some of the country news bulletins come on. I would love to know who trained some of these people to speak for TV. Honestly, it is beyond reason that anyone can have a headcold for so long.

Comment by Lindy Asimus on July 6th, 2009

Always wondered why this is the case as well with 9′s recent decline. The one hour news at 6, with ACA at 7 would give NBN a head start on each night that 9 just does not get. Also 2.5 Men not being on at 7pm every night means the other episodes probably attract more viewers. And the NRL of course, keeps NBN higher.

The fact that Prime looks bad compared to 7 would turn some viewers away. In an area where you can chose to watch either Prime or 7 I chose 7, while I chose NBN over 9. Also NBN has less self promos like 9 does.

Comment by Andrew B on July 22nd, 2009

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