Sports mad except for Bledisloe?

24Aug09

National Ratings, week ending August 22
Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Channel Seven’s victory for the week was diminished by the poor performance of the Bledisloe Cup on Saturday. Australia is often described as “sports mad”, but rugby union seems to be an exception. At week’s end, the prime time audience shares stood at: Seven 28.3 per cent, Nine 26.6, Ten 20.8, ABC 16.5, SBS 7.8.

Here is Pay TV’s account of itself:

“Hollywood’s most famous archaeologist entertained subscribers as Movie One played the first three Indiana Jones movies across successive nights this week. The Saturday night broadcast of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was seen by 101,000 viewers and a total of 147,000 people including the audience to the delayed broadcast on Movie Two. This week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model on FOX8 was seen by 146,000 people, Notting Hill on TV1 was seen by 113,000 viewers, Project Runway Australia by 105,000 and Tuesday night’s episode of M*A*S*H on Fox Classics was watched by 88,000.

“In viewing to a different Crusade, 210,000 fans watched Australia battle the English in Live: Cricket: Ashes: Day 1 Session 1 on FOX Sports. In football, 276,000 people watched Live: NRL Knights v Cowboys, 229,000 watched Live: AFL Essendon v St Kilda and 180,000 watched Live: Rugby Union: Bledisloe Cup. In week 34, Live: AFL: On the Couch had its best result ever with 149,000 viewers (all on FOX Sports).

“STV channels represented 21.7% of all metropolitan viewing between 6am and midnight, 22.1% of all regional viewing and 56.7% of all viewing in subscription TV homes.”

What Australia Watched:

1 PACKED TO THE RAFTERS Seven 1,894,000

2 SEVEN NEWS – SUN Seven 1,714,000

3 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,609,000

4 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,549,000

5 TALKIN’ ‘BOUT YOUR GENERATION Ten 1,523,000

6 WORLD’S STRICTEST PARENTS Seven 1,521,000

7 DANCING WITH THE STARS 9 Seven 1,492,000

8 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,475,000

9 SEVEN NEWS – SAT Seven 1,440,000

10 CITY HOMICIDE-MON Seven 1,390,000

11 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,377,000

12 BONES Seven 1,376,000

13 TWO AND A HALF MEN Nine 1,372,000

14 60 MINUTES Nine 1,327,000

15 GETAWAY Nine 1,309,000

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