In the week that Seven announced its new digital channel it lost another week to Nine and its GO! channel. Nine’s win included its tribute to a favourite son, Don Lane. On the back of the Hey Hey reunions it was another reminder its audience loves Variety. It was also a week in which the networks trumped one another in the publicity stakes. After the ABC launched ABC3, Seven stole its thunder the next day with 7TWO, which was subsequently trumped that afternoon by Nine winning Top Gear.
The Nine Network won Week 43 with 27.9% over Seven’s 26.9% and TEN’s 21.1%. The ABC had 18.7% and SBS 5.5%.
Nine won all three key demos 16 – 39, 25 – 49, 25 – 54.
GO! delivered 2.6%, ABC2 and ONE tied on 1.4%, SBS TWO had 0.3%.
Nine won Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Seven won Tuesdayand Friday while the ABC took Saturday. Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth were won by Seven with Nine winners in Sydney and Melbourne.
A new episode of Two and a Half Men was Nine’s top show with 1.43m viewers. Two more episodes topped 1.2m. Its other performers included A Tribute to Don Lane and Getaway. The Apprentice Australia matched its exact figure from last week – 823,000- a good result. The Secret Millionaire (1.01m) was also strong. But Nine’s stunt with The Seinfeld Reunion (755,000) and the premiere of Aussie Ladette to Lady (693,000) struggled. Not much love left for Without a Trace (408,000) and ER (472,000). Hot Seat beat Deal or no Deal on Friday but Nine News had 2 nights under 1m and a third on a clear 1,000,000. Wipeout pulled an impressive 294,000 on GO! which had its best week so far.
Packed to the Rafters was the week’s #1 show once more with 1.73m viewers. Seven’s other scorers included The Force, Border Security, Seven New, Today Tonight, Highway Patrol, FlashForward, Destroyed in Seconds, RSPCA Animal Rescue, Last Chance Surgery and Better Homes and Gardens. But NZ series Coastwatch didn’t perform and has has already been replaced with Border Security while Mercy has already been pushed back to 10:30pm. City Homicide sank to 989,000. The return of Bones was 1.14m and Castle 774,000. Beauty and the Geek Australia slipped to 952,000 against tough competition while Ghost Whisperer was a modest 843,000. Home and Away had two nights under the magic million. In its penultimate week, All Saints continued to pass that figure in a 9:30pm timeslot.
NCIS was again TEN’s best on 1.34m viewers while Celebrity MasterChef pulled 1.29m. Liza Minnelli helped get Australian Idol over the 1m mark -just, while NCIS: Los Angeles, The Simpsons, Glee, Rush, Lie to Me and Good News Week were all around 950,000 – 1.05m. Friday night continues to be a disaster for TEN, sinking to a dismal 14.7% share. It couldn’t improve past TEN News at Five on 655,000. Slipping under the 500,000 mark were The 7PM Project, The Spearman Experiment and a movie. Fifth Grader finished on 794,000. On ONE the post-race coverage of the 2009 Motocross GP took 113,000. TEN was fourth on both Saturday and Friday.
Friday’s Midsomer Murders was a repeat of an old episode -but it still pulled the biggest audience for the ABC at 1.27m. Elsewhere Spicks and Specks, The 39 Steps, ABC News, Hope Springs, The Bill, Taggart, Ganges, Australian Story and Collectors all did good business. The hype for John Safran’s Race Relations was mild -705,000 tuned in while the outrage never eventuated. It was a case of the press beating up the story leaving this an ‘old news’ story before it had aired. Qi premiered to 601,000. Sunday Arts is down to just 75,000. The Graham Norton Show was best on ABC2 at 118,000 -why isn’t it on ABC1? The ABC defeated TEN on Friday and won Saturday outright.
A ‘classic’ Top Gear episode managed 779,000 for SBS in the week that it lost future rights for the show followed by Man vs Wild on 455,000. Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam held at 323,000. Who Do You Think You Are? was 291,000. Insight managed 205,000 but East West 101 couldn’t retain the audience, at 154,000, a shame given it’s quality content. Monday and Saturday were its best nights.