The Noughties will end with a nail in the coffin of variety after Rove McManus announced he was winding down his show last Sunday. It closed a ten year chapter for the genre with a string of Logies, A-List guests and live memories to take home. Without any advance warning it also didn’t pull the kind of figures such a farewell deserved. Both the night and the week went Seven’s way for the second last week of the ratings season.
The Seven Network won Week 47 with a big 30.0% ahead of Nine’s 27.4% and TEN’s 20.1%. The ABC had 17.1% and SBS 5.4%.
Seven won three key demographics 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54.
GO! had 2.7%, 7TWO 2.0%, ABC2 1.5%, ONE 0.9% and SBS TWO 0.4%.
Seven also took Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Nine won Monday and Thursday. All cities fell to Seven except Melbourne -which Nine won by just 0.1%.
Once again Packed to the Rafters was the week’s top show with 1.8m viewers. Its other big drawcards were The Force, Border Security, Seven News, Today Tonight, Bones, Sunday Night, Highway Patrol, RSPCA Animal Rescue and Better Homes and Gardens. Under 1.2m were Medical Emergency, Last Chance Surgery, City Homicide, Criminal Minds, Destroyed in Seconds, FlashForward and Beauty & The Geek Australia. Even lower was Ghost Whisperer -down to 768,000. Deal or no Deal continues to defeat Hot Seat but is whipped in Brisbane. Sexiest Celebrity Body Parts slumped on 303,000. Kill Bill took 147,000 on 7TWO.
Big figures for the new episode of Two and a Half Men this week -1.46m viewers. Nine’s other top titles were The Big Bang Theory, Nine News (Sunday) and The Mentalist. They were followed by 60 Minutes, 20 to 1, A Current Affair and CSI: Miami. The Apprentice Australia was 793,000 while RPA Where Are They Now? was 835,000. Today again had some close shaves with Sunrise, just 20,000 behind on Tuesday and 11,000 on Friday. Nine’s long False Witness screening disappointed at just 529,000. But Sunday’s Australian Masters Golf with Tiger Woods was strong at 713,000. Aussie Ladette to Lady ended on 676,000 and no buzz this season. An episode of The Big Bang Theory was best for GO! with 276,000.
1.3m viewers tuned in for NCIS on TEN last week, much better than the 1.06m for Celebrity MasterChef. The reality show has settled the argument that we prefer watching ourselves on screen than C-List celebs. Elsewhere only Lie to Me and NCIS: LA topped the 1m mark with Australian Idol, Glee, Rush, Good News Week and The Simpsons to follow. The last edition of Rove was 760,000 amid some rumours the host wanted a better timeslot next year. Electric Dreams and Jamie’s American Road Trip disappointed. Best for The 7PM Project was 679,000 and 741,000 for Neighbours. Another soft week for ONE with UFC Wired on 73,000. Friday and Saturday nights were again slight, landing fourth on the latter.
The last Midsomer Murders drew 1.31m for the ABC, with Spicks and Specks also strong on 1.13m. Without many of its regular titles, ABC had a generally light week. Andrew Denton returned with a healthy 968,000 for Elders. Lilies premiered with 641,000 while Jail Birds opened to 632,000. Hungry Beast dropped to 641,000 but John Safran’s Race Relations slipped even lower, down to 492,000. The Bill, Hope Springs and ABC News continued to perform while Junkyard Wars and Doctor Who were ABC2’s best. ABC1 was second on Saturday.
Top Gear’s Winter Olympics Special took 680,000 for SBS, with Man vs Wild, Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam, Demetri’s Castle, Mythbusters, Iron Chef, RocKwiz, Inspector Rex, Trawlermen amongst it other best titles. The network’s Tuesday share was especially low. Encouragingly, Destination FIFA World Cup on Monday kicked a goal with 433,000.
The last week of the 2009 ratings survey is already underway.