Lady Di sings the blues. Princess Diana sings from beyond the grave with thanks to ghost whisperer Red Symons and a bit of technical wizardry. Click here to watch, or click on the pic below.

 

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Seven first, Nine second, narrowly over Ten. 15 programs with a million or more viewers and Seven had the top six and with one other, dominated from 6pm to 10.30pm. The most watched program was Medical Emergency at 8pm with 1.689 million people, just in front of RSPCA Animal Rescue at 7.30pm with 1.585 million. Next was All Saints on Seven at 8.30pm with 1.453 million, Seven News with 1.412 million was next, followed by Today Tonight with 1.379 million and Home And Away at 7pm with 1.349 million, rounded out the top six programs on the night. Ten’s NCIS averaged 1.302 million for 7th spot, with The Simpsons repeat at 8pm averaging 1.282 million and the new ep at 7.30pm, 1.234 million people in 9th spot. Tenth was Nine News with 1.226 million people, Temptation was 11th with 1.219 million and A Current Affair was 12th with 1.212 million. The 7pm ABC News averaged 1.128 million, Crossing Jordan, Seven, at 9.30pm, averaged 1.081 million and Nine’s newish 7.30pm program, Things To Do Before You Die (AKA Getaway Tuesdays) languished in 15th spot with 1.081 million viewers. Deal Or No Deal was on 908,000 and Ten’s Numb3rs rep3at at 9.30pm averaged 751,000.

The Losers: Losers? Nine’s viewers last night. A diet of repeats from 8.30pm to 10.30pm didn’t set the set on fire. In fact it probably sent viewers to Ten and Seven. The repeat of CSI Miami, just 824,000 eager fans, and CSI New York, which followed at 9.30pm, another repeat with 758,000. Now I know the programs are being shown with a low cost (almost fully amortised) which means Nine can make decent returns but it tells viewers Nine’s not interested in them, and the TV industry generally that it’s opting for financial-driven ratings, rather than entertainment-driven, which is what TV, even commercial TV, is supposed to be about. Because the purchase cost of both eps last night would have been substantially expanded on their first showing whenever they went to air, their real cost to Nine last night would have been much lower, meaning that whatever ad revenue it wrote for the two hours would produce a positive return, rather than break even or losses. In accounting terms that produces a profit because it would have made more from ad revenues than it cost to broadcast both programs, even with the low numbers of viewers. But it is cheap, cynical TV and really a sign that Nine can’t compete some nights on the same basis as Seven or Ten. As simple as that! The danger is that viewers start staying away and ratings and revenues start dropping in a spiral!

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in Sydney and Perth. But lost Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. Today Tonight beat A Current Affair nationally and everywhere bar Brisbane. Nine’s Nightline averaged 257,000. Ten News At Five, 952,000 and Late News/Sports Tonight, 380,000. The 7.30 Report averaged 875,000, Lateline, 219,000 and Lateline Business, 142,000. Insight returned on SBS and was earnest (Not climate change etc etc etc again!) and averaged 217,000. World News Australia, 154,000 at 6.30pm and 216,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise back over 400,000 people with 405,000, 7am Today on Nine, 256,000. The 9am Morning Show on Seven up to 198,000, KAK on Nine at 9am, 124,000; 9am with David and Kim on Ten with 98,000.

The Stats: Seven won with an unchanged share of 32.6% from last Tuesday night. Nine was second with 23.9% (24.8%) and Ten was third with 23.7% (21.8%). The ABC finished with 14.5% (15.4%) and SBS, 5.3% (5.5%). Seven won all five metro markets and leads the week 28.6% to 25.7% for Ten and 22.8% for Nine. In regional areas Prime/7Qld won with 32.9% from WIN/NBN on 25.0% for Nine, Southern Cross (Ten) on 24.3%, the ABC on 12.1% and SBS on 5.7%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine narrowly avoided finishing third and will battle Seven for the spot tonight. Seven will probably win the mini-war and end up third on the night because it has a dud movie at 8.30pm. Nine was lucky to finish second last night and owed it to a strong showing in Adelaide. It was weak in Sydney and Melbourne in particular, which isn’t good news for advertisers. Tonight Ten dominates with Thank God You’re Here and a new ep of House, and then a new ep of Medium at 9.30pm. Nine has McLeod’s Daughters, which is battling on gamely (a lurvley bunch of battling bush babes they are) and then fresh eps of Cold Case and Without A Trace. And don’t forget The Nation at 10.30pm. The ABC has Spicks and Specks at 8.30pm and The Chaser repeat at 9pm. Seven has an hour of Police Files Unlocked (will that tell us why The Force has gone missing in action?) and then a movie called Terminal. I think it’s self explanatory about the viewing experience on Seven from 8.30pm onwards.

And finally, it’s around all the TV forums, but why did Ten keep BB running over time? The explanation was that the vote was so close, but if you keep the phone lines open and keep talking about the closeness of the vote, aren’t you encouraging people to text a vote? And when you take a cut of those texts…? It should have finished at 9.15pm as planned (and like all votes are supposed to) and if it was tied, then that was the result. Why have one winner? Isn’t the result based on viewer votes? The 54-minute overrrun was pretty rich! The viewers in the target demos are savvy when it comes to something like this. Ten doesn’t need to give viewers any more reasons to turn off BB.