People watch the news as Commonwealth Games underwhelms

The Winners: Seven’s The X Factor should have done better last night. 984,000 from 7.30pm against the first evening session of the Games on Ten, mindless repeats of the mindless Two and a Half Men on Nine and the ABC, wasn’t very good. Australian Story beat it at 8pm, so in reality The X Factor only won from 7.30pm to 8.30pm, but Seven will say it won the commercial battle from 7.30pm to 8.30pm. Nine screened yet another repeat of Crocodile Dundee in Melbourne last night, just 215,000 watched. That’s nothing but contempt for the audience. Two and a Half Men, The X Factor and The Event did well in the demos.

Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.410 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.344 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.110 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.110 million
Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 1.109 million
The Event (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.032 million

The Losers: Ten’s games coverage, first night I know, but 575,000 from 6pm to 9pm wasn’t good. The 754,000 from 9pm to 11pm was better. Ten’s ONE and Foxtel seemed to get more benefit than Ten’s main channel.

News & CA: Seven News solid everywhere bar Sydney where Nine News won easily. TT did better, won everywhere, especially in Melbourne. Holidays in NSW, South Australia took their toll in the early morning, aided by adjustments to daylight saving. Australian Story was excellent for the second part of the Andrew Mallard story. But the highlight was the Talking Heads episode at 6.30pm on the ABC where comedian Anh Do spoke to Peter Thompson. It was close to the best ever that I have watched of this program. For once Peter Thompson realised that he had a cracker of a Talking Head opposite him and let him tell his story his way. Just a prompt or two.

Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.410 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.344 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.110 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.110 million
Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 1.109 million
ABC News (7pm) — 991,000
The 7.30 Report (ABC) (7.30pm) — 894,000
Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 861,000
Media Watch (ABC) (9.20pm) — 841,000
Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 749,000
Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 746,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.35pm) — 307,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 155,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.10pm) — 148,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 107,000

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 329,000
Today (Nine) (7am) –261,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven won with 27.6%, from Nine on 25.6%, Ten with 20.8%, the ABC on 19.4% and SBS with 6.5%. Nine leads the week with 28.5%, from Seven with 28.3% and Ten on 20.6%.
Main Channel: Seven won here with 22.5%, from Nine on 19.6%, Ten with 16.7%, ABC 2, 16.4% and SBS ONE with 5.5%. Nine and Seven share the lead with 23.1%, from Ten on 18.0%.
Digital: One shared the night, thanks to the simulcasting of the games. It finished with a primetime share of 4.1%, equal with GO. 7Mate was third with 2.7% and 7TWO was on 2.5%. ABC 2 finished with 2.0%, Gem, 1.9%, SBS TWO, 1.0%, ABC 3 and News 24 both finished with 0.5% each. That’s a total share of 19.3% for the nine FTA channels, close to the highest ever. It means nearly one in two people were watching a FTA digital channel last night instead of the main channels.
Pay TV: Pay TV picked up last night, thanks to the audiences for the Commonwealth Games on its special channels. The FTA share of 82% was lower than normal and the main channels share was the lowest for quite a while, well under 70%. Seven won with a share of 21.9%, from Nine on 20.3%, Pay TV with its 100 plus channels on 18.0%, Ten with 16.5%, the ABC on 15.4% and SBS, 5.1%. The nine FTA digital channels had a total share of 15.2% (bolstered by the strong performance of ONE). the five FTA main channels share was a very low 66.8%.
Regional: No regional data again today

Major Markets: The FTA digital channels did very well last night, partly because of the games on ONE, but GO and 7Mate, plus 7TWO and ABC 2 were all solid. In fact the nine FTA channels in Adelaide had almost a quarter of the FTA audience last night with a total share of 24.4%. They had 20.3% share in Perth, 19.4% in Brisbane and 21.0% in Melbourne. Sydney was again the lowest with 14.1%, where the 100 plus channels of Pay TV had the highest share on the night of 22.7%, beating all the FTA channels. But elsewhere not so good, with the FTA digitals having a bigger total and some of the networks (Seven especially) doing better. Pay TV was weakest in Adelaide as usual where only had a total share of 10.7%.

Sydney: Seven won overall and in the main channels from Nine and the ABC. GO won the digitals from One and 7TWO. Nine leads the week from Seven, with Ten and the ABC tied for third.
Melbourne: Nine won from Seven and Ten overall, and in the main channels, it was Nine from Seven and ABC 1. GO won the digitals from ONE and 7Mate. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten.
Brisbane: It was Seven from Nine and Ten overall, but Seven in the main channels, with Nine and Ten tied for second. ONE won the digitals from GO and 7Mate. Nine leads the week from Seven and Ten.
Adelaide: It was Seven from Nine and Ten overall and in the main channels. ONE won the digitals from GO and 7TWO. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten.
Perth: Seven from Nine and Ten here was well overall and in the main channels. One won the digitals from GO and 7TWO. Seven leads the week from Ten and Nine.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The Commonwealth Games on Ten is an underwhelming coverage. Tonight sees some cycling, women’s hockey and some swimming. Somehow, given all the coverage of the problems leading up to the start, the coverage is a bit anti-climatic. If I was Ten I would have had Hamish and Andy reprising the Roy and HG send ups they did for Seven for the 2000 and 2004 Olympics. No real reason to watch, but this weekend should see more viewers now there’s no football on.

TONIGHT: More Commonwealth Games on Ten, Packed to the Rafters on Seven, Nine is running dead, an old UK Top Gear and then Survivor. The ABC hasn’t very much either and SBS has Insight. games and the final day of the first cricket Test from India, both on Pay TV.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports