Bachelorette brawl does nothing for viewers

Who at Ten and its producers though it was a good idea to stick a brawl in middle of The Bachelorette last night? It did nothing for the ratings — 698,000 nationally was barely enough, even if it did well in the demos. It was a clownish effort at trying to goose stagnant ratings for a program that a year ago was ratings its socks off with Sophie Monk. A case of send in the clowns. It was contrived nonsense and not a good look in late 2018.  

And while Ten still won the demos last night (Seven won total people, Nine won the main channels), it was the solid performance of Gogglebox that really helped. Gogglebox was watched by 1.02 million people nationally which made it the most watched non-news program of the night. The turn-on after the Bachette was embarrassing (for Ten) at 327,000. Put another way, the Gogglebox audience was 46% larger than that of the Bachette. That tells us something about what core viewers think of the latter this year. 

In regional markets, Seven’s 6pm News led with 465,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 463,000, Home and Away was third with 337,000, the 5.30pm bit of The Chase Australia was next with 318,000 and the 7pm ABC News had 304,000 viewers.

Network channel share:

1. Seven (29.3%)
2. Nine (26.7%)
3. Ten (20.1%)
4. ABC (16.2%)
5. SBS (7.7%)

Network main channels:

1. Nine (18.6%)
2. Seven (16.9%)
3. Ten (15.3%)
4. ABC (11.5%)
5. SBS ONE (5.4%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. 7mate (6.5%)
2. 7TWO, Gem (3.2%)
3. GO (3.1%)
4. 10Boss (2.5%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. Seven News — 1.332 million
2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.293 million
3. Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.038 million
4. Nine/NBN News — 1.027 million
5. Gogglebox (Ten) — 1.025 million
6. A Current Affair (Nine) —959,000
7. 7pm ABC News — 919,000
8. Home and Away (Seven) — 860,000
9. Paramedics (Nine) — 819,000
10. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 805,000

Top metro programs: none with a million ore more viewers – similar to the National Top 10.

Losers: ABC viewers and those who watched the “brawl” on The Bachelorette — pur-lease, it’s 2018.

Metro news and current affairs:

1. Seven News — 867,000
2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 830,000
3. Nine News 6.30 — 790,000
4. Nine News— 773,000
5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 677,000
6. 7pm ABC News – 615,000
7. 7.30 (ABC) — 519,000
8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 417,000
9. Ten News First — 328,000
10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 243,000

Morning (National) TV:

1. Sunrise (Seven) – 423,000
2. Today (Nine) – 320,000
3. News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) — 262,000
4. The Morning Show (Seven) —186,000
5. Mornings (Nine) — 104,000
6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 79,000

Top five pay TV programs:

1. Love It or List It Australia (LifeStyle) — 59,000
2. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 47,000
3. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 43,000
4. Credlin (Sky News) — 42,000
5. Criminal Minds (TVHITS) — 39,000