Ash Barty’s absence from prime time brings down tennis ratings

Ash Barty’s quarter final match was not scheduled during prime time, and so her absence saw Nine’s prime time audience dip to an average 1.19 million, against the 1.3 million plus when Barty played the first match in prime time on Friday night.

The Djokovic match averaged 1.24 million in prime time, Federer’s amazing game averaged 911,000 in late afternoon and Barty’s match averaged 757,000 around 1 to 2 pm but had a much higher share of people watching.

Nine’s day coverage averaged 705,000 for matches including Barty’s win and Roger Federer’s five set struggle (and eventual win) that went past the 6pm start time of Nine News and ended around 6.46pm on Gem (thereby throwing Nine’s audience data gatherers into confusion as they re-crunched the numbers by hand on Wednesday morning).

In regional markets Seven News topped with 550,000, then Seven News 6.30 with 526,000, then Home and Away with 370,000, Nine News was on 339,000 and The Chase Australia 5.30 pm averaged 305,000.

Network channel share:

1. Nine (36.7%)
2. Seven (21.9%)
3. Ten (19.9%)
4. ABC (14.2%)
5. SBS (7.2%)

Network main channels:

1. Nine (27.7%)
2. Seven, Ten (13.9%)
3. ABC (9.7%)
4. SBS ONE (4.0%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. Gem (4.2%)
2. 10 Bold, 7mate (3.7%)
3. 7TWO, GO (3.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. Seven News  — 1.47 million
2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.42 million
3. Nine/NBN News  — 1.34 million *
4. Australian Open Tennis Day 2, Night (Nine) — 1.159 million
5. Nine/NBN News  6.30 — 1.156 million *
6. I’m A Celebrity – Elimination (Ten) — 1.10 million
7. I’m A Celebrity (Ten) — 1.00 million
8. 7pm ABC News  — 976,000
9. Home and Away (Seven) — 970,000
10. 7.30 Summer (ABC) — 788,000

*provisional

Top metro programs: 
1. Nine News 1.006 million*

Metro news and current affairs:

1. Nine News — 1.00 million *
2. Seven News —927,000
3. Seven News  6.30 —903,000
4. Nine News 6.30  — 879,000*
5. 7pm ABC News — 691,000
6. 7.30 (ABC) —534,000
7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 492,000
8. Ten News First — 355,000
9. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 279,000
10. Ten News First 6pm — 259,000

*provisional

Morning (National) TV:

1. Sunrise: National: 465,000, Metro: 276,000 
2. Today: National: 320,000, Metro: 216,000 
3. News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) — 264,000
4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 207,000
5. Today Extra (Nine) —pre-empted by the Today’s tennis coverage
6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 88,000

Top five pay TV programs:

1. Jones & Credlin (Sky News) — 60,000
2. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 59,000
3. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 58,000
4. The Big Bang Theory (Fox8) — 36,000
5. PML Later (Sky News ) — 33,000