Throng

Ratings Monday February 8, 2010. Week 7, day 2.

Nine in front of Seven with all shows from 6pm to 9.30pm pulling over a million viewers. The story is the same for Seven but their figures were a little softer compared to Nine.

Ten is the Biggest Loser of the night with no shows over a million, and the Biggest Loser down below 700,000. The 7pm Project, now without a late repeat was back up over 700,000.

Meanwhile, 7TWO’s best of British night continues to give the channel high shares for Monday night, way ahead of rival GO.

Network Shares:
1 Nine 29.4%. 2 Seven 29.3%. 3 Ten 18.2%. 4 ABC 17.0%. 5 SBS 6.1%
Channel shares:
1 9 26.6%. 2 7 25.5%. 3 10 17.3%. 4 ABC1 15.0%.
5 SBS ONE 5.7%. 6 7TWO 3.8%. 7 GO 2.8%. 8 ABC2 1.7%
9 ONE 0.9%. 10 SBS TWO 0.4%. 11 ABC3 0.3%

Top shows for the night:
1 Two And A Half Men Nine 1,420,000Read more

Ratings Sunday February 7, 2010. Week 7, Day 1.

Seven wins the first official night of ratings with Seven News being the most watched show of the night, Trisha and Krishna up above 1.1 million, Airways over 1.3, and Bones at over 1.2 million. The first episode of Castle pulled 901,000 but the second was a lot lower as people start turning off or going to bed.

Ten’s new Sunday night line up put channel Ten as the second most watched channel of the night even though Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation did not manage the figures it used to in 2009 when it was on Tuesday nights. With such tough competition on Sunday nights it is likely the show will not reach the up to 1.7 million it used to achieve. Good Wife was the most watched non-news show of the night at 1,409,000.

Nine left with cricket coverage kept them in third, although with the GO share added, Nine comes in second as a network. GO matched SBS ONE at 4.5%.
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Ratings Saturday February 6, 2010. Week 6, day 7.

Network Shares:
1 Seven 29.8%. 2 ABC 22.1%. 3 Ten 21.4%. 4 Nine 19.5%. 5 SBS 7.2%
Channel Shares:
1 7 27.9%. 2 10 20.4%. 3 ABC1 19.5%. 9 15.4%.
5 SBS ONE 6.7%. 6 GO 4.2%. 7 ABC2 2.2%. 8 7TWO 1.9%.
9 ONE 1.0%. 10 SBS TWO 0.5%. 11 ABC3 0.4%

1 Seven News – Sat Seven 1,157,000
2 ABC News-Sa ABC1 1,057,000
3 M-Cool Runnings Seven 930,000
4 A Touch Of Frost Seven 879,000
5 Nine News Saturday Nine 801,000
6 Bill ABC1 762,000
7 Bed Of Roses Rpt ABC1 675,000
8 ABC News Up-Date ABC1 652,000
9 Taggart ABC1 649,000
10 Star Wars: Episode II – Attack Of The Clones Rpt Ten 649,000
11 Gardening Australia ABC1 556,000
12 Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith Rpt Ten 556,000
13 Ten News At Five Sat Ten 530,000
14 ABC News Up-Date ABC1 455,000Read more

Ratings Friday February 5, 2010. Week 6, Day 6

Network Shares:
1 Nine 35.4%. 2 Seven 26.9%. 3 Ten 16.9%. 4 ABC 14.9%. 5 SBS 5.9%
Channel Shares:
1 9 31.8%. 2 7 25.05%. 3 10 16.1%. 4 ABC1 12.5%.
5 SBS ONE 5.5%. 6 GO 3.3%. 7 ABC2 2.0%. 8 7TWO 1.9%.
9 ONE 0.7%. EQ 10 ABC3 & SBS TWO 0.4%

Top shows for the night:
1 Twenty/20 -Australia V Pakistan Nine 1,273,000
2 Seven News Seven 1,103,000
3 Better Homes And Gardens Seven 1,081,000
4 Today Tonight Seven 1,018,000
5 Nine News Nine 970,000
6 Home And Away Seven 924,000
7 A Touch Of Frost Seven 826,000
8 ABC News ABC1 741,000
9 Ten News At Five Ten 737,000
10 The Biggest Loser (Aus) Ten 727,000
11 A Current Affair Nine 639,000 Excl B
12 Silent Witness ABC1 625,000
13 Two And A Half Men -Rpt Nine 587,000 Excl B,ARead more

Superbowl is the most watched event on US TV, with typically over 90 million Americans tuning in to watch - that‘s four time the entire population of Australia. Superbowl is the grand final of the NFL season. This year sees the New Orleans Saints take on the Indianapolis Colts in south Florida. This year is the 44th Superbowl.

In Australia, Superbowl 44 can be seen live on ONE HD from 10am AEDT Monday Feb 8. Channel Ten will also be covering the event, but it will be on at 10am in all markets - meaning that those not on AEDT will have delayed coverage. The telecast on ONE is live everywhere. Also, pay TV’s Fox Sports 3, Fox Sports 3HD and ESPN will telecast Superbowl 44 live from 10am Monday.

From next Sunday, February 14, public affairs show “Sunday Night” returns to Seven at 6.30pm, followed by Border Security. Seven have already been promoting the return of Border Security for some time now - during the Australian Open, it was said to return “after the tennis”.

As for Sunday Night, again Chris Bath and Mike Munro will be at the helm. It will be quite a busy week for Chris considering she reads the 6pm news Monday to Friday as well. Maybe, she’ll drop one night - say Fridays - like she did last year.

Border Security at 7.30 - one of the highest rating shows on TV - will be up against Ten’s Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation - also one of the highest rating shows on TV in 2009, and soon after the cricket, Nine’s 60 Minutes - a long time ago was the highest rating show on TV.

Network Ten and SBS are engaged in a trademark battle over the term One, after both broadcasters lodged trademark applications for logos that contain the word.

SBS’s application to trademark their SBS One logo has attracted an objection from Network Ten, while Ten’s application for their ONE HD logo has been blocked by IP Australia, the government agency tasked with managing trademark applications. Ten’s objection to the SBS application is because according to the network, it may cause confusion:

”We have opposed it from the outset on the basis that we believe it’s confusing for viewers, given the pre-existing brand for our digital sports channel, which features the word ONE”

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Officially, the ABC do not really care about ratings, but they are the first to spruik their own success. Here are some stats about ABC3 - Australia’s first free to air TV channel dedicated to kids full time.

In the nine weeks of broadcast since launching on December 4th 2009, Australia’s first digital FTA dedicated children’s channel has been an outstanding success.

ABC3 is now the top day-time channel among 5-12s (6am-6pm) across all FTA and Subscription TV, leading with Total TV Share of 13.1% compared to:

o ABC1 10.7%

o Nine 8.3%

o Disney Channel at 6.9%

o Nickelodeon at 5.3%.

ABC3’s weekly reach has grown since its launch to 1.4 million (10% of the five city population). It is now reaching 29% of children aged 5-12.

Ratings Thursday February 4, 2010. Week 6, Day 5

A good night for Ten last night with So You Think You Can Dance the third most watched show for the night, after Sevens’ News and Today Tonight. Biggest Loser was up on the previous night and even the 7pm Project passed the 600,000 mark. Ten equalled channel Nine in shares, both equal second after Seven.

Stargate Atlantis, Fifth Gear and Heroes all had respectable figures for 7TWO but it was GO that again topped the digital channels for the night with their classics helping to maintain a solid viewing base each night. ONE had a better night than in recent days with a 1.4% share, thanks mostly to UFC Wired.

Network Shares:
1 Seven 28.5%. 2 Nine 27.1%. 3 Ten 25.5%. 4 ABC 14.0%. 5 SBS 4.8%
Channel Shares:
1 7 25.6%. Eq 2 9 & 10 24.1%. 4 ABC1 11.7%.
5 SBS ONE 4.4%. 6 GO 3.0%. 7 7TWO 2.9%. 8 ABC2 1.8%.Read more

Updated Feb 4th, includes up to Sat Feb 20, 2010

New epsiodes of Vampire Diaries from Monday Feb 8th - 8.30pm.

ER moves to 8.30 on Thur Feb 4 with double episodes. Side Order of Life is out for now. Thur Feb 11 sees 4 eps of Big Bang Theory from 7.30, with ER at 9.30.

From Sunday Feb 7, Curb Your Enthusiasm is out of the schedule.

The Go Prime time TV guide starts here:

In printed TV guides, it is not uncommon to see listings on ABC1 summed up as simply “Children’s Programs” in an attempt to save space, so more space can be dedicated to detail prime time and other shows. Typically, children’s programs - especially those made for pre-schoolers - tend to be short so a three hour block can contain something like 20 different shows and take considerable space to list out.

Recently I spotted the short cut “Children’s Programs” as part of the ABC3 program listing - a channel dedicated ONLY to children’s programs for 15 hours a day. In fact, the entire hours of ABC3 could be summed up as “Children’s Programs”. Surely an extra line of space would allow the ABC3 program to be listed in full.

Using “Children’s Programs” as part of the ABC3 listing would be like using “Sport” as a shortcut to save some space on listing programs for ONE HD - it tells you nothing!

Nine will again this year screen the 2010 Academy Award Ceremony live from 12pm, Monday March 8. The event will also be screened on pay TVs Movie Extra from 10am with a two hour red carpet special preceding the Oscars. This year, the Oscars will be hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.

Nine will repeat the ceremony that night, most likely at 9.30pm like it was last year. Hopefully this year, though, they will see fit to broadcast the replay of the event completely without editing although their commitment to Nightline on weeknights may mean a shortened replay unless they start it at 8.30. Last year, Nine were criticised for editing key parts out of the 2009 Oscars ceremony, in what was hailed by many as the best Oscars ever with Hugh Jackman as host.

On Movie Extra, the replay is at midnight that night.

Programming information www.tvtonight.com.au

Former Home and Away star Todd Lasance has landed a major role in the television adaptation of Tim Winton's acclaimed novel Cloudstreet. Production of the mini series starts in Perth on Monday and is said to be one of the most anticipated local mini series of the decade.

Lasance will star with Stephen Curry, Geoff Morrel, Kerry Fox and Emma Booth in the six hour mini series being produced for pay TV’s Showcase channel. The role puts plans for a move to Hollywood on hold.

Given Todd’s recent conviction for cocaine possession, he would need special clearance from US customs to enter the USA to be able to pursue an acting role in Hollywood.

A former Seven colleague said “This is really good news for Todd because what’s been lost of this is that he is a really good actor and this will give him a chance to prove that.”

Ratings Wednesday February 3, 2010. Week 6, Day 4

With 13 shows for the night over a million viewers, it would appear that more people are back in front of their TVs as the we return to almost normal programming with the official ratings season starting this Sunday.

Seven won the night over Nine, with Seven News top show for the night, RSPCA Animal Rescue 3rd, TT 4th and Home and Away 5th. Seven’s new factual ICU (Intensive Care Unit) was flogged by Nine’s new season of Customs which was the second most watched show for the night and the most watched show on Nine.

Ten’s Biggest Loser settled around the 737,000 mark while So You Think You Can Dance had a big night averaging over a million viewers, helping Ten to a respectable 20.1% share. Burn Notice was down on its usual figures for last year, but it did start later than usual. Next week, it starts after 10pm.
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Australia’s free to air TV networks could lose exclusive rights to some sporting events but gain the right to run sport on their digital channels when the Federal Government reveals changes to the sport anti-siphoning list later this month. Currently, networks cannot show a sport on the anti-siphoning list exclusively on a digital channel.

Being able to show sports on digital channels will give the networks greater flexibility to fulfil commitments to live sporting events while at the same time maintaining normal programming on their main channel. One of the biggest criticisms of the recent Australian Open Tennis shown on Seven was the fact that they had to abandon matches mid-play at 6pm for the nightly news in some markets, while in others, nightly events were delayed and not shown live.