Sunday swings back to Nine

Will he or won’t he? The man on everybody’s lips, Peter Costello helped 60 Minutes and Channel Nine win Sunday night. It was a big win for Nine who relegated Seven to third place with Nine dominating the News (1.638 million), Battlefronts (1.286 million) and 60 Minutes (1.7 million) to win the night.

Jamie Durie’s The Outdoor Room was softened, with only 1.187 million viewers and Outback Wildlife Rescue had just over the million but it is Seven’s decision to move Dancing with the Stars to Sunday night’s that will have the network most concerned.

Once hosted by Daryl Summers, the show pulled on average two million viewers per week but on Sunday’s with Daniel McPherson the show last night only captured 1.167 million viewers. Still far from a failure but not competitive enough to challenge Nine’s 60 Minutes or Ten’s Australian Idol which itself had 1.224 million viewers.

Encore episodes, in other words, repeats of Thank God You’re Here are rating extremely well for Ten, last night claiming 1.136 million viewers itself, helping Ten to finish second but makes you wonder why Working Dog are not producing a series this year.

The night looked like this:
Nine: 29.8%

TEN: 22.8%

Seven: 22.5%

ABC: 19.6%

SBS: 5.3 %

OzTam

ABC’s Midsummer Murders finished in the Top 10 with 1.233 million viewers and so did Doctor Who with 1.169 million viewers.

Seven’s problem came with Private Practice which in its series return, bombed at 9:30PM only able to hold 722 000 viewers. It must be remembered that Nine had CSI: Miami in all states except Victoria who finally screened the first two episodes of Underbelly.

Despite most Victorians had allegedly all ready seen Underbelly illegally, the blockbuster series was still able to capture almost 600 000 viewers in Melbourne alone.

With Nine’s impressive start to the week, it should be a closer race this week but Seven will still win Monday and Tuesday but Wednesday could be more competitive if Fringe lives up to its expectations.

Paul B Kidd has bladder cancer

Paul B Kidd announced to his audience today a little after 1PM that we would not be hearing him on 2UE for at least the next six weeks as he fights cancer.

Kidd thanked his partner, son and good friend and co-host George Moore as he embarks on fighting cancer, starting with his operation this Wednesday.

Since joining George Moore in 2001, the very popular George and Paul Show has won many listeners across New South Wales and the ACT and is 2UE’s most profitable show.

Kidd and Moore have some of the best synergy as co-hosts, a lot of laughs and fun is heard from the two of them each and every week.

We all wish Paul all the best for the operation and hope he has a speedy recovery.

Game, Set and Match... Seven

Unless Nine can pull the metaphoric rabbit out of a hat and find a bunch of new shows that will somehow miraculously make everyone switch over from Seven to Nine, then we can call it now, Seven will win 2008.

The only other way Nine might win the year is if Seven’s television transmitter burnt down and we could no one could get any signal on their television. The likelihood of that happening is well…

Why do we bother to speculate?

Packed to the Rafters, City Homicide, Criminal Minds, Border Security, The Force, RSPCA Animal Rescue, Medical Emergency, Find My Family, Crash Investigation Unit, Seven News, Today Tonight, All Saints, The Outdoor Room and even Dancing with the Stars produced very good and winnable results last week for Seven.

Seven have the formula and it doesn’t look like changing while Nine’s start to 2008 couldn’t have been better with Underbelly and Gordon Ramsay showing the network the way a long with David Attenbrough.

Now Ramsay’s latest instalment of Kitchen Nightmares has been bumped after only one episode and the Attenbrough specials appear to run out of steam.

McLeod’s Daughters has also been relegated to summertime as Nine is turning to new sci-fi series Fringe this Wednesday to hopefully be the saviour. It may not work with their last sci-fi series being The Sarah Connor Chronicles and that didn’t work out.

Seven won last week with 29.9% of the audience share from Nine (25.4%), Ten (20.6%), ABC (18.9%) and SBS (5.3%).

Seven had all of the first nine of the weeks most watched tv shows with Two and A Half Men being channel Nine’s best. Domestic Blitz and 60 Minutes which have dominated for Nine to date returned softer ratings against the The Outdoor Room and Dancing with the Stars, plus don’t forget Australian Idol.

Another week, another win for Seven while Nine remain upbeat about Fringe this week. Will it be the first new American drama to reverse the trend of the other ailing US dramas?

Tune in and check it out yourself, Wednesday 8:30PM on Nine.

Talk radio shines as 2GB grow thanks to the Olympics, even without Alan Jones

Jason Morrisson (15.7%) has continued to grow Alan Jones audience (up 1.1%) whilst Jones has been absent battling prostate cancer. Thanks to the Olympics, 2GB remain Sydney’s Number 1 radio station with 13.4% of the commercial share with 2DAYFM (12.1%) second, up 1.3%.

ABC 702 (9.0%) held onto third despite dropping 1.6% to be just ahead of NOVA (8.6%) and 2UE (7.3%).

Triple M (5.2%) continued to head southwards (down 0.4%) and VEGA (4.4%) decided to join them (down 0.9%) for this survey as the trend was reversed for WSFM (6.7%) who grew by 1.3% and MIX (7.0%) who increased 0.2%.

Tony, Bec and Mikey on VEGA’s Breakfast is in trouble with only 3.4% of the share while Mix Mornings with Sonia and Todd are performing as poorly as the all ready axed Shebang, both 4.7%, so is the writing on the wall for Sonia and Todd?

2DAY FM’s Kyle and Jackie O (12.1%) held onto second in breakfast followed by ABC 702’s Adam Spencer (10.2%), NOVA’s Merrick and Rosso and Kate Ritchie (9.7%) and 2UE’s Mike and Sandy (7.3%).

Drive was all 2DAYFM’s Hamish and Andy (15.9%) with ABC 702’s Richard Glover (9.9%) second. NOVA’s The Wrong Way Home (8.8%), 2GB’s Phillip Clark (8.7%) and MIX 106.5’s Lars Peterson (8.2%) also did well.

Nights were understandably belonging to 2GB (18.1%) with the coverage of the Olympics followed by the Love God, Richard Mercer (9%) on MIX and 2UE’s Stuart Bocking (8.5%).

With Alan Jones back to work on Tuesday morning it will be business as usual for 2GB who continue to dominate the Sydney Radio Market while 2DAY FM continue to ‘own’ the FM band.

Rafters stays relative while Rush starts to slide

Packed to the Rafters was again Australia’s most popular show with just under two million viewers, a similar result for lead in Find My Family.

Seven had all the momentum last night with RSPCA: Animal Rescue capturing almost 1.8 million viewers thanks to high ratings from Seven News, Today Tonight and Home and Away which just accounted for Two and Half Men, again Nine’s most popular show.

Nine News, A Current Affair and Wipeout were all around the 1.2 million mark, which is not a bad result but well behind all of Seven’s shows from 6-8:30 and in the 8:30 slot Two and A Half Men finished third in its slot beaten by Rafters and NCIS who had 1.2 million viewers.

Rush didn’t capitalize on last week’s figures or the lead-in from NCIS dropping about 200 000 viewers to finish third at 9:30PM with 912 000 viewers behind All Saints with 1.3 million and 20 to 1 who had 941 000 viewers.

Last night’s episode of Rush was not as sharp as its debut and was a bit of a let down. If the show continues to slide, we may, unfortunately have another Canal Road on our hands. A great shame when Rush looks like it could promise so much but perhaps this is why Ten are hiding the show in the 9:30 slot.

Tuesday’s ratings saw Seven (34.6%) win by almost 10% from Nine (25.5%), Ten (20.2%), ABC (15.4%) and SBS (4.3%)

Seven steal Sunday and maul Monday

Jamie Durie’s offensive comments about Nine’s Domestic Blitz didn’t damage his show in fact The Outdoor Room won its time slot which overall helped Seven steal Sunday from Nine.

With 1.356 million viewers, Durie’s newest show just defeated Blitz who itself had 1.349 million viewers nationally. The 7:30PM battle was just as close but 60 Minutes accounted for Dancing with the Stars with 1.349 million viewers while Dancing had 1.334.

Nine lost Sunday on the poor performance of Nine News which was thrashed by 500 000 viewers from Seven News and CSI: Miami which dropped to 1.028 million.

Idol was ten’s best show with 1.193 million and the repeat of Thank God You’re Here was also on the good side of 1 million but Rove wasn’t.

Sunday’s are the most competitive night for television and it will be interesting to see if Nine’s latest backyard show, Battlefronts can be as successful as Domestic Blitz has been and challenge The Outdoor Room.

If there was one poor performance by Seven it was the soft ratings that Outback Wildlife Rescue returned which was still on the good side of one million but dropped almost 300 000 viewers from The Outdoor Room.

Are there now perhaps too many versions of rescues, animals and a combination of the outback?

There are not too many other options avialable to the networks as we have follwoed police, firmmen, ambulance officers, doctors, nurses, vets, coast guards so what is left? Security Guard Dogs would be an entertaining show or maybe we can follow garbage collectors on their rounds around the suburbs and discover all the weird, wild and whacky pieces of garbage they find.

Sunday ended up like this:

Seven: 27.3%
Nine: 24.8%
TEN: 21.4%
ABC: 20.9%
SBS: 5.7%

OzTam

As for Monday, it was Seven, Seven, Seven...

City Homicide was the nations most popular show with almost 1.8 million viewers whilst The Force and Border Security had 1.6 million viewers. Seven News beat Nine News by 300 000 viewers (slightly closer this Monday) but there was only 100 000 viewers difference between Today Tonight, which beat A Current Affair.

New Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares: USA bombed for Nine as the celebrity chef was unable to cook up a much needed ratings storm for Nine in the 8:30 slot. Ramsay only 732 000 viewers which was beaten by Ten’s new teen drama 90210 which for its first episode had 837 000 viewers before bottoming out in episode two with only 666 000 viewers.

Ten was even defeated by the ABC last night as Idol only returned 1.1 million viewers and Taken Out should be taken off air, only recording 656 000 viewers. For the ABC its News and the 7.30 Report had more than one million viewers while Media Watch and Denton were just under one million viewers.

Two and A Half Men was Nine’s most poplar show and even defeated Home and Away by 27 000 viewers.

It was however, another big win to Seven which saw the network thrash its competitors, reading:

Seven: 33.4%
Nine: 21.8%
ABC: 19.7%
TEN: 17.8%
SBS: 7.3%

Oz Tam

It's all about Seven

Another week and another victory to Channel Seven (29.4%) but as the op_inion predicted the gap was closed by Nine (26.7%). Seven’s domination is led by Australian dramas Packed to the Rafters and City Homicide as well as all their factual documentary programs which have become synonymous with Seven’s brand.

Find My Family, Medical Emergency, RSPCA Animal Rescue, Border Security, The Force, Crash Investigation Unit are winning Seven the key 7:30-8:30PM slots Monday-Wednesday.

The reality television genres bubble has definitely now burst with Dancing with the Stars only debuting with 1.3 million viewers last week and Make Me A Supermodel failing to fire for Seven.

It’s all Australian drama and factual entertainment that is putting bums on seats for Seven and the formula is working.

Nine’s most popular program was 60 Minutes but Nine News and A Current Affair are continually thrashed by Seven News and Today Tonight amidst rumours that Eddie McGuire may soon be permanently in the ACA hot seat as Tracy Grimshaw may find herself on 60 Minutes.

Seven wins the week with their Monday-Wednesday schedule where Nine struggles but they will be banking on Gordon Ramsay to save them when a new season of Kitchen Nightmares: USA launches tomorrow night at 8:30PM.

Tuesdays have always been a problem for Nine who use to surrender the night when Seven screened Dancing with the Stars. Wipeout started to reverse that trend and the Two and A Half Men does OK but does not impact Rafters or NCIS.

At the moment Nine is surrendering Wednesdays by showing movies but that will change when Fringe launches this month, a gamble that the network needs to take.

Other notable performances last week were Domestic Blitz which defeated The Outdoor Room, The Strip debuting with 1.45 million viewers and Rush who had 1.1 million viewers of their own.

And they’re off… but is there room for three?

The Strip, Australia’s newest drama by two days was launched last night with 1.45 million viewers tuning into the Gold Coast cop drama helping Nine to win the slot and win the night. This comes off the back of Ten’s new cop drama, Rush which debuted on Tuesday night and Seven’s Packed to the Rafters which was launched last week.

After seeing all three dramas, Rafters has appealed to the most number of people reflected with their two million plus viewers watching on Tuesday night while Rush claimed 1.1 million themselves.

Each drama is led by recognisable Australian actors and introduces a number of new and fresh faces but will each drama have a second season?

The early indication is that Rafters will get the green light for series two after growing their audience in the first two episodes with over two million viewers, Seven look to all ready look to be backing a winner here.

Rush’s debut was softer but also expected against All Saints and in a 9:30PM time slot, there are not as many people watching TV as there are at 8:30. It’s disappointing that Ten has not scheduled Rush at 8:30 on Wednesday or Thursday night although the latter might hurt The Strip.

The op_inion wrote on Wednesday that Rush is the dark horse of the bunch but after seeing The Strip last night, I wish to reiterate my comments that Rush is the darkhorse but The Strip may struggle.

Setting the drama in the Gold Coast has given The Strip some fabulous visuals and Aaron Jeffery plays a stone cold police detective opposite some obvious onscreen (and rumoured off screen) chemistry with Vanessa Gray but this drama was harder to get in to.

Possibly the scripting had something to do with it with some of the dialogue delivered by Bob Morley really made you think about changing the channel. Luckily, The Strip has next to no competition in its schedule because Seven never does well on Thursdays and Ten has Law & Order which should see The Strip complete its first season unless Seven or Ten become more competitive on Thursday nights or the stories improve, you wouldn’t be rushing to commission a second series.

And excuse the pun because Rush should get a boost next week and hopefully by the end of the year we see Ten, like Seven announce that there will be a second series for Rush and Rafters respectively.

I am not writing off The Strip just yet, I hope that I am proved wrong and the storylines pickup next week and The Strip also gets a second series otherwise viewers may choose with their remote control to go elsewhere.

Rafter's rating through the roof

Packed to the Rafters lifted its ratings in the second episode which aired last night, eclipsing the magical 2 million viewer mark to win the night’s most popular show with 2.05 million viewers.

These enormous figures for Rafters are even more impressive with Ten screening a brand new episode of NCIS and Nine had their ‘Adult’s Only’ hour of Two and A Half Men.

Channel Ten’s new drama, Rush debuted with 1.16 million viewers, beaten by All Saints which had 1.3 million viewers also paying respect to deceased actor Mark Priestly.

Rush’s figures are OK for the new Australian drama in a program that had another take on policing. John Edwards’ influence is obvious with a Police Rescue-esque feel but the team are involved in more than just rescue operations.

Perhaps the show may be a bit of a dark horse with the number of new Australian dramas being launched, this one has not had the same push as Seven and Nine’s new shows but I think it definitely has legs and I was most impressed with the show. Rodger Corser leads the cast well and Catherine McClements is an obvious strength while Callan Mulvey and Nicole de Silva also impressed. Expect to see Rush’s ratings improve next week.

Tuesday is still owned by Seven with 34.4% of the audience share, thrashing Ten who finished second on 23.7% and Nine finished third with 23.1% of the audience share.

Seven has really struck a chord with audiences by scheduling RSPCA: Animal Rescue (1.7 million), Find My Family (1.6 million), Packed to the Rafters (2.045 million) and All Saints (1.3 million) on Tuesday night.

Nine’s best show was the Two and A Half Men repeat at 7pm (1.2 million viewers) but was beaten by Home and Away (1.4 million).

A huge night for Seven and a great night for Australian drama with the three products all rating above 1 million and for Rafters, the magical 2 million plus. Isn't it good to see that Australian television drama is back and we don't have to rely on American imports for ratings... now it's to The Strip

Nine wins Sunday

In possibly the most competitive and anticipated Sunday night in Australian television history, Nine came out on top with 60 Minutes defeating Dancing with the Stars as the evenings most popular television show.

Almost 1.6 million viewers tuned into 60 Minutes with Domestic Blitz (1.46 million) also defeating The Outdoor Room (1.3 million) in the coverted 6:30PM slot.

Seven News (1.526 million) narrowly defeated Nine News (1.507 million) with a major boost for Sydney’s Nine News (402 000) audience which defeated Seven News (389 000) with weeknight presenter, Mark Ferguson in the newsreaders chair.

Dancing with the Stars was still competitive with 1.33 million viewers but down on its previous highs which almost toppled the 2 million mark. Seven will be disappointed with that result with the new series receiving criticism for some of the deemed ‘inappropriate music’ and ‘raunchy costumes’ according to entertainment reporter Peter Ford this morning on 2UE’s Steve Price Morning Show.

Australian Idol was also strong claiming 1.3 million viewers while telemovie Scorched which was screened on Nine managed 1.1 million viewers.

The night was close but Nine still managed to defeat Seven by 2.7%, the figures looking like this:

Nine 27.7%

Seven 25.0%

Ten 23.5%

ABC 19.4%

SBS 4.4%