After months of bad headlines, the team at TODAY finally have reason to smile with a win over arch rival SUNRISE.
Easter non-ratings is a funny time of the year and unexpected results can happen out of nowhere. As news dominated the ratings charts there was some movement in breakfast TV that will bring hope to produces and talent at Nine’s breakfast show.
Scroll down to the BATTLEZONES section for the full story.
Meanwhile, Seven took top spot for the week with a 32.4% network share and was #1 in all key demos. Seven’s 7mate was the #1 multichannel.
Married at First Sight continues to deliver for Nine even though its run has finished on broadcast TV. On the VPM rankings, MAFS continues to be Nine’s highest performing show with episode 41 at an average VPM of 340,00.
Network 10 saw a lift in its share, although it was still behind the ABC. With the launch of MasterChef on Monday executives will be praying the networks beats the public broadcaster.
It going to be an interesting weeks as we see what viewers choose with the return of official ratings. Will Lego Masters carry Nine to victory (my family watched episode 1 and loved it) or will the “all new” House Rules bring Seven Home… or maybe, even maybe, there’s still life left in MasterChef for 10.
It’s going to be a fascinating week!
NETWORK SHARES
Seven: 32.4%
Nine: 26.2%
ABC: 17.4%
10: 16.4%
SBS: 7.6%
2019 RATINGS CHART – NETWORK SHARES WEEKS 1 TO 17
Primary channel shares tell a similar story with Seven (21.9%) lifting slightly from last week, out in front of Nine (17.3%) and the ABC (12.4%) ahead of 10 (10.5%).
WEEK 17 RATINGS
**All data below has been calculated from overnight top 20 lists provided by OzTam, not adjusted figures**
BIGGEST SHOWS FOR EACH NETWORK (excluding nightly news)
SEVEN: MY KITCHEN RULES (Tuesday) – 825,000
NINE: A CURRENT AFFAIR (Monday – Friday) – 664,000
10: DANCING WITH THE STARS – THE WINNER ANNOUNCED (Monday) – 687,000
ABC: VERA (Sunday) – 672,000
Sport and news dominated the charts this week, which is to be expected during the Easter period.
BATTLEZONES – BREAKFAST
While Sunrise remained the number 1 breakfast show overall in the metros, TODAY had a victory in Sydney where it beat Seven’s offering 69,000 to 66,000. It’s not a huge win and it’s only one market, but a win is a win and it offers hope to the team who are working hard to improve ratings and the perception of the show. The win came while Deb Knight and Tom Steinfort were hosting as Georgie Gardner was on holidays.
Sunrise, however, was very dominant in the other markets which led to its big win over TODAY (although not as big as previous weeks). The next big test will be the return to normal viewing habits now that school holidays is coming to an end and the shows keep to normal time slots (Sunrise extended to 10am on the public holidays over Easter).
BATTLEZONES – MORNING TV
The morning shows really benefited over the Easter holidays with more available audience. Interestingly, even though TODAY lagged behind Sunrise, its sister show TODAY EXTRA closed the gap to just 2,000 viewers behind The Morning Show. That’s a phenomenal result!
Strangely, Studio 10 used to really benefit from school and public holidays but is still sitting below 60,000. Will viewers ever give the show another chance now that its finding its voice again?
BATTLEZONES – NEWS
The 7 News/Today Tonight hour was a winner, not only for the news battlezone but also topping the weekly rankings overall. Seven won Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The Melbourne result was by a huge margin and on any other week would be a headline here due to how close Nine and Seven are these days, but the result for Seven was skewed by sport.
9 News won Sydney and Brisbane.
BATTLEZONES – 7PM
A much closer battle this week, most likely due to school holidays. A Current Affair remained out in front with a tussle between ABC News and Home & Away for second. The Project remained a distant fourth.
The following charts have been provided by Nine and focus on commercial television;
Co-Creator and Editor of the TV Blackbox website, Robert McKnight is highly regarded Australian Television Producer, he has worked at SEVEN, NINE and TEN, and is most well-known for creating and producing STUDIO 10. Currently Rob is the host and producer of the TV Blackbox, McKnight Tonight and Monsters Who Murder podcasts.
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