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Seven News claims national victory in the all-important 6pm news battle

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In what’s been an extremely hectic and stressful year, there was a rare outburst of celebration in a number of TV newsrooms across the country this weekend.

But to explain why, first we are going to need a short history lesson.

The tradition in the Australian Television industry for many years has been to measure performance by weeks won. There are 40 official weeks in the survey year, meaning that the network first ‘past the post’ with 21 weekly wins has been entitled to claim victory as the Nb1 news bulletin in that city.

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Over the last three years, networks have moved away from this model to a new system which measures an average audience percentage measured across the entire calendar year. While this new system delivers a far more accurate measure to advertisers, many traditionalists in newsrooms across the country still keep a very close eye on weeks won.

So that brings us to this weekend, at the completion of the 21st week in official survey 7News at 6pm has now won 21 weeks averaged across the 5-City metro markets, and regionally across Australia.

Unsurprisingly, 7News has once again won all 21 weeks in Adelaide and Perth by a considerable margin. These two cities are incredibly loyal to Seven, so much so it sometimes feels like viewers might have lost their remotes…

In the big three East Coast cities however it’s a different story. 9News has now claimed the year in Sydney winning all 21 weeks. In Melbourne, Nine is one week away from achieving victory, while Brisbane remains the most competitive market in the country with Nine sitting on 16 wins, but the margins are often separated by only a few thousand viewers.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, ‘weeks won’ is no longer considered the official measure and network publicists are reluctant to discuss it, however TV Blackbox did obtain this exclusive response from a Seven spokesperson regarding the milestone.

“We normally talk ratings success at the end of the ratings year but in response to your question, 7NEWS has for the fifth consecutive year won the first 21 weeks of the ratings year in the 5-City metro markets and most importantly every week nationally.”

“7NEWS is on track to again win every ratings week for five years in succession.”

“In the east coast markets the total gap has dramatically dropped from 180,000 five years ago to just 50k.”

Sunrise, Weekend Sunrise and The Morning Show have to date won every ratings week.

“In its first 12 months, 7NEWS.com.au has recorded incredible growth. From nowhere it sits as the Number 3 News website with more than 1.5 million Australians reading it every day. Well ahead of any commercial TV News site.“

Meanwhile, Nine used social media to acknowledge its Sydney victory with News Director Simon Hobbs taking to Twitter to send his troops this message:

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Kevin Perry
Kevin Perryhttps://tvblackbox.com.au/author-kevin-perry/
Senior Editor and Co-Owner of the TV Blackbox website, Kevin Perry is an experienced media commentator focused on TV Production, Consumer Tech, SVOD & Sports Broadcasting. Media enquiries please Call or Text 0428-275-111
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