Personally I think we’ll see Nine win the most number of ratings weeks (again, benefiting from being “the least worst option” in primetime for much of the year), with Seven ahead in overall viewing shares at the end of 2020 due to primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics.
I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here should do reasonably well to start off with, but will probably get smashed by the cricket/tennis towards the end. Married At First Sight will continue to smash it for Nine off the back of the tennis as MAFS continues to provide viewers with manufactured dramas which quite frankly, make Love On The Spectrum and Love Me As I Am look like Play School in comparison.
Lego Masters, The Voice, Australian Ninja Warrior, The Block and The Masked Singer to receive audience declines, but all will probably rate better than anything Seven puts to air post-7.30pm, after the Olympics. Probably the final seasons (or one of the final seasons) for My Kitchen Rules, House Rules and MasterChef with those shows getting ratings well past their best.
The Bachelor/ette and Have You Been Paying Attention? will probably continue to bring in the viewers for Ten, but I’m expecting Gogglebox Australia to decline as further original cast members depart for more career expansive media profile boost vehicles and the program continues to overrely on “reality” show reviews.
In Sport, the Tokyo Olympics and AFL will be among the few bright spots for Seven in 2020. The AFL/NRL Grand Finals again to recieve less viewers than previous years especially if the teams playing for the trophy are as popular (or should I say, unpopular) with non-fans as the 2018 & 2019 Grand Finalists were. A game of New South Wales v the rest of Australia…I mean, State Of Origin rugby league will probably be Nine’s highest rating telecast of the year.
Last but certainly not least…News, Current Affairs and Daytime: Despite the axing of Today Tonight, Seven will probably continue to dominate Adelaide & Perth with wins every night from January 1 to December 31. Nine News will probably hold onto Sydney, but the gap at 6.30pm will continue to get tighter with Seven winning that half hour during several weeks of the year. As much as they shouldn’t, Nine will continue to ignore the fact that they need to improve their Sydney weather coverage while Seven will continue to ignore the fact that Mark Ferguson just isn’t the right presenter to lead a Sydney 6pm bulletin to #1 in the ratings.
A Current Affair will somehow remain the #1 program at 7pm along the East Coast, with ABC News and The Project either 2nd or 3rd (depending on the market) while Home & Away struggles for Seven. By the end of 2020, we’ll probably hear rumours that Seven want to launch a new nightly national “current/public affairs” program for the 7pm timeslot.
Today will continue to struggle in the ratings against a seemingly unstoppable Sunrise and even News Breakfast on the ABC, with Allison & Karl likely to receive just as much abuse from the media (particularly News Corp & The Daily Mail) and the general public as Georgie, Deb & Tom did. The Morning Show, sister program The Daily Edition and The Chase (both UK & Australia) should continue to do good business for Seven’s daytime ratings. Hot Seat will continue to decline, with Nine probably eventually replacing it with Tipping Point Australia.
ABC News at 7pm + 7.30 will probably remain steady or slightly down in the ratings compared to 2019, but the ever reliable Monday night lineup of Australian Story, Four Corners, Media Watch and Q&A should again do good business and receive a higher audience share than Ten during several weeks of the year.
10 News First will again, remain 10 News Fourth as far as the ratings are concerned. The 6pm half hour will probably rate well enough over the Summer to become a permanent fixture of the schedule, but I’m not expecting it to become #1 or even #2 (except in Perth, where Nine News seems to be universally unpopular in the same way that Seven News is universally popular) unless they position it as being a completely separate product from the 5pm hour right to the point of there being new presenters for the final 30 minutes. Meanwhile, The Project & Studio 10 will probably remain steady.
I think that’s just about everything…