most people don’t give rats about the American elections. and the ratings prove that. I agree with @JBar. Australians don’t care about the American elections.
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i knows lots of people didnt even watch or changed channell . i think its time the networks rethink about internations elections . australians dont really care who is going to be president or pm of another govt
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Yes agreed, but thats not really the point - simply offering rolling coverage, even if not everyone watches it, creates a viewer perception that they are committed to in depth news coverage of big stories. Its about consumer perception and brand association more than the actual event. I also think while maybe the media hype is exaggerated, there is genuine interest from Australians @JasonF
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The fact that ABCNews24 rated almost 8% last night (almost beating 10’s main channel) proves you very wrong.
As for daytime numbers, it’s because apart from the multi-channels there was a total roadblock across FTA for election coverage. There’s only so many viewers that can be spread across the 5 networks, so of course daytime was down.
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I think the thing that bothers me isn’t so much that Australian networks are covering the US Election, but the fact that we’re arguably getting better coverage of it than our own state/federal elections. You know, the ones Australians are actually eligible to vote in!
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pfft thats just those with a box. which doesnt mean much for the every day australians )those who dont or dont want a box
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Yeah interesting, I guess all the partner networks in the US (especially CNN imo) are offering great coverage, so while local networks probably aren’t spending as much as they do on local election coverage, the use of US networks significantly improves the quality.
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Good point. We don’t have rolling coverage through the day of our own elections. Lately, we haven’t even had every network cover our own elections.
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We certainly are getting more coverage - but I wouldn’t say that it’s better from a quality standpoint
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Fair point, although it’s rather interesting how Australian networks (particularly Seven & Nine) have been happy to televise the US Presidential “Debates” when similar events featuring the leaders of our own elections have been reduced in prominence in recent years. Certainly Nine hasn’t done “The Great Debate” for the last Federal Election or two like they did back in the 1990s and 2000s when it was a must watch pre-election event at 7.30pm on a Sunday night.
And when was the last time prominent television coverage was given to a leaders debate ahead of a state election? Sure I remember a debate between Gladys & Michael Daley airing on the ABC leading up to the 2019 NSW Election, but don’t recall ever seeing anything like that on the commercial networks.
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The television ratings figures don’t include people at work looking at and reading the election news on their computers and mobile phones, people listening to the radio wherever they are, and people watching television news channels from other sources such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and websites. I think you are underestimating the interest in Australia.
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Networks let their affiliates know when they’re going to ad breaks so they can cut to their own breaks; it’s not visible on screen.
Different networks do it in different ways. I posted what 7’s one looked like a while back:
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I think it’s important to note that this is the first time an American election had been covered in this manner, and that there is particular interest in it as it’s an event which is seen by so many as world changing.
Unfortunately Australian elections are small fry in comparison.
The other point of note is also that the time difference makes it easier for Australian channels to provide rolling coverage and for it to look more impressive. Australian federal election vote counting isn’t interesting until much later in the evening when the voting is well underway, and takes much less time to count.
I don’t think the comparison is fair.
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Savannah Guthrie co-anchoring this as well for the second night AND was also doing NBC Today earlier in the day from 6am ET. Can’t imagine how she’s managing to hold up for such long stints. Even the voice is beginning to crack listening to her just now. Lester Holt also continuing after presenting the evening news as well.
It looks like parts of the coverage are looping overnight - as there is a bug labelled “Earlier” in the top left of the coverage from the last couple of hours.
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Sky news and Alan jones analyzing the rigged election with so much fraud. 
no evidence sited.
Copious amounts of Starbucks coffee is keeping Savannah going according to her IG story.
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Lots of coffee for the anchors in the States. 48 hours and counting. Must be a TV record
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Alan Jones using quotes from Stalin in his commentary on the legation. Dear Lord… this is a akin to using quotes from hitler.
Paul Murray on air now saying if Biden wins China is coming for Australia. they love the politics of fear.
Holy whoa. How did you access this? Is this encoded in the transport stream?