Wow, didn’t this age poorly?! Oh well, I might as well have a go at making some general ratings predictions for 2021 anyway…
If the Tokyo Olympics go ahead next year, I think we’ll see Seven ahead in overall viewing shares come November 27 but with Nine winning more ratings weeks overall. Outside of news/sport, there isn’t really much in primetime which I can see being a major success for Seven in 2021.
The next season of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here will do OK against the cricket and whatever Nine is planning to schedule during January. Aside from the finals, programs on Seven & Ten will outrate Nine’s coverage of Australian Open during February. MAFS to continue gradually declining in the ratings.
Lego Masters, Australian Ninja Warrior and The Masked Singer will also continue to decline year on year, but still rate better than anything Seven has on after the Olympics. MasterChef and The Block may benefit slightly from there being no 2021 seasons of MKR or House Rules.
Holey Moley could be a surprise hit but I’d probably expect poor ratings for Big Brother, Australia’s Got Talent and The Voice on Seven. The Farmer Wants A Wife will likely perform strongly in regional markets and the Seven-loyalist metro markets of Perth & Adelaide, but only receive lukewarm ratings in the East Coast markets.
Have You Been Paying Attention will likely receive higher ratings as a result of the ABC moving Q&A to Thursdays, while it very well could be the beginning of the end for Gogglebox due to franchise fatigue, an overreliance on reality show reviews and possibly another longtime household or two moving onto broader media horizons. After the US celebrity version of Gogglebox received absolutely disastrous ratings for Ten this year, I really can’t imagine the upcoming Aussie celeb version doing any better if it’s airing on FTA as well as Foxtel.
The AFL and NRL Grand Finals will receive less viewers than recent years, especially if the teams playing for the trophy are again some who’ve won recent premierships (hopefully not - I’m getting rather sick of seeing the Roosters and/or Storm in NRL GFs!). State of Origin ratings will recover due to being back at the usual June/July time of year, but the days of at least one of the three matches receiving 1 million viewers in Sydney are long gone.
ABC & SBS primetime ratings will increase slightly year on year, as the public broadcasters generally offer a more stable lineup than their commercial counterparts. The latest series of Untold Australia docos should do reasonable business for SBS during January while the ABC should get reasonable ratings for its lineup of comedy/light entertainment (Gruen, Mad As Hell, Hard Quiz, revived Spicks & Specks) observational shows (Love On The Spectrum, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds) and of course, Bluey!
From a multichannel perspective, I think 7mate, 7TWO (due to Olympics coverage) and 9Go! will be the top choices at the end of the year. The rebrand of ABC COMEDY to ABC TV Plus won’t make much of a difference to the ratings of that channel. By the end of 2021 I would probably expect to see a rebrand of SBS VICELAND but as per ABC TV Plus, no obvious ratings effects expected.
Finally the big one…News, Current Affairs & Daytime. Seven will continue to dominate Perth with nightly wins from January 1 to December 31 in that city. Adelaide viewers will largely remain loyal to Seven, however Nine will start to win nights and perhaps even the odd week or two by the end of 2021. On the East Coast, Seven will probably regain South East Queensland while Nine holds onto Melbourne and of course, Sydney where I’d expect the 6.30pm ratings to improve following the recent departure of David Brown from Seven’s Sydney bulletin. As much as they really should, I’m not expecting Nine to capitalise on this and bring in a meteorologist as their main presenter. On the flipside, Seven will probably persist with Mark Ferguson even though Michael Usher should be their equivalent to Peter Overton.
A Current Affair will remain #1 at 7pm on the East Coast overall, however I’d probably expect to see ABC News continue challenging ACA’s dominance of the timeslot in Melbourne and to a lesser extent Sydney. Tracy Grimshaw will continue to smash ABC News in South East QLD, because it seems viewers up there really like trashy content (I mean, how else can the absolute disgrace to Australian television journalism that is Nine News Queensland be explained?!).
10 News First will remain 10 News Fourth ratings wise and by this time next year, likely only be producing a national 5pm bulletin (maybe an updated version for Perth with Narelda will remain if she outrates Monika on Nine, but that’s about it) due to further network cutbacks. By some miracle, The Project will continue to remain relatively unscathed by such budget changes.
Sunrise, The Morning Show and The Chase (both UK and Australian versions) will continue to perform strongly for Seven. Today, Today Extra and Hot Seat will be reasonable performers for Nine, however this may be the final year of Studio 10 and Q&A with that program’s move to Thursdays - can’t imagine such a highly political show radiating the same “almost the weekend feel” that footy and Australia’s most famous TV viewers do. I’d probably expect to see Australian Story, Four Corners and Media Watch continue to do good business for the ABC on Monday nights though.
Phew, think that’s just about everything!