Neither was 2004. Only the Athens Olympics, Seven News in Sydney (anchored by Ian Ross) and Dancing with the Stars saved them from even further ratings embarrassment that year.
The tide started to turn in 2005, thanks to Lleyton reaching the Australian Open final…
I don’t entirely disagree. FTA has done a lot to shoot itself in the foot, but I think even with an increase in population the plethora of alternatives that we have now even compared to 2003, plus a more tech-savvy and connected audience and everyone with a smartphone in their hand, it was always going to go downhill for FTA. But I agree that the way that the networks have treated audiences have done them no favours, either.
Micallef Tonight averaging about what Mad as Hell gets now, his audience never went away.
A snapshot of Melbourne’s weekly ratings results, March 1987:
Ten wins the first four-week survey of the year, miles ahead of Nine and Seven, largely on the back of Eyewitness News, Neighbours and the mini-series Vietnam. ABC barely scraping in double figures, and SBS just a fraction below 2 per cent.
Source: The Age
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PYERAAAAIBAJ&sjid=T-MDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2441%2C2064232
How things were tracking in Melbourne 30 years ago. Ratings for 12.5.1991 to 18.5.1991.
Source: The Age Green Guide
We take ratings discussion and availability so much for granted now, but for a lot of us, weekly reports like these were all we ever got. The Sun also used to do a weekly ratings report on Thursdays, as in those days the previous week’s results came out on Wednesday. There was certainly no overnight numbers!
Interesting to see that Neighbours was still rating around 2nd place at 7.00pm in 1991. Probably one of the few shows keeping Ten above that magic 20 per cent share for the week!
Ratings report for Melbourne for the week of 14-20 February 1988.
Nine - 34.2%
Ten - 30.5%
Seven - 25.1%
ABC - 8.9%
SBS - 1.4%
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=hPwxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-pYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2646%2C1905610
Ratings report for Melbourne for the week 6-12 June 1982
Nine - 33.7%
Seven - 27.6%
Ten - 25.6%
ABC - 11.2%
SBS - 1.9%
I vividly remember the week that Sara Dane mini series went to air. We had a primary school convict day where all the kids had to come dressed in first settler themed garb. Most kids came dressed in pyjamas with arrows drawn on them in texta.
Those Ten mini series period piece productions were always event television. Such a pity they haven’t been re-mastered and made available on a streaming service. I’d love to watch some of them again.
I like how a rating of 35 was considered “respectable”. I would’ve thought such a figure would be shooting the lights out even for that time.
I think a lot of them were released on DVD in recent years, and some have (I suspect breaching copyright) been uploaded to Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine
It is a shame though that some of them are not made more available on streaming platforms or even on somewhere like ABC TV Plus.
Exactly. That number, even then, would have had champagne corks popping, especially at Ten. Much more than “respectable”. The Seven numbers in the 20s would be appropriately regarded “respectable”.
A quick Google suggests that Sara Dane is on Amazon Prime - its a bit of a shame that we dont see modern miniseries like we had in the 80s.
A report on the Brisbane TV scene in 1990, though only among the commercial networks. Given that the magazine is aimed at advertisers they’d presumably have little interest in ABC or (then) SBS 
Source: AdNews
Amazing to see a program crack 2mil in primetime.
And the top program of the week being on 10
Border Security getting 1.8?!?! 
This was around the time Schapelle Corby was jailed IIRC, which boosted their ratings
A couple of weeks later
Sun, 31/07/2005-Sat, 06/08/2005
| 1 | DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES | Seven | 2,036,000 |
| 2 | LOST | Seven | 1,917,000 |
| 3 | BORDER SECURITY - AUSTRALIA’S FRONT LINE-TUES | Seven | 1,807,000 |
| 4 | NATIONAL NINE NEWS SUNDAY | Nine | 1,802,000 |
| 5 | MYTHBUSTERS - JAWS SPECIAL | Seven | 1,730,000 |
| 6 | HOUSE - WED | Ten | 1,684,000 |
| 7 | MEDICAL EMERGENCY-TUES | Seven | 1,528,000 |
| 8 | AUSTRALIAN IDOL - AUDITION 4 | Ten | 1,511,000 |
| 9 | SEVEN NEWS - SUN | Seven | 1,488,000 |
| 10 | AUSTRALIAN IDOL - AUDITION 3 | Ten | 1,481,000 |
| 11 | TODAY TONIGHT | Seven | 1,467,000 |
| 12 | SEVEN NEWS | Seven | 1,442,000 |
| 13 | THE AMAZING RACE | Seven | 1,388,000 |
| 14 | BIG BROTHER LIVE EVICTION | Ten | 1,357,000 |
| 15 | BIG BROTHER LIVE NOMINATION | Ten | 1,351,000 |
| 16 | GETAWAY | Nine | 1,345,000 |
| 17 | 60 MINUTES | Nine | 1,338,000 |
| 18 | AUSTRALIA’S GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS | Seven | 1,337,000 |
| 19 | THE GREAT OUTDOORS | Seven | 1,333,000 |
| 20 | ALL SAINTS | Seven | 1,332,000 |
| 21 | BACKYARD BLITZ | Nine | 1,329,000 |
| 22 | WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE | Nine | 1,308,000 |
| 23 | LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT | Ten | 1,296,000 |
| 24 | HOME AND AWAY | Seven | 1,289,000 |
| 25 | NATIONAL NINE NEWS | Nine | 1,278,000 |
| 26 | TEMPTATION | Nine | 1,275,000 |
| 27 | LAS VEGAS | Seven | 1,274,000 |
| 28 | A CURRENT AFFAIR | Nine | 1,266,000 |
| 29 | BIG BROTHER - FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE | Ten | 1,263,000 |
| 30 | ABC NEWS | ABC | 1,258,000 |
The good old times when TV Week used to publish the top 10 ratings each week. This was stopped about two or so years ago to fill in more Home and Away “stories”. lol
Wow, that top 30 list. Everything rated over 1.2million. Three American Dramas made the top 10 (Desperate Housewives, Lost and House). Impressive. And Temptation (quiz show) was 26th? Nice 
the days when anything that fell below 1m would get the chop! I think The Renovators in 2011 got around 750,000 and at the time it was like ohmygoshwhataflopnobodyiswatchingthisshowkillitnow.
Now networks would love to have shows at that level.
