Ahead of the network’s 2019 Up Fronts to be held Friday, the Seven Network today released its 2018 ratings scorecard after 34 of the 40 ratings weeks.
Seven’s Director of Network Programming Angus Ross said: “After a close win last year, we promised to up our game in 2018, and the team has delivered in spades.
“We’ve broken records and dominated the ratings throughout the year. In fact, in every month we have never dropped below a 39% share, while our competitors have never been above 39%. Our worst is still better than their best.
“What’s particularly pleasing is that this success is down to the strength and depth of our programming across the board. From 6am to midnight, we have the strongest spine of ratings winners, bar none. And with the AFL and Cricket locked up until 2022, Seven can guarantee those mass audiences, and certainty for our advertisers, for years to come.”
“We’re now looking forward to unveiling our plans for 2019 at our Allfronts tomorrow.”
Seven West Media Chief Revenue Officer Kurt Burnette said: “We said we would deliver and we did. It’s always an incredibly important outcome for us when we can deliver for our partners and it is our very clear objective to do that again with audience and business solutions in 2019.”
Today’s release shows how Seven has “unassailable leads in, and will win, the following categories” -
No.1 Network for Total People – Seven Network (For the 12th consecutive year)
No.1 Channel for Total People – Channel 7 (For the 12th consecutive year)
No.1 Multi-channel for Total People, P25-54 & Men – 7mate
No.1 All Day (6am – Midnight) – Seven Network
No.1 Primetime (6pm – Midnight) – Seven Network
No.1 BVOD Live Streaming (CFTA) – 7plus
No.1 News – 7 News
No.1 Breakfast - Sunrise
No.1 Mornings - The Morning Show
No.1 Winter Sport - AFL
No.1 Drama - The Good Doctor
No.1 Lifestyle – Better Homes & Gardens
No.1 5-6pm Weekdays - The Chase Australia
No.1 New Aussie Show – The Real Full Monty
No.1 Non-sport one-off event: Royal Wedding: Prince Harry & Meghan
In addition, so far this year Seven
Is leading the P25-54, P16-39 and P18-49 demographics, and is on track to win them all
Has the highest commercial share of Total People in OzTAM ratings history (40.4%)
Has its highest ever shares of P25-54 (37%) P16-39 (36.7%) and P18-49 (36.7%)
Is the only commercial network to have increased share YoY across Total People, P25-54, P16-39 and P18-49
Has won 28 of the 33 non-Commonwealth Games ratings weeks
Notice the use of the word ‘Network’. To me that includes multichannels. If Nine were saying they’re number one in key demos without ‘Network’ after the ‘Nine’ then they’re probably talking about the primary channel.
Marks excluded the Winter Olympics and Comm Games, as well as any other one-off event during that graphic. Could it also be commercial (excluding ABC and SBS from calculations)?
If that’s the case, I like to see how well Seven believes/think they can perform when they don’t have a 2nd half lineup that pretty much crashes and burns year-after-year
And they don’t have the tennis this year, which was exclusive to the screens of Seven. The cricket will be shared with Foxtel, so I doubt we’ll see the same level of free-to-air viewers watching on Seven that were watching on Ten (who had exclusive BBL).
Hugh Marks said at the Nine Up Fronts (from a recording I made)
“In the year-to-date, excluding one off events, we are again the preferred destination for viewers 25-54, 16-39 and shoppers and children, for both network and primary channel shares in peak.”
So the questions are
What events are excluded
What is a one off event? - Commonwealth Games, Winter Olympics, Royal Wedding even?
What does preferred destination mean
Is it a similar claim to “Nine are your preferred news service”?
What does year-to-date mean
Is it the calendar year or ratings year (I personally don’t mind if they make a claim regarding the full year instead of the artificial ratings period - but let’s compare the same thing).
What does “peak” mean?
Is it 6pm-midnight Sunday to Saturday usually referred to as “prime time” or some other time period.
And it’s with an attitude like that which shows how Seven just doesn’t get it. Seven may have won this year but there are holes appearing everywhere in their schedule. MKR and HR are down, new formats failed to impress and dramas dying.
By contrast, Nine and in particular Ten are dishing out plenty of new stuff and are getting some success. Just because Seven’s Number 1 doesn’t mean they should boast and brag about it.
They might have some new stuff but they still lost to Seven. Bragging rights has always accompanied winning, no matter who it is. It lets them continue to attract advertisers and charge premium rates.
That might be the case, but it doesn’t make it right in a corporate sense. Their complacency is what’s hurting their ratings (particularly in the 2nd half) despite their leadership, and they should be continuing to innovate and search for new programming every year rather than dishing out the same trash.
I don’t know why you keep saying that when it’s clearly not true. This year alone they have had Dance Boss, Take Me Out, All Together Now, Emergency Calls. They try new shows every year but the problem is they keep failing.
But none of that is new. All Together Now is another singing show, Dance Boss is another dancing show, Take Me Out is another dating show and Emergency Call…I think we all know what that is.
So in reality nothing is new about them (unlike True Story or This time Next Year etc.)
Look I agree that Seven need some new ideas but that’s easier said than done.
Those shows may have been hits (at least initially) but they still haven’t helped Nine win. They are still relying on aging shows like The Block and The Voice.
