With the Andrews Government having an almost 70% approval rating in Victoria , I think Seven have miss read the Melbourne audience and the structure of their news stories through Covid and the resent lockdowns.
I’m inclined to think Sunrise falling in Melbourne is also playing a part on the nightly bulletin and the 7 news brand as whole. If I’m not mistaken Sunrise was winning Melbourne in 2019, now it’s 3rd behind News Breakfast and Today.
The local Melbourne Afternoon News which was a ratting winner for the station, has also fallen to 2nd spot behind Nines products.
HSV7 local publicity department was also axed last year along with local sports based shows. This all plays a part on the bigger picture. Shame.
The first week of summer ‘no-ratings’ period and there were come close contests. Seven narrowly won Brisbane and at 6pm in Sydney. Overall Seven dropped 29,000 while Nine gained 100 extra viewers from last week.
Worth noting that in 2018, Seven News won its only ratings week in Sydney by just 100 viewers - and it just happened to be the biggest news week of the year (when Malcolm Turnbull got deposed as Prime Minister by Scott Morrison).
Now Seven need to look at the 6:30pm half hour in Sydney where sport and weather are key features.
Looks like some Sydneysiders turn from Seven to Nine at 6:30pm as perhaps they’d rather have Cam Williams and Amber Sherlock present their sport and weather, as opposed to Mel McLaughlin and Angie Asimus on Seven.
It’s pretty obvious how Seven News Sydney could instantly improve the sports segment - by replacing Mel McLaughlin with Matt Shirvington.
From a weather coverage perspective I’d personally like to see Seven News Sydney bring in a new meteorologist, but realistically think we’ll see them stick with Angie Asimus and Sally Bowrey for the foreseeable future.
And I’ve noticed too that Matt Shirvington has presented Sydney sport on a few Wednesday’s and Thursday’s in the last few weeks, so maybe there’s a smooth transition plan going on behind the scenes.
Seven News across the five cities was down 37,000 with a 17,000 drop in Sydney the biggest contributor. Nine slipped 5,000 mitigated by Melbourne’s bulletin posting a 15,000 improvement. Another very close contest in Brisbane.
Nine’s new look afternoon hasn’t produced any positive flow-on results at 6pm. The one hour numbers were 10,000 or 15% lower week-on-week. It was the bulletin’s lowest rating since March and is down 19% from week 50 of 2019. Seven’s bulletin lost 4,000 viewers. Meanwhile 10 News First, a potential target of Nine’s changes, was up 1,000 with the 5pm bulletin ourating Nine at 6pm on two nights.
An end of week boost to viewing particularly in Sydney saw audiences close to the previous week. Seven News was down 2,000 and Nine was up 4,000. The biggest changes were Nine Melbourne down 19,000 offset by Nine Sydney up 14,000. Adelaide numbers were low, probably impacted by cricket with Seven’s bulletin posting its lowest number since January.
For the second straight year Seven won all 52 weeks in the 5-city total plus in Adelaide and Perth. Nine, however managed to improve their situation for a comprehensive victory in Melbourne while taking the crown from Seven in Brisbane while retaining their dominance in Sydney.
You’d think that Seven News will win several ratings weeks in the three East Coast metro markets (but with Nine remaining #1 overall, of course) during 2021 if the Tokyo Olympics go ahead?
Average overnight audiences for the full year now available. No significant differences from the official ratings period with most bulletins rating slightly lower when the summer schedule is added in. Brisbane incredibly close - had to add an extra decimal to separate the 6pm segment.
If 10 thinks those numbers for Brisbane and Adelaide are holding up well, they’re kidding themselves. A whopping 10% down for the whole year after mainly solid ratings for most of the year. Clearly the centralisation has hit the most affected stations hard.
