Not a lot of change into week 23 with Seven down 8,000 and Nine up 9,000. The biggest differentials were Seven Perth down 18k and Nine Brisbane down 12k.
Sydney and Brisbane remained the tightest contests with the incumbent Nine ahead in both by just 6k and 5k respectively. Both markets still with potential to swing to Seven.
Seven continued its dominance in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth as the halfway point of the year approaches with no sign of a win to Nine in any of the three markets.
Week 24 was overall a good week for news ratings that saw Seven up 24,000 and Nine up 17,000 in the 5-city market. Seven was within 1% of ratings for this week last year.
The biggest improvements came out of Sydney where both bulletins were up 14,000 with Nine maintaining its small lead of recent weeks.
Seven in Melbourne pulled further ahead, increasing its lead by 18,000.
Not a lot of change was seen in Brisbane as Seven slipped a bit further behind Nine.
Adelaide featured a 7,000 drop for Seven while Nine was almost unchanged while in Perth both bulletins improved slightly.
Week 26, the halfway point of the calendar is not far off.
All east coast market bulletins rated lower at the halfway point of the calendar year. The milestone saw Seven nationally and in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth reach 26 weekly wins to mean they cannot be beaten based on that measure. Melbourne’s result is the most significant as at this point last year, while Seven was ahead, Nine had won 11 weeks – this year none.
In the 5-city market, Seven was down 30,000 to its lowest result in 10 weeks while Nine was down 26,000, its lowest for four weeks.
In Sydney, with both bulletins down Seven was up 6% on week 26 of 2022 and edged closer to Nine that was down 11% on last year.
Melbourne saw Seven down 11k and Nine down 6k with both rating slight better than last year. Brisbane saw a split decision with Seven underperforming at 6.30 again and Nine taking the win across the hour.
Seven in Adelaide and Nine in Perth post small gains.
If there is any interest I will later post the average audience for the first 6 months of the year and compare that to 2022.
Report on the progress of the year so far at the halfway point of the calendar.
Tables based on average overnight posted audiences. In addition to the usual Mon-Fri that are tabulated, have also prepared Sunday and Saturday bulletins.
Many of the averages audience comparisons are in line with the weekly wins. The notable exceptions are Sydney and Brisbane that see Seven winning a clean sweep at 6pm across all markets; a surprising result for Sydney.
The calendar year contest in Sydney shows Nine ahead by just 1,000 across the hour while in Brisbane it is a tie after rounding. Nine in danger of losing its lead in its only winning markets.
In the Mon-Fri tables, Seven Perth is down the most but Nine has a substantial drop there as well, possibly reflecting various sporting events competing at 6pm. Next worse results come from Nine in Sydney and Adelaide while Seven in Adelaide had grown its audience. In Melbourne, while Seven has maintained its audience from last year Nine has lost significantly reflecting the weeks won results.
Weekend news audiences show some significant losses across all markets.
Same old, same old. They must be content with this. They know what they need to do if they don’t want to be third at 7pm, and second in some markets from 6-7.
They could easily do a mix of news/ACA/project styles. Today Tonight was number 1 then they tried those stupid local versions which didn’t work.
They dabbled during covid with The Latest at 7, and it did reasonably well for a new product when it was on.
By moving H&A to an hour at 7.30, twice weekly, they also solve their 7.30 problems on 2 nights.
I’d be doing it sooner rather than later. Imagine if Nine proceed with Jeopardy or Tipping Point at 5pm and it takes off giving 9 News and ACA a boost then 7 are on the back foot.
Seven Brisbane losing Saturday is concerning. They can usually claim the weekend.
Interesting, that Nine Perth pretty much retained their weekend numbers, despite drops on Seven. Nine Sydney did well on Saturdays too, with easy wins.
I know this conversation’s been done to death, but I’d think twice before moving Home and Away out of the 7pm slot.
H&A’s overnight numbers have been gradually improving this year, but that’s irrelevant - we should be focusing on the numbers released 24 hours later.
Most nights, H&A beats ABC News and ACA in regionals and BVOD, so its total figure is very narrowly behind those two programs. It’s doing just fine and I really don’t think there’s a case to move it.
I don’t necessarily buy into the argument that 6pm news viewers will keep their televisions on Seven for a 7pm current affairs program. ACA and ABC News are established programs with a loyal audience, so it would take quite a while to beat those programs.
Four markets ticked over the 27 weeks won milestone this week, remarkably one of those was Seven Melbourne for a massive turnaround in that market after winning 35 weeks just 2 years ago and 49 weeks in 2020.
This week Seven did well to win at 6pm in all markets. Nine was able to claw back some of that at 6.30 with wins in Sydney and Brisbane. It was enough in Sydney to narrowly win across the hour but not in Brisbane where Seven took its 6th win of the survey.
Seven was up 9,000 and Nine 7,000 in the 5-city market with changes in individual cities failly minor - the biggest change a 9,000 drop in Adelaide for Seven.
Next week will mark the halfway point for the survey period so look out for 20 wins in a market as the next milestone…
