Congratulations to Seven News in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and the 5-city market for 20 wins in the survey period. The result didn’t look in doubt at almost any point during the year and cements Seven’s news brand as number one nationally and in those markets.
In the three 20-week markets Nine’s bulletin lost ground in all three last week, down 14k in Melbourne, 6k in Adelaide and 2k in Perth. Seven was also down 10k in Melbourne but up 1k in Adelaide and 9k in Perth.
Overall Seven was down 12k and Nine 13k.
The contest continues in Sydney and Brisbane. In Brisbane Nine bounced back, up 7k as Seven had some poor results to drop by 12k.
In Sydney, Seven was leading the week until Friday night when a big win pushed Nine ahead in both segments of the bulletin. Nine was down 15% on week 28 on 2021 while Sven was up 5%.
Report on the progress so far this year at the halfway point of the survey.
Tables based on average overnight posted audiences. In addition to the usual Mon-Fri that are tabulated, have also prepared Sunday and Saturday bulletins.
Most of the averages audience comparisons are in line with the weekly wins with Sydney and Brisbane the closest.
Most bulletin numbers are down. Biggest drops are Nine Sydney and Adelaide plus Seven Perth. Nine’s Saturday bulletin, going against that trend in four markets.
It’s probably not directly related but I think the return of Rebecca Maddern certainly helped them as she appears to resonate with Seven viewers very well.
Seven News has now reached 21 weeks won in four markets for a survey win in 5-city, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Sydney and especially Brisbane are still producing close results but the Nine is starting to pull away in both based on weeks won.
Last week Seven lost 19,000 viewers on average while Nine picked up an extra 8,000. Seven’s biggest drop was in Melbourne, down 17,000 against a 2,000 loss for NIne. Seven Brisbane welcomed an extra 5,000 viewers but lost both half hour segments despite Nine being down 4,000. Nine News Sydney was up 9k as Seven dropped 3k while Nine in Perth managed a 6k increase against Seven that was steady.
Not a good week for Nine, with a 6,000 viewer win in Sydney and losses elsewhere. Nine was down by 25k that included a 18k drop in Sydney and 8k drop in Brisbane.
Seven, by contrast was up by 16k. While Sydney dropped by 7k, Melbourne was up 8k and the oher markets up by around 5k each. Brisbane was notable for a win with a 6k margin.
Monday saw Seven win the 5-city market by a remarkable 235k including a 42k win in Melbourne, 63k in Adelaide and 83k in Perth while Brisbane was ahead by 30k and Sydney by 18k.
Seven was on par with Week 30 of 2022 but Nine was down 9%.
Week 31 typified the problems that Nine are facing with their news results this year and regular readers of this comparison topic won’t have been surprised with the announcement that Hot Seat will be discontinued.
The week saw Seven win all markets except Sydney and in Sydney win the 6.30pm part of the news giving Nine a win in that market by just 400 viewers while Nine’s Brisbane audience was the lowest since April.
A look at this week last week shows that Nine won all east coast markets and was less than 30k behind Seven in the 5-city total. This year, the gap is 120k. Nine needed to react.
I don’t know if it’s too late to ask this, but , at the end of the year, I would be interested to know if 10’s ratings have improved at 5pm- at the expense of Nine- since returning the bulletin to Adelaide. I would think that having more competition from a similar product at 5pm would mean a weaker lead-in for Nine’s 6pm news and potentially explain some of the YoY decline.
That matches what we have been looking at here. Strange to claim they can’t be beaten after 22 weeks when they could have made the claim a week ago after 21.
It might have accelerated Nine’s decline though that looked to have started at least a year ago - last year Nine was down 8% while Seven Adelaide was up 6%.
Seven had a rare win across the hour in all markets in week 32 as Nine’s news ratings problems continued.
Sydney saw Seven win at 6pm by enough to counter Nine’s 6.30 pm win ending with a narrow 300 viewer margin. That saw Seven up 11% on the equivalent week of 2022 and Nine down 8%.
In a week that saw mostly falls, Nine Melbourne was up slightly though Seven still had an easy win. In the 5-city market Seven was only down 2k while Nine lost 22k on the previous week.
Seven grabbed another Brisbane win in the closest market so far this year though both bulletins lost audience week-on-week.
Seven did well to lift its Adelaide audience by 7k and Perth by 18k for easy wins over Nine that was down 5k and 7k respectively in the two markets.
Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide saw audiences up week-on-week while Melbourne and Perth showed declines. Overall, Seven was up 1,000 in the 5-city total as Nine posted a 25,000 improvement.
Seven won all markets except Sydney where Nine had its best result in four weeks. However, while Nine was steady, Seven’s audience was up 16% on week 33 of last year.
No change in Melbourne with both bulletins down slightly across the hour. Brisbane saw Nine up 9k and Seven up 3k as Seven grabbed another win to close in on Nine’s lead.
Adelaide continued with this year’s trend that saw Seven up 2% on last year while Nine was down 24% on week 33 of 2022.
Perth numbers were down, Seven by 10k and Nine by 1k.
Nine News posted some gains this week especially in Brisbane and notably Melbourne where the bulletin broke its duck and won the 6.30pm segment of the news hour – the first win for the bulletin this year.
Overall, Nine was up 23,000 while Seven suffered a big drop of 49,000.
In Sydney both bulletins rated lower, Seven down 11k and Nine down 6k though Seven was up 12% on this week last year and Nine down 6%.
With a 14k gain for Nine in Melbourne and a 12k loss for Seven, Nine was within 1,000 of overtaking Seven for the week.
Also a big turn around in Brisbane where Seven’s winning momentum stalled, down 16k while Nine’ focus on crime saw a boost of 14k. It was Seven’s lowest result since April.
Both bulletins edged lower in Adelaide, as Nine continued to be 25% lower than last year while Seven was up.
Small changes in Perth saw Nine up 3k and up 16% on the previous year while Seven was down 1k.
