Crikey

Queensland’s Pacific Film and TV chairman departs. There has been a high profile departure from Queensland’s Pacific Film and Television Commission with the chairman, Sir Llew Edwards, announcing an early decision to retire (the announcement hasn’t yet been made official). Industry sources say the Queensland Government held an inquiry into the commission last year after certain claims were made about staff morale and governance issues. Sir Llew is Chancellor of Queensland Uni, former senior Queensland Liberal Party state minister and company director (he was on the Westpac board for a number of years). His boards include James Hardie Industries and RT Edwards & Sons P/L, according to the Commission’s website, but that’s incorrrect. He was a director of Hardie but in 2001 became the chairman of the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation set up by Hardie when it fled Australia to avoid meeting its asbestos liabilities. The Foundation later indicated it could not meet its liabilities left by Hardie, so an inquiry was set up and reached the historic agreement between the ACTU, the NSW Government and Hardie to adequately fund all its liabilities from asbestos.  — Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Ten scored with the second ep of So You Think You Can Dance Australia. It’s derivative, but has energy: it averaged 1.616 million last night, after 1.829 million on Sunday night. Seven News was second with 1.517 million, followed by Today Tonight (1.404 million), Nine’s repeat of CSI (1.379 million), A Year With The Royal Family (1.33 million), CSI New York with a fresh ep (1.309 million, its best audience for a while), Home And Away (1.303 million), Nine News (1.260 million) and A Current Affair (1.231 million). The 7pm ABC News (1.180 million) beat the first 7pm ep of The Biggest Loser with 1.054 million. Top Gear only had 799,000 on SBS at 7.30pm, more than 200,000 down on its million-plus audience last week.

The Losers: Borderline (989,000) and Coastwatch (889,000) on Seven, which wasn’t in the hunt with those numbers.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Melbourne and Today Tonight won everywhere bar Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven News won by an unusually large 106,000 in Sydney and the ABC News pushed Nine into third in the market. Ten News averaged 945,000; the Late News/Sports Tonight, 261,000. Nightline, 200,000. The 7.30 Report, with Kerry O’Brien back for the year and interviewing Kevin Rudd, faded to 657,000. Lateline, 247,000; Lateline Business, 144,000. SBS News, 228,000 at 6.30pm; 173,000 for the late. 7am Sunrise, 428,000; 7am Today, 264,000.

The Stats: Nine won with a share of 28.8% from Ten with 27.1%, Seven with 24.4%, the ABC with 11.4% and SBS with 8.3%. Nine won everywhere bar Perth where Seven won with its third tier summer line up! Ten leads the week 27.3% to 27.0% for Nine and Seven on 25.4%. In regional areas WIN/NBN again won for Nine with a 30.0% share from Prime/7Qld with 24.4%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 23.9%, the ABC on 12.5% and SBS on 9.2%. The dancing and slimming programs just didn’t do it for Ten in the bush again. The dancing was third, TBL wasn’t to be seen in the regional Top 10.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine will win the last week of summer ratings and win it well. Seven is running dead as you can tell by the schedule this week with only a scattering of new or returning programs, while Ten has hit the ground hard and Nine is now up to a fast jog. Seven is dragging its heels because of the One Day cricket featuring Australia which Seven knows will do well for Nine on Fridays and Sundays for the next four weeks. But tonight’s India-Sri Lanka match will be a test of viewer interest: its a day-nighter from Brisbane. That makes the result hard to pick. Ten should do well with an hour of TBL and then the return of Bondi Rescue at 8pm. The ABC has scheduled the doco Jihad Sheilas at 8.30pm. I wonder if it will make it? Foreign Correspondent returns at 9.30pm.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports