Biggest Loser has Ten in sight of biggest win. Just
how long does it take to weigh four contestants The Biggest
Loser final and find out who’s nabbed the $200k first prize? Two
hours, and gawd was it slow. But
that didn’t worry Ten viewers. An
average 2.237 million tuned in to watch the slow moving finale, which gave Ten its third win of the week and took it
within sight of a rare weekly win in the All People category. Finding
out just when Ten last won a week in this category has been a little hard. The Network must be gobsmacked at what’s going on! Biggest Loser has
averaged well over 1.6 million per show and there’s still one more
program to negotiate before it disappears for 2006: Sunday night sees a behind
the scenes special after Big Brother at 8.30pm. With
the entire series to work with and only an hour to tell the story (whatever
it is), Sunday night’s program will have more pace than last night’s
finale. But viewers stayed the
course. The winner was Adriano Sarnelli (losing 51.3 kilos from his
starting weight of 136.5kgs) while one contestant, Artie Rocke was
discovered in a Sydney hospital suffering from gallstones, a symptom of
rapid weight loss. – Glenn Dyer

SBS’s Insight bucks the trend. Last
Tuesday night, while Dancing With the Stars was
demolishing the opposition, there was a small fightback on SBS.

Not of
Dancing proportions, but Insight, SBS’s flagship current
affairs program, recorded its highest ever audience with an average
322,000 people plus an extra 197,000 in regional areas. Now that’s not
in the commercials class, but the 322,000 does beat Nine’s Today show. I know that comparison is a bit
meaningless, with very different timeslots, but both are current affairs
programs and Insight‘s competition is much tougher than
Today‘s. To put it another way, Insight managed its best ever audience against the most popular
show on TV and yet on Sunday night, the heavyweight of current affairs, 60 Minutes, managed one of its lowest audiences for sometime
against the first Big Brother program, which had 400,000 less viewers than
Dancing. Insight‘s topic on Tuesday night was “Aussie Rules“, which looked at Australian values, rules, qualities, faults using Anzac Day as
the peg. The
fact that there were some prominent comedians may have helped, but then SBS
figures show the new viewers were older males aged 50 and above and the overall
audience “skewed old” towards the 50 plus, shared between men and women.
Insight
has become a little crisper since Allan Hogan, a veteran producer from the
ABC and Nine, took over in August last year. Its average audience this year is just over 249,000, the highest in its
history. – Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV
ratings

The Winners Shock, horror and stop the presses: after winning
Wednesday night, as becoming usual at the moment, Ten snapped up Thursday night,
while Seven got Lostand Nine struggled. The two hour final episode of The
Biggest Loser grabbed an average audience of more than 2.23 million people from
7.30 pm. As a result Law and Order averaged 1.608 million, double the normal
Thursday night audience for a program on the slide. Big Brother at 7 pm averaged
1.405 million and there was no contest. Law and Order will fade next week. The two
Footy Shows averaged 1.007 million (282,000 in Sydney and 370,000 in Melbourne)
And when they swapped over just after 11 pm (AFL in the north and NRL in the
South), a further 246,000 people tuned in! SBS’s best program was the repeat of
Inspector Rex at 7.30 pm with 356,000 people. The ABC’s best was the 7 pm news
with 956,000 people.
The Losers Losers? Bert’s Family Feud: not exactly a failure now
that it seems anchored above half a million viewers. 576,000 last night; but
with all holidays ending today and school and business back next week, will
Bert’s audience face further pressure. Lost, down to 1.16 million. The Biggest
Loser had an impact, but that’s a low figure. Next week might see a rebound to
the 1.4 million mark. Seven is hoping so. Temptation, with 1.112 million, down
on the back of Big Brother‘s strength, Thursday night. Home and Away pipped it
just with 1.115 million viewers. Deal or No Deal averaged 912,000 and that did
help Seven News, but not in Melbourne.
News & CA Seven News won nationally and in Sydney, but lost in
Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide for the second night in a row. Seven had the
usual big win in Perth. Seven’s Today Tonight had a bigger win over ACA
nationally. TT won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and lost Melbourne
narrowly, a replay of Wednesday night. Ten news at Five averaged 881,000, The
ABC News at 7 pm, 956,000 and the 7.30 Report, 956,000. Sunrise easily beat
Today from 6am to 7am and from 7am to 9am. Keep watching Nine for some word
soon on Today.
The Stats Ten with 25.7% (23.3% this time last week), Nine with
24.4%(28.4%), Seven with 23.9% (29.4%), the ABC with 11.8% (13.1%) and SBS with
4.2% (5.7%).Ten won every market: from either Nine or Seven. It was a clean
sweep, a rate win for the Network.
Glenn Dyer’s comments Ten is a bit like the ABC in one respect: while the
national broadcaster says it doesn’t chase ratings, Ten says it doesn’t chase
share in All People, preferring to concentrate on the 16 to 39 age group. Well,
they won the latter last night and have won it for the week already. but that’s
not news. Last night was the third night Ten has won this week and it came as
probably a bit of a surprise to some in the industry. But The Biggest Loser has
become a raging success, despite those in rival networks who bagged Ten when
they announced late last year they were running a strip of the US hour program
done locally at 7 pm. With TBL, Big Brother and Australian Idol, Ten has
effectively locked up the 7 pm timeslot and made itself competitive on the
nights when longer versions of those shows appear. With Thank God
You’re Here a big winner on Wednesday night, Ten is now gaining share in All
People at the expense of Seven and Nine. For Nine it is a sign that its delayed
use of some new programming could come too late (Suspicious Minds for example).
Ten is now building momentum in its schedule mid year and the longer that goes
on the bigger the threat there will be to Nine’s revenue base in the rest of
this year and into 2007. Seven is also feeling the pinch: its rebound is being
made tougher, although it still has a strong presence of programs in the top 20.
Lost is now just a good program. Will Desperate Housewives head the same way or
will it rebound on Monday night? Seven is hoping it does. Dancing With The Stars
has only a couple of weeks to go in its present series, but Seven does have a
large roster of new programs in reserve to show from the end of May to early
August onwards. Tonight Nine has lots of football, but Ten has lots of Big
Brother, three programs to be exact at 7pm, 7.30 to 9pm and at 10.10pm. Seven
has movies to fight back with. Tomorrow night Ten has a good AFL game, Seven and
Nine have movies. A Close finish is in store with Ten now ahead on 29.0%, Seven
second with 27.1%, Nine third with 26.3%.

Peter Fray

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