Very interesting 911 TV ratings figures

[Tea]

Australia has the following TV networks:

Nine Network: the unchalenged market leader
Seven Network: the perennial number two
Ten Network: the poor relation. Struggles to survive. Has even gone broke at least once - which is considered almost impossible. Owning a TV network in Australia, where you are protected against any comnpetition bar the other two networks, is ... well ... the only easier way to make money is own the mint.
ABC: public network. Patchy but can be excellent. Moderate ratings.
SBS: public network. Mostly foreign language. Has great movies, low ratings.

On Wednesday 11th September, the networks took the following programming decisions:

Nine: wall-to-wall 911 replays, interviews, the whole thing. Sixteen and a half hours of straight 911.
Seven: wall-to-wall replays: 15 hours straight.
Ten: Normal programming: The Simpsons, Search for a Supermodel, the usual Murdoch crap.
ABC: Five hours of 911.
SBS: Normal programming.

And the results?

 

[Tea]

Overall, the lowest TV ratings on record. Vast numbers of people just switched off. Of those that did watch TV on Wednesday:

Nine (911): Half a million viewers down on last week's normal programming. (In this tiny market, half a million viewers is a lot.)
Seven (911): Much the same as normal. Most people who wanted to watch a 911 replay chose to watch it on Seven.
Ten (normal programs): The clear ratings winner. First time Network Ten has won the ratings in a long, long time.
ABC (911): Very bad ratings: only 200,000 people total.
SBS (normal programing): Normal ratings.

Now what was that someone said about the networks "giving the public what they want"?

 

[time]

E X A C T L Y !

 

[Jake the Dog]

yay for Ten.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm not even remotely surprised. I'll bet it'll be a down day here in the states, too.

However, I will take a slight exception to lumping "The Simpsons" in with the "When Buildings Attack" and "Cops" stuff that Murdoch seems to prefer.

"The Simpsons" takes a serious level of intellectualism to keep up with in places. Yeah, sure, most of the show is laughing at Homer getting hurt, but when someone references "Roshoman" and the next line of dialogue is "That's not the way *I* remember it.", well, that's not something that your average Simpsons fan is going to catch.

There's lots of little bits like that throughout the whole run of the series.

 

[Tea]

Quite right, Mercutio. The Simpsons is not crap. I plead guilty as charged. In my defence, I claim the following mitigating factors:

1: I was in a hurry and unclear in my expression.
2: Everything else on Channel Ten is crap.
2: They only appeared on Channel Ten after the other networks had done seven repeats each and were not interested anymore. One assumes that C10 are paying about $10 an hour for the rights to show it for the 17th time. (That's about the max C10 will pay for any program, actually. They actually prefer it if you pay them to show your program - viz, the Home Shopping Show.) (Grrrrrrr!)
3: It wasn't one of the best Simpsons episodes anyway.

Your Honour, I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

 

[Pradeep]

Well at least you have the option of watching Ten Tony. In Tassie, there are only 4 free to air channels. Southern Cross (mostly 7 with a smidge of Ten - V8 racing etc), and WIN (channel 9). Plus SBS and ABC of course. Apparently they are talking about having Ten broadcast down here in the boonies sometime in the future.

 

[Handruin]

I haven't even watched TV since Sunday... I don't have the attention span these days for boring (not talking about the Simpson’s) TV media and lame sitcoms. I was considering a movie channel, but lately the movies that come out are nothing more then a rehashed story with different actors.

OK, enough with my ranting. Point is, 9/11 is a significant day for the people in this country, and I feel as though the media has a different agenda for the people. As you clearly displayed, they aimed for ratings and the underdog came out on top. I say Yay! for them, and I'm happy the stuck to normal programming.

 

[SteveC]

Preliminary ratings in the U.S. show viewership was slightly down. I watched the ceremony at Ground Zero in the morning and when the President arrived in the afternoon. At night, I watched the Mets game. I made the mistake of watching CBS' "9/11" documentary when it originally aired 6 months ago. I couldn't sleep that night after watching it.

Steve

 

[slo crostic]

It's good to hear that the channels who chose to "cash in" on the day lost out quite badly, maybe they'll learn something from the other stations.