Alibrandi Viewers Give Gladiator The Shaft
The Age
Thursday February 20, 2003
THE only surprise in last week's first official audience survey of 2003 was the size of the win by last year's ratings champion, Channel Nine. With almost one in three viewers, on average, tuned to Nine between 6pm and midnight, Sunday to Saturday, it was streets ahead of channels Seven and Ten, both of which had fewer viewers than in the first week of ratings last year.
Nine's dominance last week was highlighted by the fact that it had the top five programs on Melbourne TV, eight of the top 10, and 13 of the top 20. Channel Seven had four of the top 20 shows, and Ten had only three. Overall, Nine attracted 32.4 per cent of night-time viewers last week, well ahead of Seven (25.6), Ten (22.4), ABC (15.4) and SBS (4.1).
Nine's huge win confounded the expectations of those in the industry expecting a tighter battle. Ten had been expected to start the week well with the blockbuster free-to-air TV premiere of the Russell Crowe movie Gladiator. But Nine's more modest Australian movie, Looking for Alibrandi, out-rated it, 441,279 viewers to 423,827. Many had forecast a figure as high as 700,000 for Gladiator.
Some expected A Current Affair to take a hit from Seven's Today Tonight, with opinion divided on whether the return of Ray Martin to the presenter's chair would please viewers or drive them away. But despite Martin's shaky start on Monday, ACA continued to dominate the 6.30pm weeknight timeslot. It averaged 441,830 viewers last week, up on the figure for the corresponding week in 2002 and 65,000 ahead of Today Tonight.
The first episode of the new series of the US thriller-serial 24 won its timeslot for Seven with an average of 505,428 viewers over the two hours, defeating a two-hour edition of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire on Nine (423,910) and Ten's season-opener of The Secret Life of Us (286,943). The first of the 2003 series of Blue Heelers won its timeslot for Seven on Wednesday.
Several of Seven's new shows did not do well. The new reality dating show Joe Millionaire (318,168) was beat by ER on Nine (469,080) and Law & Order: SVU on Ten (419,002).
On Friday the revamped Burke's Backyard on Nine (389,375) comfortably defeated the debut episode of one of Seven's new infotainment series, House Calls to the Rescue (242,706). In fact, none of the new shows for 2003 on any network made it into Melbourne's top 20.
The other interesting results related to Seven's ``encore" screenings of two hit shows.
On Thursday, Nine's The Dead Zone (253,071) easily beat the repeat screening of the season opener of 24 (153,826), and on Friday another movie on Nine, You've Got Mail (326,102), beat the repeat of the British documentary Living with Michael Jackson (188,748).
Twelve days earlier, the Jackson special had been the year's top-rating
program to date, with 2 million viewers nationally.
MELBOURNE'S TOP 10 1. Friends (9) 623,164 viewers 2. Nine News/Sunday 606,692 3. Malcolm in the Middle (9) 586,983 4. Backyard Blitz (9) 577,624 5. 60 Minutes (9) 508,224 6. 24 (7) 505,428 7. Cricket: Australia v Pakistan, first session (9) 486,768 8. Nine News/weeknights 483,740 9. Blue Heelers (7) 476,091 10. ER (9) 469,080
© 2003 The Age