Nine's Juggernaut Rolls On Despite Big Brother, Effie
The Age
Thursday May 8, 2003
THE new season of Big Brother gave Channel Ten its biggest weekly score so far this year among 16-to-39-year-old viewers around Australia. The debut of Greeks on the Roof, with Effie doing a Sanjeev in a local clone of The Kumars at No. 42, and the two-part Surprise Weddings, provided Channel Seven with surprise ratings wins. But nothing, it seems, can stop Channel Nine, which last week blitzed the opposition with one of its biggest overall wins in recent years.
Nine finished with 33.1 per cent of the week's night-time audience. That was a massive 9.6 points ahead of Seven on 23.5. Ten was next on 23.3, followed by the ABC (16) and SBS (4). Nine also won six of the seven nights and had eight of the week's top 10 shows.
Nationally, the opening night of Big Brother III was the most-watched show last week, with 2,224,976 viewers. But in Melbourne, where it scored 672,119 viewers, it was pipped by Nine's Sunday night news (734,155). As well, Big Brother's figures soon dropped away. In fact, the nightly 7pm edition (306,970) came fourth in its timeslot, behind third-run episodes of Frasier on Nine (375,904), the ABC's news (373,550) and Seven's Home & Away (371,566).
Although Big Brother III is scoring well with young viewers, its performance in the overall ratings has sagged quickly. Last Sunday - the first night of the current ratings week - it had 335,049 viewers, less than half of its opening-night score a week earlier. It was beaten by 60 Minutes on Nine (520,217), and, surprisingly, Seven's ailing local melodrama Always Greener (362,788).
The size of Nine's win last week was helped by big figures for two big events - the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire celebrity edition, in which Molly Meldrum won $500,000 for charity, and the Friday night telecast of the Kangaroos/Adelaide match at Telstra Dome. The Millionaire special averaged 612,541 viewers in Melbourne (and 1.82 million nationwide) over the course of its three hours on air. And the Friday night football averaged 623,577 viewers, many of them attracted by the billing of the game by some media outlets as a grudge match between the Kangaroos and their former and now exiled star, Wayne Carey.
Seven is excited by the first-up figures for Greeks on the Roof on Thursday at 8.30pm. It was the channel's top show for the week, averaging 484,750 viewers, and it beat the usually unbeatable ER on Nine (415,968). It also beat the British show upon which it is based, The Kumars at No. 42, on the ABC in the same timeslot (225,212).
For the ABC, Saturday night's episode of The Bill, in which it was revealed that Superintendent Chandler had blown his brains out, made Melbourne's top 10 last week. It averaged 509,491 viewers.
Saturday night is usually the least-watched night of television each week,
and apart from the 6pm news and Australia's Funniest Home Video Show on Nine,
few programs ever break the half million mark.
MELBOURNE'S TOP 10 1. Nine News/Sunday 734,155 viewers 2. Big Brother: Opening night (10) 672,119 3. Nine News/Saturday 668,667 4. Friday Night Football (9) 623,577 5. Backyard Blitz (9) 619,748 6. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (9) 612,541 7. Nine News/weeknights 531,622 8. Australia's Funniest Home Videos (9) 527,418 9. 60 Minutes (9) 517,671 10. The Bill (2) 509,491
© 2003 The Age