Fed: Seven wins television ratings year

AAP General News (Australia)
12-02-2007
Fed: Seven wins television ratings year

By Alyssa Braithwaite, National Entertainment Writer

SYDNEY, Dec 2 AAP - The Nine Network is no longer "the one", after being comprehensively
beaten by the Seven Network in the 2007 ratings battle.

In 2006 Nine only won the year by the slimmest margin in 20 years.

But 2007 has been Seven's year, as the network averaged 29 per cent of the prime-time
audience, up from 27.8 per cent last year, while Nine fell from 29.1 per cent to 26.9
per cent.

The official ratings year ended last night, showing Seven won 38 of this year's 40
ratings surveys.

Seven beat Nine in all the major timeslots, with Sunrise trouncing the Today show by
200,000 viewers, and Seven News attracting 150,000 people more than Nine News.

Nine's only triumphs were with rugby league and cricket.

"We are pleased to have 2007 behind us," Nine Network chief executive David Gyngell said.

"We're building for 2008 and beyond."

After axing McLeod's Daughters, Gyngell is pinning his hopes for 2008 on gangland series
Underbelly, the Gold Coast inspired crime series The Strip, a medical romance, The Young
Doctors, a medical-criminal mix called Canal Road, and a new season of Sea Patrol.

This year has been a good one for the ABC.

Its Wednesday night comedy line-up of Spicks and Specks, The Chaser's War On Everything
and Summer Heights High was a big ratings winner for the national broadcaster.

In September The Chaser's APEC motorcade stunt pulled in 2.24 million viewers - one
of the best ever results for a single ABC show.

The ABC's audience share rose from 15.4 per cent last year to 16.6 per cent this year.

The national broadcaster also handed a ratings gift to Seven in Kath and Kim, with
2.3 million people watching the series final in October featuring Shane Warne.

Network Ten's audience share dropped to 21.9 per cent from last year's 22.3 per cent.

But the network trumpeted their success in their target age group, the 18-49 year olds,
where they scored a record high share of 34.5 per cent.

Ten remains the most-watched network by the 16-39 age group.

"We finish 2007 exactly where we expected to be: ahead of our winning 2006 result in
18-49 and with our seventh consecutive win under-40s," Ten's chief programming officer
David Mott said.

Their success was thanks to popular programming like Thank God You're Here and House.

But traditionally high rating shows like Australian Idol and Big Brother were down
on previous years.

Foxtel was a strong performer in 2007, increasing its audience by 14 per cent, while
SBS retained its audience share of 5.5 per cent, on the back of repeat successes like
Mythbusters, Top Gear and Inspector Rex.

AAP acb/jt/de

KEYWORD: RATINGS

2007 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.