Aussie TV shows go missing from Monday’s ratings
Other than news and current affairs not a single show in Monday’s top ten most watched programmes was Australian made.
The second outing of Nine’s comedy import Hot In Cleveland and Ten’s Undercover Boss both lost around 100,000 viewers on their previous week, according to preliminary ratings from OzTam, while the rest of the top ten featured episodes of Nine’s US sitcom Two And A Half Men and Seven’s FBI drama Criminal Minds.
Hot In Cleveland delivered Nine with an audience of just over 1.1m while Undercover Boss pulled in just over 1.3m, fourth for the night.
The highest rating locally made drama was Seven’s Home And Away, 11th for the night with just over 1m viewers. Nine’s Rescue Special Ops fell back below the 1m mark.
A lot of people I know have simply given television up.
Others, like myself, barely tune in… I was watching Doctor who and Hey Hey, then watching New Inventors via podcast or iview.
My old 4:3 tv hasn’t been switched on since last year, and I see absolutely no point in upgrading to widescreen.
Wolfie!
@Wolfie I have to agree. I do have a big widescreen, but it is used for gaming and watching of movies/series at a time of my choosing. I turned on actual broadcast TV the other day for a bit and it couldn’t hold my interest. Its probably the only live TV I have watched at home in months.
Yes Andy, In my opinion, the only reason people have tv these days is because they’re traditionalists “I’ve watched tv all my life and will continue to do so” or they haven’t discovered the internet yet. 🙂
Oh please, people who don’t watch TV are so holier than thou.
I bloody love TV, and I don’t think anyone is any more intelligent if they don’t.
There would be more comments but everyone else is watching the news on TV.
TV forever –
Wolfie (and Andy) … I think that says a lot more about you than it does about television usage. Last week over 91% of people (OzTAM sample of over 7,000 people) watched at least some television. That figure excludes people who only watched TV away-from-home, in public places, via the Internet, on their mobile etc. or were overseas – which is a little over 1% of the population in any given week.
Given that over 80% of Australian homes are connected to the Internet, clearly a huge majority of ‘online people’ continue to watch TV pretty much like they always have (average time spent viewing TV has hardly moved in the past two decades). And you know what … it will be like that for many, many years to come.
Just accept that you are in the minority.
Really enjoying Under the Hammer. The girl who got upset the flat she wanted in Rushcutters sold over the range at auction was hilarious!
I don’t feel holier than thou, but I do feel that for many years there was this one-way looking-glass thing happening. and when I tried to interact via letters, they were never answered… there was no effect.
That thing I needed was online, when I found it I was very happy.
I watched TV for years, and sat in silence or cursed at the screen with my family.
now I can vent via blogs, twitter and facebook which feels more satisfying.
If I’d still been glued to the TV, would I even know about #openinternet?
On Q & A Monday night, the host said that he felt the filter had been covered enough in previous shows, really? when? it’s not the issue that’s being spoken about even though many of us want the issue raised (I watched via iview).
I feel I want to be a creator, not merely a viewer, the tv is simply not enough for me anymore.
as for ratings, I haven’t filled out a ratings book in 20 years, nor do I trust them.
Well we agree on ratings books Wolfie. They were replaced with electronic metering back in 1991 for TV. Radio continues to use them to this day.
I admire that you want to be a creator, but I find it odd that you don’t watch TV. Do you go to the cinema? My wife is an independent TV producer and she watches heaps of TV of all sorts and shapes and sizes. She watches to learn what to do as well as what not to do. She threw in her job around 9 years ago with the goal of getting a TV show made, and is now in production on her ninth … so stick with the dream – but my advice would be to watch and learn from TV.
John my viewing habits have changed a bit as well. Probably not as far as wolfies. The big thing for me (and I suspect for anyone who is highly digital) is that I do watch a bit of TV. But it’s really just wallpaper. For example, in the last few days I have watched the rugby (on TV at a pub) guess that counts, and Q&A last night when I got home.
The really fascinating thing I have noticed is that for my “appointment TV”. Those shiows that I absolutely love and MUST watch, I simply download them. Top Gear was up yesterday. Watched it last night. Same goes for the news weeds, entourage, deadliest catch and top chef. My absolute fave shows. And I don’t watch them on an actual TV.
These are the shows I am engaged with, and if I was an advertiser, these are the moments that I would be wanting to get to me. But you have lost me.
But I stall absorb a fair amount of TV. But it has just become an occassionaly pleasant background noise. The engagement is gone.
You know it makes sense.
Carrob, there is NO doubt that viewing IS changing. The key thing is that ACCESS to TV is changing. We used to just get ‘analogue-on-a-stick’ now we can access that content in a myriad of ways which is all fine … it is still TV content.
Do you consider ‘not watching them on TV’ i.e. via downloads, as TV watching though? That is, should someone who watches a show on iView, YouTube etc be counted to the TV ratings?
By some of the logic here, it seems some people are letting the channel dictate what something is … Not the content.
Watching a tv show via a digital channel is still watching a tv show. Just like accessing the Internet via a tv is still using the Internet. Why is there the need to call something irrelevant due to the medium it’s delivered to. If tv is irrelevant, period, then watching tv programming on your computer would be too yes?
What jg says is true … The access is what is changing. Carrob … Torrenting tv shows says to me you’re pretty bloody engaged with tv programming still.
Ben, you’re completely right.
After school, I’d come home and the telly was already on, and would remain on till the movie that night had ended. I was watching The Don Lane Show (I’m 44 now, so work out what grades/levels I was at, at the time, if you must). My parents were with me too so there were family choices about what to watch… three people in the house and three TVs. I would also channel surf, I suppose it’s equal to using stumble these days.
When I do watch TV, I’ve chosen what I want to watch, and will mostly watch it online if available.
I’d much rather spend my time blogging, visiting websites, using secondlife or twitter… even shows that I used to watch regularly have been put aside.
To answer the question, I don’t watch movies… a 2hr film just eats too much of my time and I find myself reaching for the iphone or the computer.
Do I get out, yes… I have an alaskan malamute who demands two long walks a day 🙂
Just to set things straight John. I am not saying that I am not engaged with TV. Actually what I am saying is the reverse. I am more engaged with TV shows than ever before. I just watch them in a very different way. I am not one of those people who dismiss television. I think it is very important. And in my opinion TV will only get more valuable to advertisers, because as more and more media fragmentation occurs, there will be fewer and fewer mediums capable of delivering a truly mass audience. In fact, I would suspect that TV will probably end being the only to true mass medium left in 5-10 years time. This will make it even more valuable to advertisers.
What I am saying though, is that that when I am engaged with television, it is when I am not watching it on a Television itself. That was the point I was making. I never disputed it was TV or that it wasnt relevant.
What is relevant though is how the advertisers follow me when I watch my TV shows not on a TV. TV needs the ads to follow the content. The content is moving the advertisers aren’t. In the medium term this creates a structural problem because quality television cannot be produced with no revenue coming back to the producers/owners. That’s the bigger issue that I don’t see the answer to at the moment.
Gotcha Carrob.
There is a delicious irony in that as media fragments, and TV show ratings decline in their absolute audience number, the relative importance of that number (the immediate reach as opposed to cumulative reach) increases. That is, the amount a network can charge to deliver less audience can actually increase! As a matter of fact I think we are seeing that already.
This also holds implications for my bailiwick, which is audience measurement. I believe that (as you eruditely explain) the engagement levels vary by the distribution channel – for example, you say you are more engaged viewing online. Therefore, I think that simply aggregating the ‘in-home TV’ viewers with the IPTV viewers, with the “in the pub” viewers, and with the mobile TV viewers to produce a single audience figure will be insufficient (of course that will be the ‘headline audience’). Further, the ad-content on each of these distribution channels can be / will be different.
Many thanks for yours and Wolfies input and comments – very valuable indeed.
It’s just the content.. I have nothing against TV, I love TV! Just can’t ever find anything decent to watch, bar a very few exceptions.