Coding error costs First Contact top 20 place in overnight ratings

November 30, 2016 5:11

SBS’s controversial First Contact series missed out on a top-20 spot in the TV ratings last night because of a coding error by the public broadcaster which dragged the average rating of the Ray Martin-fronted show down.

While the show managed 418,000 on SBS’ main channel, a figure which would have put it in the OzTAM overnight ratings at number 18, the coding error which combined it with the simulcast on NITV saw its average viewing number dragged down.

An SBS spokesperson said: “The official figures for First Contact season two episode are 418,000 metro and 183,000 Regional – 601,000 combined – on SBS and 20,000 metro and 24,000 regional on NITV.

Subscribe to keep reading

Join Mumbrella Pro to access the Mumbrella archive and read our premium analysis of everything under the media and marketing umbrella.

Abigail Dawson

Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.