Free TV viewing hits fragmentation milestone
Less than 20 TV shows have reached more than one million metro viewers in a week for the first time since the current OzTAM system began 12 years ago.
The milestone was hit in week 47 of the TV ratings year – the week before last.
When the consolidated ratings – which cover both overnight viewing and catchup recordings viewed over the next seven days – were issued, the 20th most watched show of the week was Seven’s airing of the magic special Dynamo: Magician Impossible. Its consolidated audience was 998,000.
While top 20 shows will have scored below 1m viewers outside of the 40 official weeks of the rating year several times before, this is the first time it has occurred while the networks have been in competition.
I’m not sure how the ratings are “counted” but it seems to me that those programmes with “high” ratings are the ones nobody needs to record to keep for another day e.g. the news …the immediacy would be lost; The X Factor fits in with immediacy of competition, and The Force, Highway Patrol, Border Security seem to be for those who work hard all day in non-exciting jobs so that is their immediacy? and little old ladies like me just watch “New Tricks” and kids enjoy Grimm?!!
Fragmentation…
Yeah. That’s what it is.
Ignore the whole “every time I turn on the TV there’s nothing I want to watch” and “let’s make TV all about talent shows” or “I just want to be famous without actually having anything to be famous for” shows.
Fragmentation. RIght.
Well, when every other click online is a video initiation, then you see where your eyeballs are going. We are not watching less TV content, just watching is less and less on the TV and less linear TV (catch up or recorded). And then there’s the unmetered TV too. Fragmentation, no doubt but TV is far from dead – it’s just not on the TV anymore.
Spin. Spin. Spin.
Broadcast TV is heading the way of film photography – quaint and niche. Nothing more, nothing less.
I don’t think TV is dead, but it does need to reinvent itself and it has got to get back to the basics (or at least recognize them) entertain, inform, discuss. With regard to entertainment, lets just face it, overseas productions (HBO etc) have been setting the standard and Australia by and large hasn’t followed suit. We throw praise on what is actual crap and have lost the real meaning of what is quality drama, quality comedy, quality production values etc etc. That doesn’t mean we can’t make compelling content and do a lot better with the finance we’ve got, we’ve just got to get competitive and think harder and plan better. Not enough money is allocated to pre-production and development and you can measure the success of any production by the abilities of the creative team behind it and the level of pre-production allocated. We need to invest more $$ in writing and developing quality and we need to cull the dead wood that have been prancing around this industry for sometime suggesting they know effective drama and effective comedy etc..here;’s the deal..you don’t and if you did you’d be commissioning it and we’d be seeing it up on the screen, and we aren’t. Maybe the odd something here and there, but nothing of consistency. So lets stop the B.S and stop praising crap and holding it up as quality and call it for what it is. The talent pool is there…lets put them to work.
Inspire the audience…don’t pander to them…if you think I’m wrong look at channel TEN, they finally won their race to the bottom…pander pander pander to a very fickle demographic.