The Sun-Herald

The ratings race: Week 30

The discussion below is now part of a heritage blog -- worth studying but no longer current. Click here for this week's trends in TV. To see the 20 best-looking people on television this year, click here.

It doesn't stay a mystery for long, once you think about it: why Desperate Housewives is a bigger hit in Australia than in any other country. More than two million of us will switch on tonight's season finale of the US melodramedy. Although they've been doing less well this year than last year, the Despos are regularly watched by one in every nine Australians, compared with one in every 13 Americans. What's the special appeal?

The answer, I think, is that we recognise ourselves in them. That's not to say we're in the habit of murdering our neighbours, sleeping with our gardeners and burning down the mansion across the road. But consider these details: Australia is the most suburbanised nation on earth. Two thirds of us live in capital cities. Three quarters of the homes in those cities have three or more bedrooms, but half of those homes contain only one or two occupants.

So Australians embrace the Despos because we aspire to Wisteria Lane as our spiritual home. Like Bree, Susan, and Gabrielle, we live in houses way too big for our needs in comfortable suburbs that cocoon us from reality. We feel safe in the village, meeting our friends for coffee and gossip, because it's a self-contained environment, where the issues of the outside world never impinge and all crimes and crises are generated and resolved within the extended family. Or that's what we hope.

The last American entertainment embraced so wholeheartedly by Australians was Friends, back in the late 90s. Our response to that was also a demonstration of a changing self-perception. Friends came along at a time when Australians had just dumped the myth about a nation of sun-bronzed billy-boiling bush battlers and realised we were actually a nation of obsessive urban coffee drinkers. So of course we were going to identify with six caffeine-addicted 20-somethings seeking love and success in the big city.

I think the particular quality that drew Australians to Friends was loyalty. Here was a bunch of independent people distanced from their families, at odds with authority, trying to cope in a new environment, with only each other to rely on. Isn't that a description of how the first white settlers on this continent would have seen themselves? The only encouraging notion the convicts had going for them was mateship, which is another name for blind loyalty. Channel Nine should have renamed the series "Mates".

We've found that core value again in Wisteria Lane. The Despos may battle and bitch and sulk and scheme, but they're there for each other most of the time. At least two million Australians enjoy the idea that in our safe little universe, we could be like that too.

That was David Dale's 'Who We Are' column from The Sun Herald of July 30, 2006.

Updated 10 am Sunday July 30
Channel Nine won the week with 28.6 per cent of the prime time audience (Seven 27.6, Ten 22.4, ABC 16.0, and SBS 5.4). The big question is how?

Channel Seven had the top shows of the week -- 'Border Security' and 'Medical Emergency'. Nine had no new hits. Audiences are melting away from 'Dancing On Ice', Nine's expensive attempt to imitate 'Dancing With The Stars', and from its sitcoms 'Two and A Half Men' and 'The New Adventures of Old Christine'. Seven and Ten should be revelling in big numbers for the final frenzies of 'Lost', 'Big Brother' and the Despos.

And yet Nine comes out on top through the strength of its 'CSI' franchise, its footy, its appeal to viewers over 55 and solid programming between 9.30 pm and midnight. At this rate, it could win the year without moving a muscle.

What Australia watched, week ending July 29
Rank Program Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 BORDER SECURITY Seven 2,133,000 572,000 597,000 383,000 246,000 336,000
2 MEDICAL EMERGENCY Seven 1,728,000 429,000 516,000 320,000 218,000 246,000
3 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,727,000 487,000 550,000 283,000 217,000 190,000
4 CSI Nine 1,700,000 494,000 535,000 305,000 196,000 171,000
5 60 MINUTES Nine 1,650,000 445,000 543,000 315,000 162,000 185,000
6 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,631,000 508,000 489,000 246,000 187,000 201,000
7 SEVEN NEWS SUNDAY Seven 1,504,000 384,000 418,000 319,000 162,000 220,000
8 IT TAKES TWO Seven 1,479,000 444,000 428,000 271,000 172,000 165,000
9 BIG BROTHER DOUBLE EVICTION Ten 1,479,000 487,000 382,000 278,000 179,000 152,000
10 ALL SAINTS Seven 1,470,000 437,000 470,000 228,000 172,000 163,000
11 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,464,000 391,000 413,000 268,000 159,000 234,000
12 LOST Seven 1,453,000 470,000 430,000 245,000 140,000 168,000
13 COLD CASE Nine 1,437,000 385,000 502,000 252,000 124,000 174,000
14 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,423,000 388,000 401,000 268,000 152,000 214,000
15 20 TO 1 RPT Nine 1,411,000 364,000 516,000 230,000 147,000 155,000
16 DANCING ON ICE Nine 1,402,000 431,000 408,000 283,000 155,000 125,000
17 CSI: MIAMI Nine 1,392,000 418,000 440,000 236,000 156,000 141,000
18 GETAWAY Nine 1,392,000 425,000 404,000 247,000 148,000 169,000
19 GREY'S ANATOMY Seven 1,390,000 417,000 400,000 251,000 155,000 167,000
20 NINE NEWS Nine 1,353,000 380,000 421,000 293,000 148,000 112,000
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am Friday July 28
A small resurgence for the second last episode of 'Lost' helped Channel Seven to balance a small decline for Earl and win Thursday night with 29.2 per cent of the prime time audience (to Nine's 28.8, Ten's 22.4, ABC's 15.9 and SBS's 5.3). But Nine looks set to win the week thanks to its strong start on Sunday.

At this rate, if Seven doesn't pull something amazing out of the bag in the next three weeks to replace 'Lost' and the Despos, Nine will narrowly win the year. Another Dancing With The Stars may not be enough to offset the various grand finals.

What Australia watched, Thursday
1. Lost Seven 1.45 million
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.41
3. Seven News Seven 1.40
4. Getaway Nine 1.39
5. My Name Is Earl Seven 1.29
6. Nine News Nine 1.25
7. A Current Affair Nine 1.24
8. Home and Away Seven 1.23
9. Temptation Nine 1.17
10. Medium Ten 1.15
11. How I Met Your Mother Seven 1.13
12. Law and Order Ten 1.12
13. ABC News ABC 1.10
14. Two and a Half Men Nine 0.99
15. The Footy Show Nine 0.97
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am Thursday July 27
Wednesday night has turned into a Black Hole. Without 'Prison Break', 'Thank God You're Here' or a new episode of 'House', thousands of Australians went off and got a life. Channel Seven's attempt to fill the gap with real life murder failed -- only 1.08 million watched the doco on Ivan Milat. And Big Brother's final days are stirring no excitement -- only 1.22 million watched last night's eviction.

Nine won the night with 26.9 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven got 26.5, Ten got 25.5, ABC got 16.6 and SBS got 4.5.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
1. Seven News Seven 1.47
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.47
3. Nine News Nine 1.31
4. Temptation Nine 1.29
5. McLeod's Daughters Nine 1.29
6. Without A Trace Nine 1.27
7. Home and Away Seven 1.25
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.24
9. House Ten 1.23
10. Spicks and Specks ABC 1.22
11. Big Brother Eviction Ten 1.21

Updated 10 am Wednesday July 25
Over the past week, Channel Nine has been running a huge publicity campaign -- even including bus shelters -- promoting 'Dancing On Ice' as sexy and dangerous. Apparently this failed to inspire Australians to change the opinion they formed when the show premiered.

Last night DOA averaged 1.404 million viewers in the mainland capitals. For Nine, the good news is that this was only a small decline on the 1.413 million of last week. The bad news is DOA has slipped behind 'All Saints' (1.47m) as well as 'Border Security' (2.13m) and 'Medical Emergency' (1.73m). Nothing can save it now.

Channel Seven won the night with 30.6 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 29.1 per cent, Ten got 22.0, ABC got 14.5 and SBS got 3.8. Marissa's death gave 'The OC' a small boost to 942,000 viewers, almost all of them under 40. And 'The Wedge' has now sunk to 990,000.

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Border Security Seven 2.13m
2. Medical Emergency Seven 1.72
3. Seven News Seven 1.48
4. All Saints Seven 1.47
5. Nine News Nine 1.41
6. Today Tonight Seven 1.41
7. Dancing on Ice Nine 1.40
8. Home and Away Seven 1.32
9. A Current Affair Nine 1.30
10. Temptation Nine 1.26
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11 am Tuesday July 25
As 'Desperate Housewives' approaches its cataclysmic conclusion for the season, the viewers are coming back. As 'Grey's Anatomy' approaches its great leap forward to the 8.30 timeslot, the viewers are locking on. Channel Seven won last night with 30.9 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 27.7, Ten got 19.4, ABC got 16 and SBS got 5.9.

What Australia watched, Monday
1. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.63m
2. Seven News Seven 1.57
3. Today Tonight Seven 1.54
4. Nine News Nine 1.49
5. A Current Affair Nine 1.40
6. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.39
7. Temptation Nine 1.36
8. What's Good For You Nine 1.33
9. Home and Away Seven 1.25
10. Big Brother Nomination Ten 1.21
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am Monday July 24
The turkey slap controversy two weeks ago failed to boost the audience for 'Big Brother', but on Sunday night the expulsion of Claire and Krystal pulled in 200,000 viewers who weren't there last week. 'Big Brother Live Eviction' averaged 1.5 million in the mainland capitals. Over on Channel Seven, the expulsion of Kate Ritchie and a performance by Erika Heynatz worthy (as they say in 'The Producers') of a standing ovation while sitting down brought 1.5 million to 'It Takes Two'.

And yet Nine, enjoying a resurgence for CSI, won the night with 31.3 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven got 24.1, Ten got 22.9, ABC got 16.3 and SBS got 5.4. The ABC's 'Bleak House' is living up to its name by declining to 799,000 viewers, and is bound to get bleaker when the heroine is scarred by smallpox next week.

To find out the most watched shows on pay TV and on free to air TV last week, click here. And click here to discuss the trends of the first half of 2006.

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Nine News Sunday (9) 1.73m
2. CSI (9) 1.70m
3. 60 Minutes (9) 1.64
4. Seven News Sunday (7) 1.49
5. It Takes Two (7) 1.48
6. Big Brother Eviction (10) 1.47
7. CSI: Miami (9) 1.43
8. 20 to 1 repeat (9) 1.41m
9. Planet Earth (ABC) 1.32m
10. Sunday Football AFL and NRL (9) 1.18
11. Big Brother 6:30pm (10) 1.13
12. True Stories (7) 1.12m

(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

The ratings race is updated every weekday as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A Miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 08:17 AM
• Comments (242)

Travel and sex, but no food

By David Dale.
Trends -- we spot 'em, you explain 'em. That's the way this column works. This week we're studying how tastes in television intersect with two of the three essentials of life -- sex and travel. Actually that's a bit misleading. We just thought the words sex and travel sounded more interesting than gender and geography.

We're comparing women with men and Melbourne with Sydney in the way they watched the box during the first half of 2006. These are the apparent phenomena for your scrutiny:

 Melbourne is couch potato paradise. On average, the audience for shows down there is 100,000 more than for shows up here. Please offer a more sophisticated explanation than "They've got nothing else to do" (after all, Melbourne excels in the third essential of life -- eating out).

 Women are more diverse in their interests than men. While there was only one non-sporting event among the 20 programs most watched by males (the Beaconsfield miners interview), the female top 20 included Dancing With The Stars, the Logies, The Biggest Loser, Desperate Housewives, Border Security, the miners interview, the Commonwealth Games opening and the Australian Open men's final.

 Both cities are sport-obsessed, but Melbourne is more narrow in its interests. Its 20 most watched programs included 10 (ten!) Commonwealth Games sessions, two tennis matches, two Logies events, one cricket match and one soccer match. Sydney's top 20 included six soccers, three rugby leagues, three Games, one tennis, one cricket, and one Logies.

 Sydney loved these shows much more than Melbourne did: Big Brother, The Big Fella (Kerry Packer), Dancing on Ice, It Takes Two, and 20 to 1. Melbourne loved these shows much more than Sydney did: Thank God You're Here, What's Good For You, Planet Earth, Prison Break, The Society Murders, Grey's Anatomyand the Logies.

 Women loved these shows much more than men did: Desperate Housewives, Medical Emergency, All Saints, The Biggest Loser, Dancing On Ice, Grey's Anatomy, McLeod's Daughters, Hello Goodbye and What's Good For You. Men loved these shows much more than women did: Nine Sunday news, Andrew Denton's interview with Billy Connolly, Planet Earth, 60 Minutes, Lost , Thank God You're Here, My Name is Earl and Prison Break.

 Sydney is less interested in world events than Melbourne. Down there, Seven news averaged 418,000 viewers and Nine news averaged 417,000. In Sydney, Seven news averaged 379,000 while Nine news averaged 362,000. Of course, it could be that most Sydney people work so hard they don't get home in time for the 6pm news.

But when it comes to our daily slice of sensationalism, we're a united nation. All viewers, whether male or female, Melbourne or Sydney, seem to prefer Today Tonight to A Current Affair. Which raises one more mystery: How can they tell the difference?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin). The Tribal Mind column is published every Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. Past columns can be found at www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. For a discussion on this week's trends in television, click here.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 06:03 PM
• Comments (56)

Fifteen affairs to remember

by David Dale.
A one-night stand is not the same as a long term involvement. Everybody knows that. In the same way, seeing a movie at the cinema or watching a show on TV is not the same as being so deeply affected by a story that you want to make it a permanent part of your life.

When you spend $80 on the boxed set of a film or series, and then preserve it on your bookshelf (where once the Encyclopedia Britannica would have sat) to show to your future grandchildren -- that's true love.

This column asked the research organization GfK Marketing to rank the all-time best-selling DVD sets containing more than two discs and costing more than $60 -- in other words, relationships that require serious commitment. How does the list below list compare with the contents of your DVD shelves? And what does it say about the shared culture of this nation?

The stories Australians value most
1 Star Wars Trilogy (first released 2004)
2 Indiana Jones box set (2003)
3 Gladiator deluxe collector's edition (2000)
4 The Godfather Collection (2001)
5 Band of Brothers box set (2002)
6 Back to the Future trilogy (2002)
7 Seinfeld seasons 1 and 2 (2004)
8 Fawlty Towers box set (2001)
9 Lord of the Rings extended trilogy (2006)
10 Seinfeld season 3 (2004)
11 The Simpsons season 2 box set (2002)
12 Sex and the City Beauty Case (2005)
13 The Sopranos season 2 box set (2001)
14 Black Adder collector's edition (2002)
15 The Rocky Collection box set (2001)

That is very different from the list of most rented DVDs of 2005, which is topped by Dodgeball, Ocean's Twelve and Meet The Fockers (click here for more detail). They were just passing fancies, consumable in an evening. The collections on our chart require weeks to digest. There's a Ph D. thesis in the meaning of this, but at first sight, we may conclude:

 The greatest storytellers of our age are Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, who gave us Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Band of Brothers (the TV series about the final stages of World War Two in Europe), The Godfather and, indirectly, The Sopranos.

 The actors most deeply embedded in our consciousness include Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Michael J Fox, John Cleese, Ian McKellen, Kim Cattrall, Rowan Atkinson and Sylvester Stallone.

 We love to laugh as much as we love to be stirred, and our sense of humour is equally English and American.

 Australia is far from a hero-phobic society (as suggested by the Hollywood screenwriter Christopher Vogler). It's simply that we prefer our epic adventurers to be American, Roman, British or inter-galactic rather than Australian. And if Paul Hogan produced a 20th anniversary deluxe extended collector's edition of Crocodile Dundee 1 and 2 ( part 3 excluded by public demand), that box set would certainly join the hallowed company above -- if not top the list.

 If Channel Nine showed the final season of The Sopranos at a civilised hour, it would not necessarily attract big numbers but it would attract a deeply committed audience who don't watch a lot of other commercial TV -- just the kind of people certain advertisers are keen to reach.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin). For a discussion on this week's trends in television, click here.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 06:36 PM
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The year so far: Crime down, health up, laughs fresh

by David Dale.
Australians are losing interest in crime -- unless it's smuggling, which we much prefer to murder. We've developed a fascination for medicine, especially when it's mixed with sex and humour. And we like our comedy Australian and spontaneous rather than American and canned.

Those are some of the patterns that emerged last week when the TV networks did their report cards on the first half of the ratings year.

By excluding the Commonwealth Games from the analysis, Channel Seven declared itself the winner, averaging 28.5 per cent of the prime time audience (to Nine's 28.4 per cent, Ten's 22.7, ABC's 14.8, and SBS's 5.6). That is the worst first half result Nine has ever seen -- down 4.5 per cent on 2005, while Seven is up 3.7 per cent, Ten is up 2.9 per cent, SBS is up 14.9 per cent, and the ABC is down 6.5 per cent.

Nine suffered from declining interest in its cop shows CSI, Without A Trace, CSI: New York, and CSI: Miami. Its best asset has been the health series What's Good For You, which averaged 1.5 million viewers in the mainland capitals and restored Sigrid Thornton to celebrity status.

Nine's American sitcoms Two And A Half Men and The New Adventures of Old Christine have flopped, and its expensive talent quest Dancing On Ice is suffering contestant injuries and audience turnoff.

Ten has been riding high on the local comedy series Thank God You're Here, the fitness game show The Biggest Loser and the US hospital series House. The beleaguered Big Brother is averaging the same audience as last year.

Although Seven shed 400,000 viewers from both its hit dramas Desperate Housewives and Lost, it made huge gains with Dancing With The Stars, Medical Emergency and Border Security, the documentary series about smuggler-stopping. And at a time when Australian drama is in the doldrums, Seven's All Saints picked up 200,000 new viewers, apparently by adopting the black humour and sexy melodrama of Ten's House.

Seven boasts of a national victory for its 6pm news, but this is largely the result of the collapse of Nine's news in Perth. In Melbourne, Seven news averaged 418,000 viewers in the first half, while Nine's averaged 417,000.

The ABC's only reasons to celebrate have been the British documentary series Planet Earth and the comedy game show Spicks and Specks, which attracted the kind of under 40 viewers who usually prefer Channel Ten.

Channel Ten's Chief Programming Officer, David Mott, released figures which excluded the Games, and defined "prime time" as between 6pm and 10.30 pm (while Nine and Seven normally define it as 6pm to midnight). By Ten's definition, the audience shares are: Seven 28.6 per cent; Nine 28.1; Ten 22.8; ABC 15.4; SBS 5.1.

Mott said: "However you want to cut the ratings cards -- share, audience thousands, year on year growth -- Ten holds the winning hand of 2006. Not only are we first in our core 16-39 demographic, with our biggest ever lead at the mid-way point, but Ten is first in the US benchmark 18-49 demographic."

As if the competing statistical claims by the stations weren't confusing enough already, Ten now wants to add a new age-band into the argument. This column is going to confine itself to all people in the mainland capitals.

OUR CHANGING TASTES
Average audiences in first half of the ratings year

Sinking ships 2005 2006
1. Desperate Housewives (7) 2.13m 1.69m
2. CSI (9) 1.66 1.59
3. Lost (7) 1.93 1.50
4. 20 to 1 (9) 1.63 1.41
5. CSI: Miami (9) 1.34 1.23
6. CSI: NY (9) 1.28 1.16
7. Without A Trace (9) 1.25 1.10
8. Backyard Blitz (9) 1.52 1.08
9. Beyond Tomorrow (7) 1.32 1.06
10. Super Nanny (US) (9) 1.34 0.96

Soaring successes 2005 2006
1. Dancing with the Stars (7) 1.98m 2.19m
2. Border Security (7) 1.82 2.04
3. Medical Emergency (7) 1.53 1.73
4. House (7) 1.51 1.60
5. Today Tonight (7) 1.40 1.48
6. Seven News (7) 1.37 1.48
7. All Saints (7) 1.28 1.42
8. Cold Case (9) 1.16 1.39
9. NCIS (10) 1.14 1.28
10. Hot Property (7) 1.05 1.26

Top-rating Regular Programs of 2006
(Average audience up to July 22, according to OzTAM estimates)
1. Dancing with the Stars 4 (7) 2.19m
2. Border Security (7) 2.04
3. Medical Emergency (7) 1.76
4. Thank God You're Here (10) 1.73
5. Desperate Housewives (7) 1.70
6. Nine News Sunday (9) 1.69
7. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (9) 1.59
8. Dancing On Ice (9) 1.50
9. House (10) 1.60
10. 60 Minutes (9) 1.56
11. What's Good For You (9) 1.54
12. It Takes Two (7) 1.53
13. Today Tonight (7) 1.48
14. Seven News weekdays (7) 1.48
15. Lost (7) 1.47
16. Planet Earth (ABC) 1.47
17. My Name Is Earl (7) 1.47
18. Where Are They Now (7) 1.47
19. Seven News Sunday (7) 1.43
20. All Saints (7) 1.42
21. 20 to 1 (9) 1.41
22. Big Brother Evictions (10) 1.39
23. Cold Case (9) 1.39
24. McLeod's Daughters (9) 1.36
25. Prison Break (7) 1.35
26. The Biggest Loser Eliminations (10) 1.35
27. Nine News weekdays (9) 1.35
28. Grey's Anatomy (7) 1.34
29. Missing Persons Unit (9) 1.32
30. Getaway (7) 1.31
31. Big Brother Nominations (10) 1.29
32. Seven News Saturday (7) 1.28
33. NCIS (10) 1.28
34. Nine News Saturday (9) 1.28
35. Hot Property (7) 1.26
36. Home and Away (7) 1.26
37. Friday Night Football -- AFL and NRL (9) 1.24
38. Better Homes and Gardens (7) 1.23
39. Who Wants to be a Millionaire (9) 1.23
40. CSI:Miami (9) 1.23
41. A Current Affair (9) 1.23
42. How I Met Your Mother (7) 1.20
43. Sunday Football -- AFL and NRL (9) 1.20
44. The Biggest Loser Tues-Fri (10) 1.19
45. Hello Goodbye (9) 1.18
46. You Are What You Eat (9) 1.18
47. Big Brother Sunday (10) 1.18
48. Silent Witness (ABC) 1.17
49. Jamie's Great Italian Escape (10) 1.16
50. The Wedge (10) 1.15

Top-rating One-off Events (Weeks 1-28, 2006)
1. Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony (9) 3.561m
2. The Great Escape - Beaconsfield miners (9) 2.790
3. Tennis: Aus Open Men's Final (7) 2.748
4. Comm Games Closing Ceremony (9) 2.736
5. Dancing with the Stars 4 Final (7) 2.665
6. The Biggest Loser Final Episode (10) 2.310
7. World Cup: Italy v Australia (SBS) 2.297
8. Logie Arrivals (9) 2.260
9. Desperate Housewives Episode 1 (7) 2.246
10. Comm Games Opening Countdown (9) 2.229
11. Cricket: Australia v South Africa 20/20 (9) 2.179
12. World Cup: Australia v Japan (SBS) 2.166
13. Lost Episode 1 (7) 2.125
14. Logie Awards (9) 2.032
15. World Cup: Croatia v Australia (SBS) 2.023
16. NRL State of Origin III (9) 2.020
17. Comm Games Day 1 Primetime (9) 1.958
18. Prison Break Episode 1 (7) 1.944
19. Comm Games Day 5 Primetime (9) 1.920
20. Comm Games Day 3 Primetime (9) 1.913
21. Comm Games Day 10 Primetime (9) 1.884
22. NRL State of Origin I (9) 1.876
23. Comm Games Day 2 Primetime (9) 1.839
24. Comm Games Day 8 Primetime (9) 1.833
25. Comm Games Day 4 Primetime (9) 1.817
26. Big Brother Launch Episode (10) 1.800
27. Comm Games Day 6 Primetime (9) 1.783
28. Cricket: One Day Final 3 Primetime (9) 1.776
29. Comm Games Day 9 Primetime (9) 1.742
30. Comm Games Day 7 Primetime (9) 1.730

The ratings race is updated every weekday as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A Miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 08:18 AM
• Comments (30)

The ratings race: Week 29

The blog you are about to read is a heritage item, dealing with one week in TV history. If you wish to comment on the latest TV trends, you will need to click here.To see the 20 best-looking people on television this year, click here.

Updated 10am, Sunday July 23
On Saturday, Dr Who and the werewolf attracted 1.01 million viewers to the ABC, which also triumphed with 1.03 million for 'The Bill', clearly enjoying a renaissance. But Channel Nine won the week, with 28.4 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven got 28.1 per cent, Ten got 21.8, ABC got 15.6 and SBS got 6.1.

Until Saturday, Nine and Seven were neck and neck, but then Nine scored with 'Funniest Home Videos' and 'King Solomon's Mines', which beat Seven's bizarre combination of 'Mrs Doubtfire' in three cities and 'Four Weddings and A Funeral' in two cities.

What subscribers to pay TV watched, week ending July 22
1 NRL COWBOYS V BRONCOS FOX Sports 1 219,000
2 NRL BULLDOGS V ROOSTERS FOX Sports 1 187,000
3 RUGBY UNION: TRI NATIONS FOX Sports 2 143,000
4 NRL KNIGHTS V STORM FOX Sports 1 140,000
5 NRL KNIGHTS V RABBITOHS FOX Sports 1 134,000
6 RND 15 CARLTON V WESTERN BULLDOGS FOX Footy 120,000
7 GOLF: BRITISH OPEN ROUND 3 FOX Sports 2 100,000
8 RND 16 ESSENDON V CARLTON FOX Footy 95,000
9 GOLF: BRITISH OPEN ROUND 2 FOX Sports 2 83,000
10 GOLF: BRITISH OPEN ROUND 1 FOX Sports 2 83,000
11 RND 16 BRISBANE LIONS V HAWTHORN FOX Footy 79,000
12 WWE RAW FOX8 58,000
13 FOX LEAGUE TEAMS FOX Footy 57,000
14 ROCK STAR: SUPERNOVA FOX8 56,000
15 FAMILY GUY FOX8 56,000
(OzTAM)

What Australia watched, week ending July 22
RNK Description STN Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 BORDER SECURITY Seven 2,002,000 570,000 567,000 358,000 230,000 278,000
2 HOUSE Ten 1,895,000 578,000 632,000 283,000 210,000 193,000
3 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,799,000 503,000 565,000 309,000 246,000 176,000
4 CSI Nine 1,698,000 507,000 495,000 296,000 228,000 173,000
5 IT TAKES TWO Seven 1,618,000 461,000 508,000 297,000 176,000 176,000
6 SEVEN NEWS SUN Seven 1,599,000 390,000 525,000 286,000 164,000 234,000
7 MEDICAL EMERGENCY Seven 1,596,000 433,000 477,000 274,000 203,000 208,000
8 60 MINUTES Nine 1,559,000 412,000 477,000 294,000 167,000 208,000
9 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,558,000 463,000 459,000 277,000 175,000 184,000
10 LOST Seven 1,531,000 415,000 495,000 241,000 183,000 196,000
11 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,530,000 431,000 427,000 273,000 160,000 239,000
12 MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS Nine 1,501,000 442,000 438,000 309,000 161,000 150,000
13 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,491,000 400,000 437,000 268,000 163,000 223,000
14 NCIS Ten 1,453,000 424,000 441,000 251,000 168,000 169,000
15 PLANET EARTH ABC 1,414,000 427,000 431,000 245,000 137,000 174,000
16 DANCING ON ICE Nine 1,413,000 470,000 408,000 246,000 148,000 141,000
17 NINE NEWS Nine 1,411,000 406,000 436,000 294,000 159,000 116,000
18 WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU Nine 1,410,000 412,000 442,000 242,000 176,000 137,000
19 CSI: MIAMI Nine 1,406,000 427,000 411,000 234,000 192,000 142,000
20 GETAWAY Nine 1,374,000 402,000 423,000 244,000 154,000 152,000
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

Updated 10am, Friday July 21
How about those Australian accents in 'Lost' on Thursday night -- a bit cockney, a bit Newzild, a bit Sethefriken, a bit American? But that implausibility, noticeable only to Australian viewers, didn't stop 'Lost' from being the most watched show of the night, nor Seven from equalling Nine's prime time audience share of 28.4 per cent for the week so far (Ten on 22.4, ABC on 14.6, SBS on 6.2).

As 'Lost' rises, the sitcoms sink -- Seven's Earl and Mother and Nine's Men and Christine are all plummeting. Click here to learn how canned laughter is turning Australians off sitcoms.

What Australia watched, Thursday
1. Lost Seven 1.53m
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.51
3. Seven News Seven 1.46
4. Nine News Nine 1.40
5. Getaway Nine 1.38
6. Temptation Nine 1.30
7. Home and Away Seven 1.28
8. My Name Is Earl Seven 1.25
9. A Current Affair Nine 1.23
10. Medium Ten 1.12
11. Law and Order Ten 1.06
12. How I Met Your Mother Seven 1.04
13. The Footy Show Nine 1.04
14. ABC News ABC 0.99
15. Two and a Half Men Nine 0.99
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10am, Thursday July 20
So this was the big question in tellybiz: where would 1.4 million 'Prison Break' tragics go after their favourite show ended?

Would they stay with Seven for adults-only versions of the trashfest 'Las Vegas'? Would they become fulltime members of Gregory House's diagnostic team (1.5 million last week), instead of just dipping in during commercial breaks? Would they finally give Anthony LaPaglia the recognition he deserves in the underrated 'Without A Trace' (1.1 million last week)?

Well, 'Las Vegas' got a pathetic 878,000 in the mainland capitals, suggesting Seven will replace it fast, and the application of a little arithmetic to last night's chart provides the rest of the answer:

What Australia watched, Wednesday
1. House Ten 1.89m
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.54
3. Seven News Seven 1.54
4. McLeod's Daughters Nine 1.50
5. NCIS Ten 1.46
6. Nine News Nine 1.44
7. Temptation Nine 1.42
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.42
9. Home and Away Seven 1.31
10. Honey We're Killing The Kids Ten 1.31
11. Without A Trace Nine 1.25
12. Beyond Tomorrow Seven 1.13
13. Spicks and Specks ABC 1.07
14. Big Brother Ten 1.02
15. ABC News ABC 1.01
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Ten won Wednesday night with 28.7 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 26.6 per cent, Seven got 24.0, ABC got 15.1, and SBS got 5.6.

Click here for an analysis of the networks' performance in the first half of the ratings year, and a chart of the most watched programs of 2006.

Updated 10am, Wednesday July 19
Despite intriguing reports of injuries during rehearsals, Channel Nine's "live and dangerous" Skating on Ice lost 200,000 viewers between last week and Tuesday night. Most of them returned to Seven's Border Security, but a few went over to Ten to see how Ricky Gervais scripted an episode of The Simpsons.

Despite the skating slump, Nine won the night with 29.5 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven, suffering a similar slump in its audience for 'Medical Emergency', got 29.4 per cent, Ten got 20.6, ABC got 14.4, and SBS got 6.1.

To give you an idea of how the stations spin the statistics to their advantage each day, this was Nine's press release on what happened last night: "The strength of Nine's new series Torvill and Dean's Dancing On Ice has led the Network to score its highest share on a Tuesday, both in Sydney and nationally, since February (excluding Commonwealth Games). Outside the exclusive Commonwealth Games coverage, Nine won Tuesday nationally for the first time since Week 7 (One Day Cricket Final) with a 29.5 per cent share, ahead of Seven on 29.4 and Ten on 20.6.

Nine was number one in Sydney with an impressive 31.7 per cent share, its best Tuesday result outside the Commonwealth Games and since February. Nine was 3.1 points ahead of Seven on 28.6 and 11.4 points in front of Ten (20.3). Torvill and Dean's Dancing On Ice again dazzled the audience last night with a peak audience of 1.696 million viewers tuning in to see the first elimination from the competition. The live episode attracted a solid 1.413 million viewers nationally. In Sydney, the ice spectacular was the second most-watched show of the night with 470,000 viewers.

"In Sydney, National Nine News was again the chosen news service taking third position with 448,000 viewers. Seven News followed on 425,000 viewers. Across the country, National Nine News was a Top 5 performer with 1.517 million viewers. A Current Affair also beat Today Tonight in Sydney again leading at 6.30pm with 422,000 viewers, ahead of Seven's 418,000."

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Border Security Seven 2.00m
2. Medical Emergency Seven 1.59
3. Seven News Seven 1.53
4. Nine News Nine 1.51
5. Today Tonight Seven 1.48
6. Dancing On Ice Nine 1.39
7. All Saints Seven 1.36
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.34
9. Temptation Nine 1.33
10. Home and Away Seven 1.32
11. CSI Nine 1.17
12. The Simpsons 7:30pm Ten 1.14
13. ABC News ABC 1.12
14. Big Brother Ten 1.06
15. The Wedge Ten 1.00
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10am, Tuesday July 18
There must be a question about whether Kylie Minogue is entitled to "national icon" status, after the distinct lack of interest shown by Australians in last night's discussion of her battle with breast cancer. Her audience of 1.1 million viewers, purchased for $300,000 by NIne, was 400,000 less than 'Cold Case' normally achieves in the timeslot.

The Kylie interview barely distracted from the Despos and the doctors, with Seven scoring a healthy 30.3 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 25.8 per cent, Ten got 21.4, ABC got 16.3, and SBS got 6.2.

What Australia watched, Monday
1. Seven News Seven 1.60m
2. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.55
3. Home and Away Seven 1.48
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.48
5. A Current Affair Nine 1.42
6. What's Good For You Nine 1.40
7. Nine News Nine 1.38
8. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.36
9. Temptation Nine 1.31
10. Law and Order: SVU Ten 1.23
11. The Great Outdoors Seven 1.21
12. Big Brother Nomination Ten 1.20
13. Kylie Nine 1.13
14. Deal or No Deal Seven 1.10
15. Big Brother 7:00pm Ten 1.07
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11am, Monday July 17
Nine came back to form on Sunday night, using its old favourites CSI, 60 Minutes and news to overwhelm a ratings recovery by Seven's talent quest It Takes Two (up 200,000 on the previous Sunday). Nine gained 30.7 per cent of the prime time audience, with Seven on 29.3, Ten on 19.8, ABC on 15.4, and SBS on 4.7.

Tonight we're in for a battle between the Desperate Housewives and Kylie MInogue, whose first interview since her cancer treatment has been bought by Nine and scheduled at the peak female viewers' time of the week.

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Nine News Sunday Nine 1.80
2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Nine 1.70m
3. It Takes Two Seven 1.62
4. Seven News Sunday Seven 1.59
5. 60 Minutes Nine 1.54
6. CSI: Miami Nine 1.41
7. Planet Earth ABC 1.39
8. True Stories Seven 1.30
9. Movie: Calendar Girls Seven 1.30
10. Big Brother Eviction Ten 1.22
11. Sunday Football AFL and NRL Nine 1.21
12. You Are What You Eat Nine 1.20
13. ABC News ABC 1.15
14. Turn Back Your Body Clock Nine 1.14
15. Big Brother 6:30pm Sunday Ten 1.10
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

The ratings race is updated every weekday as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A Miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:13 AM
• Comments (247)

The freedom not to laugh

by David Dale.
For decades, TV producers have improved their comedies by the addition of canned laughs. Oddly, they have never thought to improve crime and medical shows with canned gasps and sobs. That could be the saving of Australian television drama, which is in a slump at the moment, possibly because viewers don't know whether to cry, laugh or sneer. And it would certainly be hallowed by historic tradition.

In his wonderful book The Know It All, the American media writer A.J. Jacobs reports that audience manipulation goes back to the fourth century BC, "when Greek playwrights hired bands of helpers to laugh at their comedies in order to influence the judges."

In 19th century France, theatre managements would hire teams of crowd-inspirers called the claque. "Each claque member had his or her own important job to perform," Jacobs reports. "There were the rieurs, who laughed loudly during comedies. There were the bisseurs, who shouted for encores. There were the commissaires, who would elbow their neighbours and say 'This is the good part'. And my favourite of all, the pleureuses, women who were paid good francs to weep at the sad parts of tragedies."

The claque reached Australia with the first American sitcoms in 1957. Even shows filmed in front of live audiences had their soundtracks "sweetened" with pre-recorded chuckles, snickers, hoots and guffaws. The enthusiasm that surrounded The Beverly Hillbillies, Mr Ed, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flintstones, The Love Boat and The Brady Bunch was fake.

The pioneer in the field was a sound engineer called Charley Douglass, who started leasing a device called The Laff Box to the US networks in the 1960s. It was a collection of tape loops which could be played like an organ to simulate various reactions and even to distinguish by gender and age, according to the target audience the producers were seeking. Douglass won a lifetime achievement Emmy in 1992, and died in 2003, but his company still markets The Laff Box, now in the form of a laptop capable of very subtle sweetenings.

Australia embraced the Yankee cancoms right through to Friends in the early noughties, but whenever local producers tried to emulate the US formula, they failed -- possibly because they weren't prepared to pay for quality laugh tracks. Convincing hysteria doesn't come cheap.

But now the age of The Laff Box is over, according to Tom Gleisner, co-creator of Frontline, The Castle, Molvania, Phaic Tan, All Aussie Adventures, The Panel, and Thank God You're Here. He says Australians will no longer tolerate having their reactions dictated:

"Americans seem to be able to cope with laugh tracks, but to us the notion that some unseen audience is splitting its sides every few seconds feels too self-satisfied. Kath & Kim and Frontline would be unthinkable with canned laughter. They worked because they gave the audience the freedom not to laugh."

Three days after Gleisner was reported saying that, Channel Ten launched a new local comedy called The Wedge, of which the most notable feature is a laugh track so implausible as to be a joke in itself. It started with 1.5 million viewers in the mainland capitals, and has now sunk to 1.0 million -- which still puts it above Channel Nine's latest US cancom The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Below you will see a ranking, by average audience, of the comedies we watched in the first half of 2006. This column, ever in search of signs that civilisation is advancing, is encouraged that six of the top ten reached their heights without help from the claque.

What made Australia laugh this year
1 Thank God You're Here (10) 1.73 million
2 Desperate Housewives (7) 1.69m
3 My Name is Earl (7) 1.47m
4 Melbourne Comedy Festival (10) 1.29m
5 *How I Met Your Mother (7) 1.21m
6 *The Wedge (10) 1.16m
7 The Simpsons (10) 1.11m
8 *Two and a Half Men (9) 1.09m
9 *The New Adventures of Old Christine (9) 1.01m
10 Spicks and Specks (ABC) 1.00m
11 Futurama (10) 0.96m
12 *Fawlty Towers (7) 0.89m
13 *Little Britain (ABC) 0.88m
14 Everybody Hates Chris (10) 0.81m
15 The Glass House (ABC) 0.74m
16 *Comedy Inc - The Late Shift (9) 0.73m
17 The Chaser's War on Everything (ABC) 0.67m
18 American Dad (7) 0.58m
19 Family Guy (7) 0.51m
20 Scrubs (7) 0.40m
* Assisted by canned laugher
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin). The Tribal Mind column is published every Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. Past columns can be found at www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. For a discussion on this week's trends in television, click here.

To find out which movies in the past 18 months have most satisfied and most disappointed Australians, click here.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:09 AM
• Comments (71)

The ratings race: Week 28

The blog you are about to read is a heritage item, dealing with one week in TV history. If you wish to comment on the latest TV trends, you will need to click here.

Updated 10 am Sunday July 16
The most watched show of Friday was Better Homes and Gardens (7), with 1.42 million. Most watched on Saturday was Nine News with 1.37 million. Dr Who brought 911,000 to the ABC and the rugby union brought 761,000 to Seven. After a resurgence recently, The Bill slipped back to 869,000.

Thanks to massive lack of interest in the rugby union outside Sydney, Channel Seven came second in audience appeal on Saturday night. But Seven still won the week, with an average share of 29.3 per cent of the prime time viewers, while Nine got 28.3, Ten got 21.5, the ABC got 15.8 and SBS got 5.1.

What Australia watched, week ending July 15
RNK Description STN Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 BORDER SECURITY Seven 1,901,000 451,000 590,000 379,000 193,000 288,000
2 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,746,000 498,000 542,000 286,000 255,000 165,000
3 60 MINUTES Nine 1,623,000 487,000 486,000 275,000 170,000 205,000
4 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,610,000 489,000 512,000 254,000 185,000 170,000
5 DANCING ON ICE Nine 1,610,000 491,000 482,000 304,000 177,000 156,000
6 WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU Nine 1,579,000 404,000 564,000 236,000 180,000 195,000
7 PLANET EARTH ABC 1,569,000 439,000 516,000 258,000 150,000 206,000
8 PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN Seven 1,558,000 447,000 464,000 239,000 199,000 209,000
9 SEVEN NEWS SUNDAY Seven 1,557,000 419,000 448,000 322,000 130,000 239,000
10 PRISON BREAK Seven 1,535,000 400,000 565,000 219,000 150,000 201,000
11 HOUSE Ten 1,523,000 393,000 498,000 290,000 162,000 180,000
12 MEDICAL EMERGENCY Seven 1,522,000 376,000 470,000 291,000 172,000 214,000
13 GETAWAY Nine 1,497,000 455,000 454,000 275,000 163,000 149,000
14 LOST Seven 1,490,000 409,000 505,000 267,000 153,000 157,000
15 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,489,000 373,000 442,000 279,000 165,000 229,000
16 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,453,000 390,000 409,000 267,000 165,000 221,000
17 COLD CASE Nine 1,435,000 418,000 457,000 222,000 143,000 195,000
18 GREY'S ANATOMY Seven 1,432,000 432,000 448,000 236,000 152,000 164,000
19 NINE NEWS Nine 1,430,000 390,000 462,000 294,000 168,000 116,000
20 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,425,000 472,000 439,000 208,000 154,000 151,000
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

Updated 10am Friday July 14
A modest recovery for 'Lost' (up to 1.49 million) and serious slippage for 'Christine' (down to 931,000) meant that Channel Seven was the most watched network on Thursday night, putting it in a strong position to be the ratings winner for the week and for the half year.

What Australia watched, Thursday
1. Lost (7) 1.49m
2. Seven News (7) 1.48
3. Getaway (9) 1.48
4. Today Tonight (7) 1.45
5. National Nine News (9) 1.34
6. My Name Is Earl (7) 1.33
7. Home and Away (7) 1.27
8. A Current Affair (9) 1.24
9. Temptation (9) 1.19
10. How I Met Your Mother (7) 1.12
11. Medium (10) 1.09
12. Big Brother (10) 1.08
13. Two and a Half Men (9) 1.04
14. Law and Order (10) 1.02
15. ABC News ABC 1.00
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11am Thursday July 13
Channel Seven is dicking around with Earl. Its programing geniuses have decided to show this year's most successful sitcom in a different order from the way the series was shown in America, to move funny bits forward and boring bits backward.

Two alert readers of this blog, with a mysterious capacity to see American programs before they are shown here, claim that tonight's "third" episode is actually No. 9 in the series. They fear this will deprive Australian viewers of gags intended to accumulate over the weeks. Tim Worner, Seven's Director of Programming, disagrees. When we put the readers' complaint to him, he replied:

"I have now seen all but a couple of episodes of series one. They are all stand alone episodes. There are no cumulative jokes and there certainly isn't a serialised storyline. They don't make the series in any specific 'order', they just make shows one after another.

"I am sure that if you checked with Greg Garcia [creator of My Name Is Earl] he would agree that they're all pretty good and some are outstanding. I am also sure that if he had the chance to rearrange them at the end of the run in order to give it its best chance, he would do so. Hope this helps."

Tell us your reaction, below. Could this be a belated recognition by a commercial network that the Australian sense of humour is different from the American?

And to compare your DVD collection with the comedies and adventures that Australians value most, click here.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
1. Prison Break final (7) 1.53m
2. House (10) 1.50
3. Nine News (9) 1.48
4. Seven News (7) 1.45
5. Today Tonight (7) 1.41
6. NCIS (10) 1.39
7. Beyond Tomorrow (7) 1.33
8. Home and Away (7) 1.31
9. A Current Affair (9) 1.31
10. McLeod's Daughters (9) 1.29
11. Temptation (9) 1.27
12. Honey We're Killing The Kids (10) 1.13
13. Without A Trace (9) 1.12
14. Spicks and Specks (ABC) 1.11
15. Big Brother (10) 1.03
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Channel Seven won the night with 27.8 per cent of the prime time audience, followed by Ten on 25.9 per cent, Nine on 25.8, ABC on 15.4 and SBS on 5.1.

Updated 10am Wednesday July 12
Australians would rather see customs officers inspecting baggage than pretty people in revealing costumes. Millions of dollars worth of preparation and publicity could not win Tuesday night for Channel Nine.

Dancing On Ice averaged 1,609,000 viewers in the mainland capitals and Nine gained 29.0 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven gained 1,901,000 for Border Security and 30.5 per cent of the night's audience (Ten got 22.6 per cent, ABC 14.5 and SBS 3.4). It's now a real possibility that Nine will end the year as No. 2.

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Border Security Seven 1.90m
2. Dancing On Ice Nine 1.60
3. Seven News Seven 1.53
4. Medical Emergency Seven 1.52
5. Today Tonight Seven 1.51
6. Nine News Nine 1.48
7. All Saints Seven 1.40
8. Home and Away Seven 1.35
9. A Current Affair Nine 1.25
10. Temptation Nine 1.25
11. Big Brother Special Ten 1.20
12. Ghost Whisperer Seven 1.12
13. The Wedge Ten 1.05
14. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Nine 1.05
15. ABC News ABC 1.04

Updated 11am Tuesday July 11
Are the breasts of one 19-year-old girl strong enough to carry the hopes and fears of an entire television network? Can Lara Bingle be to Channel Nine what Bec Cartwright and Jennifer Hawkins were to Channel Seven?

These questions will be answered tonight when Nine launches Dancing On Ice, the celebrity talent quest that will determine whether Nine ends the year as Australia's first or second most watched channel and which has been promoted primarily with promises of anatomical glimpses hitherto sampled only by readers of magazines such as Ralph and Zoo.

So far this week, Nine is well behind Seven, which won last night with 31.5 per cent of the prime time audience (Nine 28.8, Ten 18.4, ABC 16.4 and SBS 4.9). And Seven usually wins Tuesdays on the strength of 2 million viwers for Border Security. So the celebreasts have an uphill battle.

We'll award a handsome prize in a red cover to the reader who correctly predicts the average audience in the mainland capitals for Bingling On Ice tonight, and who gives the most plausible reasons for their prediction, thereby demonstrating an intimate understanding of the national psyche.

What Australia watched, Monday
1. Desperate Housewives (7) 1.61m
2. Seven News (7) 1.59
3. Today Tonight (7) 1.56
4. What's Good For You (9) 1.55
5. Cold Case (9) 1.47
6. Nine News (9) 1.46
7. Grey's Anatomy (7) 1.43
8. A Current Affair (9) 1.39
9. Temptation (9) 1.36
10. Home and Away (7) 1.35
Today averaged 233,000 viewers yesterday, while Sunrise averaged 518,000. And the grand final of the World Cup drew 943,000 viewers to SBS.
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 6pm Monday July 11
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest sold $11.2 million worth of tickets between Thursday and Sunday night - a record in a period when cinemas are supposed to be in a slump. In the same weekend, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl became the most watched film shown on TV in the past two years.

It's an iron law of the television industry that Sunday night movies no longer work. The institution known as "the national corroboree", whereby Australians would gather round the campfire at 8.30pm every Sunday to share a story for two hours, disappeared with the end of the 20th century, because any significant movie had already been seen at the cinema, on DVD or on pay TV long before it reached the commercial networks. Channel Seven won Sunday night by exploiting The One Great Exception.

Pirates of the Caribbean was seen by 2.6 million Australians when shown at the cinema in 2003. It became the No. 9 bestselling disk of all time when released on DVD in 2004 (click here for DVD details). And yet on Sunday night it could still attract 1.6 million viewers in the mainland capitals, giving Channel Seven 32.4 per cent of the prime time audience. The usual Sunday winner, Channel Nine, got 29.2 per cent with help from news and 60 Minutes, while Ten got a miserable 17.7 per cent as viewers showed their boredom with Big Brother.

ABC got a rare 16.5 per cent, thanks to an extraordinary performance by David Attenborough displaying Planet Earth. And SBS got 4.2 per cent as the soccer fans went to bed early in preparation for a match whose audience will be reported here on Tuesday.

Meanwhile at the cinema, Pirates 2 opened bigger than The Da Vinci Code (which made $8.6 million in its first four days) and Superman Returns ($5.3m). It's the best opening since May, 2005, when Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith scored $13.4m. On the usual theory that a blockbuster's ultimate earnings tend to be 3.5 times the opening weekend figure, Pirates 2 looks set to make $40 million and become Australia's eighth highest grossing movie of all time (click here for details).

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Nine News Sunday Nine 1.74m
2. 60 Minutes Nine 1.62
3. Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean Seven 1.58
4. Planet Earth ABC 1.56
5. Seven News Sunday Seven 1.55
6. It Takes Two Seven 1.42
7. CSI Nine 1.30
8. Turn Back Your Body Clock Nine 1.25
9. You Are What You Eat Nine 1.22
10. ABC News Sunday ABC 1.18
11. Big Brother Eviction Ten 1.18
12. CSI: Miami Nine 1.12
13. Big Brother 6:30pm Ten 1.11
14. Sunday Football - AFL and NRL Nine 1.09
15. True Stories Seven 1.03
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11 am Sunday July 9
Dr Who reincarnated the ABC on Saturday but it was football that won the week for Channel Nine.

After a stellar performance on Tuesday by Border Security (under challenge this week from Nine's Bingling on Ice), Channel Seven surrendered on Wednesday and averaged 27.7 per cent of the prime time audience for the week.

Ten got a disappointing 21.9, despite huge publicity for Big Brother. The ABC scored a healthy 15.9 per cent (thanks to Silent Witness, with 1.15 million, and Dr Who, with 1.03m) and a soccer-free SBS slipped back to 5.2.

Thanks to two million viewers for the State of Origin rugby league on Wednesday (including an amazine 364,000 in Melbourne) and strong AFL activities on Thursday and Friday, Nine won with 29.3 per cent. This was despite the failure of its sitcoms Two and a Half Men and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

What Australia watched in the week ending July 8
RNK . Program . Network . Sydney . Melbourne . Brisbane . Adelaide . Perth
1 BORDER SECURITY (7) 2,196,000 590,000 624,000 378,000 240,000 363,000
2 STATE OF ORIGIN 3RD (9) 2,020,000 899,000 364,000 668,000 88,000 1,000
3 MEDICAL EMERGENCY (7) 1,821,000 489,000 571,000 309,000 203,000 249,000
4 NINE NEWS SUNDAY (9) 1,768,000 446,000 526,000 345,000 240,000 211,000
5 60 MINUTES (9) 1,637,000 460,000 503,000 266,000 193,000 214,000
6 SEVEN NEWS SUNDAY (7) 1,605,000 435,000 500,000 276,000 187,000 207,000
7 BIG BROTHER EVICTION (10) 1,593,000 454,000 457,000 276,000 213,000 193,000
8 WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU (9) 1,584,000 465,000 534,000 288,000 151,000 145,000
9 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (7) 1,566,000 459,000 510,000 230,000 186,000 182,000
10 SEVEN NEWS (7) 1,539,000 391,000 449,000 275,000 175,000 250,000
11 BIG BROTHER SUN (10) 1,527,000 398,000 464,000 283,000 204,000 178,000
12 ALL SAINTS (7) 1,495,000 417,000 510,000 240,000 149,000 179,000
13 TODAY TONIGHT (7) 1,488,000 382,000 454,000 259,000 159,000 235,000
14 GETAWAY (9) 1,479,000 466,000 480,000 214,000 173,000 147,000
15 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS (9) 1,472,000 402,000 507,000 238,000 167,000 158,000
16 MY NAME IS EARL (7) 1,462,000 453,000 429,000 263,000 133,000 184,000
17 GREY'S ANATOMY (7) 1,447,000 437,000 492,000 228,000 134,000 156,000
18 NINE NEWS SATURDAY (9) 1,430,000 378,000 449,000 330,000 161,000 112,000
19 NINE NEWs (9) 1,424,000 397,000 457,000 302,000 166,000 102,000
20 IT TAKES TWO (7) 1,379,000 395,000 421,000 228,000 166,000 169,000
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

The ratings race is updated every weekday as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A Miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:02 AM
• Comments (350)

The ratings race: Week 27

The blog you are about to read is a heritage item, dealing with one week in TV history. If you wish to comment on the latest TV trends, you will need to click here.

Updated 10 am Friday July 7
The Seinfeld Curse seems to have struck again. Despite positive pre-publicity, the latest sitcom from Julia Louis-Dreyfus (the old Elaine) tanked last night. The New Adventures of Old Christine was the number 14 most watched show of Thursday, with 1.08 million viewers in the mainland capitals.

It didn't even hold the 1.15 million who watched Two and Half Men, the sitcom that preceded it at 8.30, and it took no viewers from Lost, which was a clips collection. Even with the modest performance of its two comedies, Nine won the night and looks like winning the week. Prime time audience shares so far: Nine 29.8 per cent; Seven 28.2; Ten 22.1; ABC 14.4; SBS 5.4.

One of our bloggers, below, argues that commercial television is designed for brain dead suckers, and gets intelligent critical thinkers only by accident. You may care to join that discussion.

What Australia watched, Friday
1 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,472,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,438,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,436,000
4 NINE NEWS Nine 1,329,000
5 TEMPTATION Nine 1,234,000
6 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,219,000
7 FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 1,214,000
8 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,202,000
9 SILENT WITNESS ABC 1,148,000
10 BIG BROTHER - FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE Ten 1,129,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australia watched, Thursday
1. Seven News (7) 1.53m
2. Getaway (9) 1.47
3. Today Tonight (7) 1.46
4. My Name Is Earl (7) 1.46
5. Nine News (9) 1.38
6. Lost (7) 1.35
7. Temptation (9) 1.23
8. Home and Away (7) 1.22
9. A Current Affair (9) 1.21
10. How I Met Your Mother (7) 1.19
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated Thursday July 6 Until Wednesday evening, Channel Seven was beating everybody in the ratings for the week. Then it chose not to compete with brawny boys bashing into each other, and let Channel Nine kick a goal. Nine won Wednesday with a prime time audience share of 38.9 per cent, while Seven got 24.8, Ten got 18.4, ABC got 13.4 and SBS got 4.5. And Nine is now ahead for the week.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
RNK Description STN Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 STATE OF ORIGIN RUGBY LEAGUE NSW V QLD 3RD Nine 2,074,000 925,000 374,000 685,000 89,000 Not shown in Perth
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,533,000 390,000 450,000 271,000 178,000 244,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,482,000 357,000 474,000 267,000 141,000 242,000
4 NINE NEWS Nine 1,371,000 400,000 416,000 290,000 160,000 105,000
5 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,329,000 383,000 422,000 269,000 147,000 108,000
6 TEMPTATION Nine 1,329,000 405,000 456,000 246,000 117,000 106,000
7 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,250,000 305,000 417,000 233,000 114,000 182,000
8 BEYOND TOMORROW Seven 1,188,000 234,000 501,000 156,000 115,000 183,000
9 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC 1,035,000 285,000 337,000 104,000 152,000 157,000
10 BIG BROTHER Ten 1,017,000 283,000 275,000 195,000 141,000 123,000

And the early morning World Cup match between Germany and Italy drew 408,000.

Updated 10am, Wednesday July 5
It was a typical quiet Tuesday night on the box, dominated by Channel Seven's methodical customs officers and crisis-crossed medicos. Seven got 32.3 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 25.6, Ten got 21.3, ABC got 15.2 and SBS got 5.6. Next Tuesday will be a litle different, when Nine takes on Seven with slip-sliding celebrities.

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Border Security 7 2.19m
2. Medical Emergency 7 1.82
3. Seven News 7 1.55
4. Today Tonight 7 1.52
5. All Saints 7 1.49
6. Nine News 9 1.43
7. Temptation 9 1.31
8. Home and Away 7 1.30
9. A Current Affair 9 1.28
10. CSI 9 1.26
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10am, Tuesday July 4
The line of the night was "You broke his penis" and it didn't come from Big Brother. Nor did "She's a lust trigger". The curiosity about sex-obsessed housemates lasted just one day, and then viewers turned their attention to sex-obsessed housewives and sex-obsessed doctors. Thank God the politicians don't know what's on Channel Seven between 8.30pm and 10.30pm on Monday or they'd be calling for a trade embargo on American cultural imports.

Channel Seven won the night with a prime time audience share of 29.7 per cent, while Nine got 27.9 per cent. Ten got its usual 20.6, the ABC got 15.2 (thanks to Australian Story, with 1.1 million viewers) and SBS got 6.6 per cent (thanks to Mythbusters, with 738,000).

And this remark from the Australian Democrat Senator Andrew Bartlett offers a useful perspective on the Big Brother hysteria: "If anyone in the Big Brother house broke the law then it can be dealt with by the legal system. Attempting to force a television show off the air because of an incident that wasn't even screened is an excessive intrusion into the lives of Australians by moralising, preaching politicians."

What Australia watched, Monday
1. Seven News Seven 1.63m
2. A Current Affair Nine 1.58
3. Nine News Nine 1.57
4. What's Good For You Nine 1.57
5. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.56
6. Today Tonight Seven 1.53
7. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.44
8. Temptation Nine 1.37
9. Big Brother Nomination Ten 1.35
10. Cold Case Nine 1.31
11. Home and Away Seven 1.26
12. Big Brother 7pm Ten 1.24
13. The Great Outdoors Seven 1.16
14. Australian Story ABC 1.08
15. ABC News ABC 1.01
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am, Monday July 3
Of course, Channel Ten didn't manufacture the publicity it got on Sunday about the premature expulsion of two harassers from the Big Brother house. Ten would have preferred that the whole thing didn't happen. But it certainly found a silver lining in the black clouds.

By showing more than two hours of Big Brother on Sunday night, Ten gained a prime time audience share of 27.5 per cent, while Channel Nine, which usually wins Sundays, got 26.5 per cent, Seven got 25.4, the ABC got 15.6 and SBS got 5.0.

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Nine News - Sunday Nine 1.77m
2. 60 Minutes Nine 1.63
3. Seven News - Sunday Seven 1.61
4. Big Brother - Eviction Ten 1.56
5. Big Brother - 6:30pm Ten 1.52
6. Law and Order: Criminal Intent - Ep 1 Ten 1.44
7. It Takes Two Seven 1.38
8. Movie: Cheaper By The Dozen Seven 1.23
9. Sunday Football - AFL and NRL Nine 1.19
10. You Are What You Eat Nine 1.14
11. Turn Back Your Body Clock Nine 1.03
12. Law and Order: Criminal Intent - Ep 2 Ten 1.03
13. ABC News - Sunday ABC 1.01
14. Movie: Daddy Daycare Nine 0.96
15. Jericho ABC 0.90
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 6pm, Sunday July 2
All the free publicity last week didn't help Channel Nine. Channel Seven won the week with a prime time audience share of 28.8 per cent, while Nine got 27.6 per cent, Ten got 21.6, the ABC got 15.7 and SBS got 6.3.

You'd imagine a few people might have tuned in out of curiosity to see Jessica Rowe on Today, but its Thursday audience of 254,000 viewers in the mainland capitals dropped to 218,000 on Friday, while its competitor, Sunrise, got 448,000 on Thursday and 447,000 on Friday.

The big trend of the moment is the sitcom revival, or should we call it the trailer-trash-led recovery. The success of Seven's My Name is Earl will make Nine optimistic about its new Thursday sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine. But even if Christine flops, Nine will probably win the week, since Ten and Seven have both wimped out of competing against the State of Origin game on Wednesday night (no House, no Prison Break), and Thursday's episode of Lost is just a collecton of old clips.

Go here to read discussion of Big Brother's involuntary expulsions.

What Australia watched, week ending July 1
1 World Cup: Italy v Australia (SBS) 2.30m
2 Border Security (7) 2.16m
3 Medical Emergency (7) 1.77m
4 CSI Sunday (9) 1.71m
5 House (10) 1.67m
6 Nine News Sunday (9) 1.66m
7 60 Minutes (9) 1.63m
8 Seven News Sunday (7) 1.62m
9 My Name Is Earl (7) 1.60m
10 20 to 1 repeat (9) 1.59m
11 Missing Persons Unit (9) 1.56m
12 What's Good For You (9) 1.54m
13 Seven news (7) 1.53m
14 Today Tonight (7) 1.49m.
15 Lost (7) 1.48m
16 Desperate Housewives (7) 1.47m
17 All Saints (7) 1.46m
18 Cold Case (9) 1.46m
19 NCIS (10) 1.44m
20 Big Brother Eviction (10) 1.41m
21 Better Homes and Gardens (7) 1.40m
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

The Bill got 1.03 million on Saturday and 1.03 million on Tuesday. Clearly a British cop soap revival is under way, in addition to the sitcom revival.

Revised figures for the Australia-Italy match have put it among the most watched shows of all time, which you can find by clicking here.

The ratings race is updated every week day as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A Miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 12:33 PM
• Comments (238)

The ratings race: week 26

This blog is no longer current. It has joined the choir invisible. Bereft of life, it rests in piece. Beautiful plumage, but if you wish to discuss current television matters, go here.

Updated 6pm Sunday July 2
Big Brother has forcibly evicted two contestants -- without benefit of viewer polling -- for behaving as if they were on a P&O cruise. By a fortunate coincidence, the men ejected were the two most boring inmates. Channel Ten has closed its own chat lines, but you may join this blog's discussion below.

Channel Ten issued this statement at 5.30 pm Sunday:
"Network Ten and Big Brother producers, Endemol Southern Star, today reaffirmed
their commitment to the highly popular television program and confirmed Big Brother
adheres to all broadcasting codes of practice and all relevant rules and regulations.
No footage of the incident that led to housemates Ash and John being evicted was
broadcast on television, nor would it be.
This is a closed police matter.
TEN and ESS proactively invited the Queensland Police to view the footage, and
they subsequently interviewed housemate Camilla, who reiterated she did not wish
to take the matter forward.
While the footage was never broadcast, and will not be, TEN and ESS will fully
cooperate with any Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
investigation, and we are confident that we have upheld the Television Industry
Code of Practice and any other broadcasting law or regulation.
Ash and John were evicted because they broke the rules of housemate conduct."

Updated 11am Friday June 30
Australians have impeccable taste in their viewing. They can tell the difference between an original black comedy and a pale imitation of 'Friends'.

Thus, on Thursday night they embraced 'My Name Is Earl' at 8pm and ho-hummed 'How I met Your Mother' at 7.30 pm. And not by coincidence, only one of those sitcoms uses canned laughter (ominous implications for the sitcoms Nine is launching next Thursday).

Earl's fans seemed inclined to stick around afterwards -- 'Lost' increased its audience (to 1.48 million) and so did '24' (to 851,000). But the power of Earl was not enough to counteract the power of two hours of mumblings about football after 9.30pm, and Nine won the night with 31.2 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven's share was 30.0 per cent, Ten got 22.8, the ABC got 11.8, and SBS got 4.3. Seven did win the night with viewers aged 16-39, who are usually the property of Channel Ten.

What Australia watched, Thursday
1. My Name Is Earl (Seven) 1.60m
2. Missing Persons Unit (Nine ) 1.55m
3. Seven News (Seven) 1.50m
4. Lost (Seven) 1.47m
5. Today Tonight (Seven) 1.40m
6. Getaway (Nine ) 1.37m
7. National Nine News (Nine) 1.34m
8. How I Met Your Mother (Seven) 1.28m
9. Hello-Goodbye (Nine) 1.28m
10. Temptation (Nine) 1.23m
11. A Current Affair (Nine ) 1.22m
12. Home and Away (Seven) 1.21m
13. Medium (Ten) 1.07m
14. The Footy Show (Nine) 1.05m
15. Big Brother (Ten) 1.04m
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11am Thursday June 29
The readers of this column have spoken. Eddie McGuire is "an erudite, successful, self-made and passionate working class boy, and his achievements make others jealous" (Gazjin). His boss, John Alexander, is "one of the most intelligent, accomplished and shrewdest men I have ever met" (Patricia).

Eddie's intended victim, Jessica Rowe, is "showing tremendous professionalism and stoicism which belies her girly exterior" (Jaime) while "Channel 7 are showing early signs of becoming drunk with their own success" (Mike). You may care to join that discussion on the future of Australia's oldest television network, below. But first, here's the background on the argument ...

While the brontosaurus and the tyrannosaurus rex were wrestling each other to the ground, the raptor sneaked around behind them and won Wednesday night with 27.8 per cent of the prime time audience (thanks to 'House' and 'NCIS' rather than to the increasingly tedious 'Big Brother').

Bronto, helped by gee-whiz science and the second last episode of 'Prison Break', got 27.2 per cent and is ahead for the week; Rex, helped by an ancient game show, got 25.0; the ABC, helped by 'Spicks and Specks', got 14.9 per cent, and the SBS, bereft of soccer, sank back to 5.1 per cent.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
1 House (10) 1,636,000
2 Seven news (7) 1,499,000
3 NCIS (10) 1,475,000
4 Today Tonight (7) 1,448,000
5 Nine news (9) 1,374,000
6 A Current Affair (9) 1,359,000
7 Beyond Tomorrow (7) 1,346,000
8 Prison Break (7) 1,287,000
9 Temptation (9) 1,274,000
10 Home and Away (7) 1,247,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11am Wednesday June 28
Those familiar with the way Eddie McGuire conducts his business communications tell us that he is fond of a peculiar turn of phrase: He uses the verb "to bone" when he means "to get rid of".

Most people see a sexual connotation in the notion of "boning" somebody, but the Chief Executive of Channel Nine apparently derives his usage from the ancient Aboriginal custom of pointing the bone at an enemy, who is then supposed to disappear. Maybe it's jargon from that funny form of football they play in Melbourne. Anyway, what Niners are currently wondering is: how long before James Packer bones Eddie McGuire?

On Tuesday night Nine tested the theory that Daryl Somers is the reason for the success of 'Dancing With The Stars' and repeated a nostalgia show called 'Hey Hey By Request' against Seven's 'Border Security'. BS attracted 2.16 million viewers in the mainland capitals; HHBR attracted 1.09 million.

For unexplained reasons, Nine chose to broadcast a repeat episode of 'CSI', and duly found it beaten by the Australian drama 'All Saints'. Seven's only problem came at 9.30, when 'Ghost Whisperer', with 978,000 viewers, was beaten by Nine's new episode of 'CSI:NY'. But both easily beat 'Rove Live', which has slipped back to an unfortunate 768,000. Ten may also be worried about continuing slippage with its canned-laughter festival 'The Wedge'.

This column feels a new contest coming on. We'll give a handsome prize in a red cover to the reader who correctly predicts when Eddie McGuire will cease to be Chief Executive of the Nine network. Remember: there is still a hosting vacancy at 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'.

Seven won last night with 31.7 per cent of the prime time audience (and is now ahead for the week), while Nine got 26.1 per cent, Ten got 20.7, the ABC got 15.0 and SBS got 6.5.

To discuss the ten experiences shared by most Australians this year, click here

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Border Security Seven 2.16m
2. World Cup: Italy v Australia second hour SBS 2.04m
3. Medical Emergency Seven 1.77m
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.61m
5. Seven News Seven 1.57m
6. All Saints Seven 1.46m
7. Home and Away Seven 1.43m
8. Nine News Nine 1.42m
9. A Current Affair Nine 1.30m
10. The Simpsons 7:30pm Ten 1.27m
11. Temptation Nine 1.25m
12. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation repeat Nine 1.25m
13. CSI: NY Nine 1.22m
14. Big Brother Ten 1.14m
15. The Wedge Ten 1.09m
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 11am Tuesday June 27
Due to an oddity in the way TV audiences are measured, we can only tell you how many people in the mainland capitals watched the first hour of the Australia V Italy match: 2.2 million.

The peoplemeters in 4,000 Australian homes send viewing data for the previous 24 hours to OzTAM's computer at 2am, which happened to be halfway through the big game. So we'll tell you tomorrow how many kept watching from 2 am to 3 am. Earlier, Channel Seven won the night with a prime time audience share of 28.9 per cent, while Nine got 26.7 per cent, Ten 20.0, ABC 14.8 and SBS 9.7.

Ten buckled to political pressure and replaced 'Big Brother Adults Only' with an "Adults Only" version of 'The Simpsons', which attracted 749,000 viewers (90,000 less than last week's BBAO). Some of BBAO's audience may have joined 'Grey's Anatomy", which got 40,000 more viewers than last week. And the final of 'Supernatural' got 811,000.

What Australia watched, Monday night and Tuesday morning
1. World Cup: First hour of Italy v Australia (SBS) 2.21m
2. Seven News (7) 1.62m
3. What's Good For You (9) 1.53m
4. Today Tonight (7) 1.50m
5. Desperate Housewives (7) 1.47
6. Cold Case (9) 1.46m
7. Temptation (9) 1.41m
8. Home and Away (7) 1.40m
9. Nine News (9) 1.39m
10. A Current Affair (9) 1.35m
11. Grey's Anatomy (7) 1.26m
12. Big Brother Nomination (10) 1.26m
13. The Great Outdoors (7) 1.18m
14. Big Brother 7pm (10) 1.10m
15. Italy v Australia Pre-Game (SBS) 1.01m

Two episodes to go of Prison Break this year. Five episodes left of Desperate Housewives. Six episodes of Lost. Ten episodes of House.

Updated 4pm Monday June 26
Australians clearly prefer dancing over singing. Or the fad for celebrity fish out of water programs has been stretched too far.

The audience for Channel Seven's talent quest 'It Takes Two' has been gradually declining week by week, and on Sunday was down to 1.36 million in the mainland capitals. Will there be any stars left and any interest left for Channel Nine's iceskating and Seven's next season of dancing?

Nine won the night with 32.4 per cent of the prime time audience, while Seven got 25.4, Ten got 21.6 (a disappointing result when Big Brother offered a double eviction), the ABC got 14.6 and SBS got 6.1. Please register your prediction below for the average audience that will watch the Australia V Italy match. We'll give you the whole answer on Wednesday morning, because half the match will be measured in the ratings for Monday, and half will be measured in the ratings for Tuesday.

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Nine News Sunday (9) 1.66m
2. 60 Minutes (9) 1.63m
3. Seven News Sunday (7) 1.62m
4. 20 to 1 (9) 1.58m
5. CSI (9) 1.42m
6. Big Brother Live Eviction (10) 1.40m
7. It Takes Two (7) 1.35m
8. Big Brother Eviction Special (10) 1.13m
9. Law and Order: Criminal Intent (10) 1.06m
10. ABC News Sunday (ABC) 0.93m
(OzTAM mainland capitals, preliminary estimates)

The ratings race is updated every weekday as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 08:28 PM
• Comments (290)

Hey grandpa, come outside and play

By David Dale.
So, you're worried that the children of Australia are watching too much TV - filling their brains with junk when they should be doing homework, getting exercise and reading books.

Worry no more. Our kids are actually watching less television than they did two years ago. It's the parents and the grandparents who are turning their minds and their behinds to mashed potato.A comparison of viewing patterns in the first half of this year with viewing patterns in the first half of 2004 (see the table below) contains good news for Channel Seven, SBS and Pay TV and disastrous news for the ABC and Channel Nine.

Overall, viewing of television rose by 6 per cent, but there were big variations by network and by age. The main trends were:

Less viewing by people under 17 (down 5 per cent). Kids' consumption of pay TV is up 79 per cent on 2004, but since only a quarter of Australian homes are subscribers, that growth did not compensate for an 11 per cent fall in kids' viewing of free to air TV. It would be nice to think the under 17s were absorbing great literature or reducing the risk of obesity, but realistically, they are more likely to be playing video games or text messaging each other.

More viewing by people 40 to 54 (up 13 per cent) and people over 55 (up 9.5 per cent). The seniors are watching more Channel Nine, while the baby boomers are watching more Pay, Seven and SBS.

The ABC losing its traditional fan base. It used to be said of the ABC that it served the community from the cradle to the grave, but nothing in between. Now it is losing children (down 17 per cent on 2004) and over-55s (down 16 per cent).

SBS growing most with viewers aged 18 to 39 (up 48 per cent on 2004). They have traditionally been the property of Channel Ten, which will have to start showing soccer.

Channel Seven taking viewers from both Nine and Ten. Seven is up 25 per cent with viewers over 40, while Ten is down 12 per cent with this age group. With viewers 18-39, Nine is down 11 per cent and Seven is up 2 per cent. With women, Nine is down 5 per cent while Seven is up 11 per cent.

A boom in subscription TV since the publicity campaign for the digital box. On average, 113,000 more people have started watching pay TV in the past two years. In the same period, the free to air stations lost 3000 viewers. It's a tiny change, but it might be sounding a faint warning bell in a few commercial corridors.

Average number of viewers over the whole day
Segment .............. 2004 .......... 2006 ...... change
SBS .................... 56,000 ........ 73,000 ... +30%
ABC ................... 257,000 ...... 214,000 .... -17%
Ten ................... 354,000 ...... 327,000 ...... -8%
Seven ................ 376,000 ...... 433,000 ... +15%
Nine .................. 436,000 ...... 427,000 ...... -2%
All free to air ... 1,478,000 .... 1,475,000 ....... 0%
Pay TV .............. 247,000 ....... 360,000 ... +45%
Total TV .......... 1,776,000 .... 1,889,000 .... +6%
Men .................. 829,000 ....... 882,000 .... +6%
Women ............. 947,000 ..... 1,007,000 ... +6%
Age 0-17 ........... 301,000 ....... 286,044 ..... -5%
Age 18-39 ......... 512,000 ....... 535,000 .... +4.5%
Age 40 to 54 ...... 403,000 ....... 455,000 ... +13%
Age over 55 ....... 560,000 ....... 613,000 .... +9.5%
(OzTAM mainland capitals, first 25 weeks of the year)

David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin). The Tribal Mind column is published every Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. Past columns can be found here. For a discussion on this week's trends in television, click here.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:09 PM
• Comments (43)

Desperately dancing Da Vincians

By David Dale.
As we reach the mid-point of 2006, it's time to take stock of the way Australians are amusing themselves, and what that says about the state of the nation. Let's try to find a pattern in the experiences shared by more than 2 million inhabitants of this continent this year:1. The Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, seen by 3.5 million in the mainland capitals, but more in Melbourne than in Sydney (which watched only to complain about how parochially Melbourne had done it). Aussies have become connoisseurs of colour and movement, but intercity rivalry is alive and well.

2 The Beaconsfield miners interview, seen by 2.8 million. Eddie McGuire paid a dollar for every viewer. His attempt to prove that Channel Nine will always own the big news stories was quickly undermined by the decision to eliminate 100 jobs in the news department and axe Business Sunday. Nine's weekday news now lags behind Seven's by 130,000 viewers every night. (To discuss how much longer Eddie will be allowed to steer the Titanic, click here).

3 The Australian Open men's tennis final, seen by 2.7 million. Forget all the forms of footy. The national sport is watching guys bash a ball over a net. And there doesn't need to be national pride at stake - we're just as happy to watch a Greek play a Swiss.

4 Dancing with the Stars final, seen by 2.7 million. Alternatively, our national sport might be waiting to see B-list celebrities make fools of themselves. No, that's harsh. It's not sadism that drives DWTS - it's delight in seeing a modern manifestation of the Gallipoli "give it a go" spirit, plus gorgeous costumes.

5 The Da Vinci Code, seen by 2.6 million. Australia's top Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, recently expressed satisfaction that this movie was failing at the box office. That kind of wishful thinking has bedevilled the church for 1700 years (as the Pope said to Galileo: "Never let the facts get in the way of a good superstition"). In fact, twice as many people have seen the film as have bought the book, and The Da Vinci Code is bigger in Australia than in any other country - at a time when our movie distributors thought their market had shrunk to animated kidflicks such as ...

6 Ice Age 2, seen by 2.5 million (of whom two-thirds were undoubtedly under 14).

7 The Biggest Loser final, seen by 2.3 million. Despite a title with traditional Australian resonance, it's a show about triumph, proving we do sometimes celebrate winners (as long as they're modest).

8 Desperate Housewives opening episode, seen by 2.2 million. The Despos have been losing viewers lately, but they're still more popular with Australians than with Americans. Why? Because the most suburbanised nation on earth loves the most suburbanised show on TV - Neighbours with botox.

9 The World Cup match between Australia and Japan, seen by 2.2 million. Our passion for the round ball will last as long as the Australian team are playing together.

10 James Blunt singing You're Beautiful. As the Missy Higgins of 2006, Blunt sold half a million of his album and got played 2 million times on radio and TV. Thank God no politician has yet noticed the swearword and the drug reference.

Over to you. Can you join the dots between those shared experiences and form a portrait of a nation?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin). The Tribal Mind column is published every Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. Past columns can be found at www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. For a discussion on this week's trends in television, click here

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 05:03 PM
• Comments (20)

Ratings Week 25: How long can Eddie last?

Updated 10am Monday June 26
by David Dale.
This week the staff at Channel Nine are wondering how much longer Captain Eddie McGuire will be allowed to steer The Titanic, after his expensive stunt of flying a bunch of bogans to Germany for a special edition of 'The Footy Show' ended up as number 42 program for the week, and Nine ended up number two network.

Hopefully Nine's bosses will be charitable enough to let him return to hosting 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire'.

Despite a disaster with '24', Channel Seven won the week with 27.7 per cent of the prime time audience, followed by Nine with 26.8, Ten with 23.0, ABC with 15.3 and SBS with 7.3.

This week Seven is hoping to compensate for the failure of '24' with an American sitcom revival led by 'How I Met Your Mother' and 'My Name Is Earl' on Thursday. It also (forlornly) hopes the second last 'Prison Break' can distract some viewers from 'House'. But then it risks annoying viewers for the next two weeks by delaying the final episode of Prison Break to avoid competing with footy matches on Nine.

Ten is wondering how much damage it inflicted on its reputation as the gutsy youth station by buckling to political pressure and cancelling 'Big Brother Adults Only' (replaced tonight by -- surprise, surprise -- 'The Simpsons').

And SBS is simply smiling. Between 5am and 7am on Friday, 2.02 million people in the mainland capitals watched Australia draw with Croatia -- a timeslot record for Australian television. This puts SBS in the unique position of having two programs in the ratings top ten for the week. The game got its best audience in Sydney, with 943,000 viewers, and averaged 507,000 in Melbourne, 279,000 in Brisbane, 168,000 in Adelaide and 126,000 in Perth. (Click here for other TV audience records.)

This blog is now a heritage item -- worth studying but not current. For the latest discussion on trends in television, click here.

What Australia watched last week
1 Border Security (7) 2.16m
2 World Cup: Aus v Croatia (SBS) 2.02m
3 Medical Emergency (7) 1.85m
4 Nine news Sunday (9) 1.62m
5 Seven news Sunday (7) 1.62m
6 House (10) 1.62m
7 Cold Case (9) 1.60m
8 Desperate Housewives (7) 1.56m
9 World Cup: Aus v Brazil (SBS) 1.55m
10 Seven weekday news (7) 1.53m
11 Today Tonight (7) 1.51m
12 Missing Persons Unit (9) 1.52m
13 NCIS (10) 1.50m
14 Lost (7) 1.49m
15 What's Good For You (9) 1.45m
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

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The ratings race is updated every weekday as an unpaid service for readers of David Dale's Tribal Mind column, published each Tuesday in The Sydney Morning Herald. For past columns, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind. David Dale is the author of Who We Are - A miscellany of the new Australia (Allen and Unwin).

Updated 10am Friday June 22
The game is about to change on Thursdays. Channel Nine has decided to take on Lost -- with comedy. At 9pm on July 6 it will launch The New Adventures of Old Christine, the latest sitcom starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld fame. At 8.30 the same night it will launch a new season of Charlie Sheen's Two and a Half Men.

Apparently Nine assumes Seven will get the viewers addicted to American laughter at 8pm on Thursdays with My Name Is Earl, and hopes they will switch channels to avoid losing the mood at 8.30.

Channel seven won last night with a prime time audience share of 29.8 per cent, while Nine got 29.3, Ten 22.8, ABC 12.3 and SBS 5.8

What Australia watched, Thursday
1 Seven News (7) 1.54m
2 Today Tonight (7) 1.52m
3 Missing Persons Unit (9) 1.52m
4 Lost (7) 1.49m
5 Home and Away (7) 1.39m
6 Getaway (9) 1.37m
7 Nine News (9) 1.36m
8 A Current Affair (9) 1.27m
9 Las Vegas (7) 1.24m
10 Temptation (9) 1.23m
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

But viewers 16-39 clearly retain their enthusiasm for mystery. These were last night's rankings with the groovers:
1) Lost 7
2) Big Brother 10
3) Las Vegas 7
4) Neighbours 10
5) The Wedge Thurs 10
6) The Footy Show 9
7) Home And Away 7
8) Medium 10
9) 24 7
10) Missing Persons Unit 9

Updated 10m Thursday June 22
Channel Seven must be devastated by the results for 24 on Wednesday night. The relaunch of the thriller series attracted just 747,000 viewers across the mainland capitals. Are Australians so tired from the soccer that they can't stand two hours of excitement after 9.30pm? Or is it an attention span issue - we don't want to commit to a show that requires following a plot for 24 episodes? Or are we afraid of a drama that is too close to the reality of the dangerous world we see every night on the news?

Wednesday is now owned by Channel Ten. With Thank God You're Here temporarily off our screens, House becomes No. 1 for the night, and the gimmick of adding three more inmates to the asylum brought back some of the viewers who'd been getting bored with Big Brother.

Ten won prime time with 28.8 per cent of the audience, while Seven got 26.8, Nine got 24.7, ABC got 13.7 and SBS got 6.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
1 HOUSE Ten 1,619,000
2 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,569,000
3 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,519,000
4 NCIS Ten 1,498,000
5 BIG BROTHER - INTRUDERS Ten 1,392,000
6 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,367,000
7 NINE NEWS Nine 1,332,000
8 TEMPTATION Nine 1,232,000
9 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,227,000
10 PRISON BREAK Seven 1,223,000
(OzTAM mainland capitals, preliminary estimates)

Updated 10am Wednesday June 21
Tuesday is Channel Seven's night. From 6pm to 9.30pm it owns every timeslot. It was only stopped from a clean sweep last night by Rove Live, because Seven's over-40 audience starts to go to bed then, leaving control of the remote to Ten's 16-39ers.

Rove got his second biggest audience for the year - 1.02 million - but Seven still won Tuesday, with a prime time share of 30.7 per cent, while Nine got 26.0, Ten 22.5, ABC 14.3 and SBS 6.5.

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Border Security (7) 2.15m
2. Medical Emergency (7) 1.85m
3. Seven News (7) 1.61m
4. Today Tonight (7) 1.53m
5. Home and Away (7) 1.45m
6. All Saints (7) 1.44m
7. Nine News (9) 1.39m
8. Temptation (9) 1.35m
9. A Current Affair (9) 1.34
10. The Wedge (10) 1.17m
(OzTAM mainland capitals, preliminary estimates)

Updated 10 am Tuesday June 20
They were the bookends of the viewing day: the soccer and the doctors. Before sunrise on Monday, plucky Australia and complacent Brazil gave SBS 1.53 million home viewers in the mainland capitals. After 9.30pm, whiney Meredith and angry Cristina gave Channel Seven 1.21 million viewers. Both are lower figures than expected and both require explanation.

These questions arise:
1) Did a lot of soccer fans go out to pubs, clubs and sites to watch the match and thus become unmeasurable?
2) Did a big chunk of the 1.8 million people who were addicted last year to Grey's Anatomy fall asleep because they'd been up watching SBS the night before?
3) Has the pale detective permanently tempted half a million women away from the Despos, and did that half a million stick with Channel Nine at 9.30 for the neurotic multi-tasker instead of switching to Seven for the angsty doctors?

Seven won the night - but only just - with 28.8 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 28.2 per cent, Ten 20.4 per cent, ABC 14.3 and SBS 8.3.

What Australia watched, Monday
1 Seven news (7) 1.62m
2 Cold Case (9) 1.6m
3 Today Tonight (7) 1.59m
4 Desperate Housewives (7) 1.56m
5 World Cup: Australia v Brazil (SBS) 1.53m
6 Nine news (9) 1.48m
7 What's Good For You (9) 1.45m
8 Home and Away (7) 1.43m
9 Big Brother Nomination (10) 1.32m
10 A Current Affair (9) 1.30m
(OzTAM mainland capitals, preliminary estimates)

So who were the people who stayed up till 4am to see the soccer, and then stayed awake till 10.35pm to see the doctors? You can gain a good sense of that from the list of programs most watched on Monday by viewers aged 16 to 39:
1. World Cup: Brazil v Australia (SBS)
2. Desperate Housewives (7)
3. Big Brother Nomination (10)
4. Big Brother (10)
5. Grey's Anatomy (7)
6. Neighbours (10)
7. Big Brother - Adults Only (10)
8. Home and Away (7)
9. Supernatural (10)
10. Nine News (9)

Updated 10 am Monday June 19
Did most of Australia go to sleep at 8pm on Sunday, in preparation for a 2am wake-up call? The audiences for most regular shows were down on the usual Sunday figures, but Channel Nine made the best of a slow night with 27.4 per cent of the prime time viewing, while Seven got 24.7 per cent (thanks to a rapidly declining talent quest), Ten got 24.4 per cent (thanks to a clumsily dramatised murder non-mystery), the ABC got 15.8 per cent (thanks to the Queen) and SBS got 7.8 per cent (thanks to soccer fans locking themselves on for the duration).

What Australia watched, Sunday
1 Seven news Sunday (7) 1.62m
2 Nine News Sunday (9) 1.49m
3 The Society Murders (10) 1.44m (No. 1 in Melbourne)
4 It Takes Two (7) 1.44m
5 Big Brother Eviction (10) 1.38m
6 60 Minutes (9) 1.37m
7 World Cup Footy Show (9) 1.25m
8 Backyard Blitz (9) 1.23m
9 The Queen at 80 (ABC) 1,23m
10 Big Brother (10) 1.14m
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 08:39 AM
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