The Sun-Herald

The ratings race: Week 13

This blog is now a heritage item -- worth studying but no longer current. To join the latest discussion on media and popular culture, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

What Australia watched, Friday
1 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,377,000
2 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,359,000
3 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,308,000
4 SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS LIVE Nine 1,152,000
5 NINE NEWS Nine 1,131,000
6 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,069,000
7 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,055,000
8 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) Ten 1,036,000
9 ABC NEWS ABC 986,000
10 DEAL OR NO DEAL Seven 885,000
14 NINE'S LIVE FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 764,000 (462,000 in Sydney, 302,000 in Bribane, not shown elsewhere).
18 SEVEN'S AFL: RND 1: MELBOURNE V ST KILDA Seven 709,000 S 19,000 M 385,000 B 14,000 A 168,000 P 123,000
28 NINE'S NOT-LIVE FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 378,000 S 259,000 -- B 119,000 -- --
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Seven won Friday night, and is averaging 31.7 per cent of the prime time audience for the week, while Nine is on 25.9 per cent, Ten is on 21.8, ABC is on 15.5 and SBS is on 5.2.

What Australia watched, Thursday
1. Seven News Seven 1.426
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.404
3. My Name Is Earl Seven 1.290
4. World Swimming Championships Nine 1.176
5. Nine News Nine 1.153
6. Home and Away Seven 1.126
7. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.121
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.114
9. Law and Order: SVU Ten 1.041
10. How I Met Your Mother Seven 1.034
11. Bones - Double Episode Seven 1.002
12. The Footy Show Nine 0.997
13. Jamie At Home Ten 0.967
14. ABC News ABC 0.959
15. Saving Babies Ten 0.919

Updated 11 am Thursday March 29
What Australia watched, Wednesday:
Description STN Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,450,000 346,000 453,000 237,000 194,000 220,000
2 HOUSE Ten 1,448,000 391,000 468,000 240,000 146,000 203,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,368,000 354,000 422,000 228,000 175,000 189,000
4 AIR CRASH INVESTIGATIONS Seven 1,351,000 349,000 405,000 223,000 173,000 201,000
5 NINE NEWS Nine 1,243,000 357,000 403,000 236,000 140,000 107,000
6 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) Ten 1,229,000 291,000 416,000 239,000 141,000 141,000
7 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,193,000 324,000 378,000 245,000 120,000 125,000
8 HEROES Seven 1,189,000 296,000 386,000 215,000 148,000 143,000
9 THE CHASER'S WAR ON EVERYTHING ABC 1,172,000 364,000 314,000 217,000 107,000 169,000
10 SWIMMING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS LIVE Nine 1,167,000 338,000 394,000 228,000 99,000 107,000
11 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC 1,157,000 335,000 310,000 236,000 123,000 153,000

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Dancing with the Stars Seven 1.856m
2. All Saints Seven 1.576
3. Seven News Seven 1.448
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.307
5. Nine News Nine 1.276
6. NCIS Ten 1.255
7. A Current Affair Nine 1.204
8. Home and Away Seven 1.167
9. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.162
10. The Simpsons - 7:30pm Ten 1.142
11. The Simpsons - 8:00pm Ten 1.100
12. ABC News ABC 1.007
13. World Swimming Championships Nine 0.976
14. Deal or No Deal Seven 0.883
15. Ten News Ten 0.878
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10am Tuesday, March 27
Channel Nine was already being compared with the Titanic before its decision to go overboard with the World Swimming Championships this week. That metaphor breaks down, however, because the captain of the Titanic did not deliberately steer into the iceberg.

By dumping its regular programs in favour of the swimmers, Nine drove hundreds of thousands of viewers to Channel Seven and the ABC on Sunday and Monday. Eddie McGuire now finds his game show, 1 vs 100 240,000 behind its rival The Rich List.

Seven is averaging a prime time audience share of 32.5 per cent for the first two days of the week, while Nine is on a record low of 23.5 per cent, the ABC is on 16.6, Ten is on 21.2 and SBS is on 6.2 (thanks to 608,000 for Mythbusters).

What Australia watched, Monday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,563,000 464,000 518,000 218,000 170,000 193,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,542,000 363,000 425,000 296,000 198,000 260,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,470,000 341,000 451,000 270,000 162,000 246,000
4 THE RICH LIST Seven 1,381,000 361,000 457,000 192,000 181,000 190,000
5 NINE NEWS Nine 1,308,000 378,000 402,000 258,000 161,000 110,000
6 THE BIGGEST LOSER - ELIMINATION Ten 1,295,000 323,000 360,000 254,000 164,000 195,000
7 BONDI RESCUE Ten 1,219,000 360,000 329,000 215,000 148,000 167,000
8 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,181,000 386,000 339,000 244,000 114,000 98,000
9 1 VS 100 Nine 1,138,000 344,000 370,000 173,000 126,000 124,000
10 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,102,000 336,000 288,000 168,000 147,000 164,000
11 SWIMMING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS LIVE Nine 1,075,000 316,000 385,000 202,000 86,000 86,000
12 ABC NEWS ABC 1,037,000 262,000 295,000 199,000 131,000 149,000
13 BROTHERS & SISTERS Seven 1,014,000 278,000 371,000 133,000 123,000 108,000
14 TEN NEWS AT FIVE Ten 907,000 222,000 206,000 175,000 118,000 186,000
15 SUPERNATURAL Ten 897,000 207,000 250,000 193,000 112,000 135,000

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.813m
2. Ugly Betty Seven 1.620
3. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.588
4. Nine Sunday News Nine 1.541
5. Seven News Seven 1.453
6. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.290
7. With Friends Like These Nine 1.105
8. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple ABC 1.090
9. World Swimming Championships early evening Nine 1.06
10. Constructing Australia ABC 1.058
11. Thank God You're Here Ten 1.056
12. ABC News ABC 1.009
13. What About Brian Seven 0.979
14. Ten News Ten 0.921
15. Sports Tonight Ten 0.775
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

A silly rumours went round last week that a football match had attracted 600,000 viewers to Foxtel on Monday night. These OzTAM figures will dispell that myth ...
Most watched shows on Pay TV, week ending March 24
1 LIVE: NRL ROOSTERS V RABBITOHS FOX Sports 1 242,086
2 LIVE: NRL COWBOYS V ROOSTERS FOX Sports 3 167,987
3 LIVE: NRL RAIDERS V STORM FOX Sports 3 156,699
4 LIVE & ACTIVE: NRL TIGERS V SEA EAGLES FOX Sports 3 148,910
5 LIVE: NRL KNIGHTS V BULLDOGS FOX Sports 1 139,810
6 LIVE: NRL MONDAY POST GAME SHOW FOX Sports 1 107,590
7 LIVE: FOOTBALL: INTERNATIONAL FOX Sports 2 89,958
8 LIVE: RUGBY UNION: S14 REDS V CHIEFS FOX Sports 1 84,691
9 LIVE: RUGBY UNION: S14 BLUES V WARATAHS FOX Sports 3 73,089
10 LIVE: CRICKET: ICC WORLD CUP FOX Sports 3 60,623
11 LIVE: FOOTBALL: ASIAN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FOX Sports 3 58,667
12 THE KING OF QUEENS FOX8 57,860

Updated 10 am Sunday March 25
Sick of losing every week of the ratings year so far, Channel Nine is attempting a new strategy this week -- it hopes to turn the tide with swimming. Splashing about in pools will replace such popular shows as CSI, What's Good For You, McLeod's Daughters, and Missing Persons Unit. The survivor of this programming tsunami will be Eddie McGuire, whose 1 vs 100 is too important to be bumped by swimming championships. It will float to a later timeslot tonight.

Seven averaged 28.9 per cent of the prime time audience last week, while Nine got 27.7, Ten got 21.9, ABC got 16.3 and SBS got 5.3. For the ABC, the highlights were its documentary on constructing the Harbour Bridge, with 1.2 million, Spicks and Specks with 1.1 million, and Miss Marple with 981,000 gerontophiles. The ABC must be wishing they held elections more often than every four years. Its coverage was Sydney's most watched program on Saturday night, gathering 340,000 viewers, while Funniest Home Videos managed a mere 252,000 for Nine.

SBS was pleased with the return of Mythbusters on 575,000 and the repeat of Inspector Rex on 422,000. Sydney differed from the rest of the country in having Nine's Friday night live rugby league as its number eight most watched program, with 413,000.

What Australia watched, week ending March 24
1. Dancing with the Stars Seven 1.74m
2. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.58m
3. Nine News Sunday Nine 1.58
4. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.56
5. All Saints Seven 1.51
6. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.45
7. Ugly Betty Seven 1.43
8. 20 to 1 Nine 1.41
9. 1 vs 100 Nine 1.40
10. 60 Minutes Nine 1.39
11 HOUSE Ten 1,388,000
12 CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION Nine 1,338,000
13 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,336,000
14 MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS Nine 1,330,000
15 SEVEN NEWS - SUN Seven 1,326,000
16 MISSING PERSONS UNIT Nine 1,321,000
17 POLICE FILES - UNLOCKED Seven 1,290,000
18 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) - ELIMINATION Ten 1,288,000
19 BONDI RESCUE Ten 1,272,000
20 CSI: MIAMI Nine 1,258,000
21 CONSTRUCTING AUSTRALIA: THE BRIDGE ABC 1,245,000
22 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,241,000
23 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) - THE INTRUDERS Ten 1,238,000
24 MY NAME IS EARL Seven 1,222,000
25 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) - THE WEIGH-IN Ten 1,218,000
26 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,216,000
27 LOST Seven 1,211,000
28 NINE NEWS Nine 1,179,000
29 BROTHERS & SISTERS Seven 1,160,000
30 THE RICH LIST Seven 1,159,000

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 12:01 AM
• Comments (147)

WHO WE ARE: Bogans, dags, sooks and other endangered species

by David Dale.
Australian culture? What Australian culture? Australian language? What Australian language? There was a tone of bitter regret in many of the responses to the topic raised by this column recently: are Australians just mini-Americans? Today we want to inspire a fightback.

Some readers lamented a loss of national identity, and thought the solution might lie in becoming a republic ("Get rid of the Queen and Ronald McDonald will follow", said Bob). A reader who wanted to be known as "Not Happy" complained: "Once we 'employed people', now we 'hire' them. Once we put people in 'gaol', now we 'jail' them. Once we had 'STD' calls, now we have 'Long Distance'. Once we had 0800 numbers, now we have 1800s. Once we 'hired' videos, now we 'rent' them. Once we made & ate 'biscuits', now we buy 'cookies'."

With the exception of biscuits, this column isn't shedding any tears over those linguistic shifts (a long distance call is preferable to a sexually transmitted disease any day, and "collect" is easier to say than "reverse charges"). But the comment did start us thinking about expressions unique to this continent that are worth preserving.

A book called Who We Are, just published by Allen and Unwin, examines the attitudes and habits that make up a 21st century Australian, and offers an abbreviated national vocabulary. Here, in reverse afferbeck lauder, are some examples of what we'll lose if we internationalise our language:

Zed. The vanishing pronunciation of the last letter of the alphabet. Most Australians under the age of 20 prefer "zee" -- thus endangering that old synonym for sleeping: "Putting some zeds in the air".

Thongs. In America that's the word for g-strings, and they join the British in using "flip-flops" to describe our summer footwear. Australia thinks it invented the thong, but apparently the cheap rubber version originated in New Zealand, based on an ancient Japanese sandal, hence the Kiwi name Jandals (pronounced "jendels").

Smart alec. A pretentious person who shows off knowledge. (Q: Is a smart alec exactly the same as a smartass?)

Skite. Boast. (Q: Would Americans understand the latest cyber jargon for a vanity blog -- "webskite".)

She'll be right. The phrase implies a laid-back approach to work and relationships, signifying calm optimism or complacent fatalism. The Prime Minister expressed the notion during the 1999 election campaign when he said Australians wanted to be "relaxed and comfortable". Soon afterwards, this changed to "alert but not alarmed".

Lair. A show-off. (Q: Is a mug-lair the same as a hoon? And do the Americans have a word for this?)

Dunny. As a synonym for promiscuous, "bangs like a john door" doesn't have the same spark (and see barrack vs root, below).

Dag. An unfashionable person, derived from a term for the matted wool around a sheep's anus, and subtly different from dork or geek.

Crook. Sick or angry. "Don't go crook on me" and "I'm feeling crook today".

Cactus. Defeated, in big trouble: "If she finds out, you're cactus".

Blind Freddy. The person who immediately sees the bleedin' obvious: "Blind Freddy can tell he's a bludger."

Barrack. To cheer a team or player (the US equivalent is "root", which has a different meaning here, so that "root, root, root for the home team" sounds like an invitation to an orgy).

We haven't even mentioned such classics as bodgies, bogans, cot-cases, daks, ratbags, rorts, shonks, skerricks, sooks, wusses, write-offs and yobboes.

What other Australian terminology would you like to see preserved? How would you defend our vocabulary?

For a fascinating website devoted to the differences between American and British English, click here

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in Who We Are at 12:55 AM
• Comments (181)

The Tribal Mind: Looking for adventure, in whatever comes our way

by David Dale
Over the first four years of the 21st century, Australians watched TV that was comforting. Now they watch TV that is challenging. Back then they needed reassurance that everything would stay the same. Now they are eager to take a risk. The political implications are apparent. The evidence is in these charts:

Most watched series, 2001-2003: Friends, Backyard Blitz, Room For Improvement, CSI, All Aussie Adventures, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Block, Location Location, Kath and Kim, 60 minutes.

Most watched series, 2005-2007: Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, House, Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Thank God You're Here, Australian Idol, Lost, Border Security, CSI.

The favourites of the early Noughties were all about lifestyle -- home renovations, gardening, domestic bliss. The dramas were about crimes solved in a single episode, proving that the guardians of public order can fix any problem simply by shining a blue light upon it. Viewers avoided programs that required them to come back next week, because life was too crazy to allow such a commitment.

Since 2005, our favourite shows have been serials, keeping us in constant suspense about who will be voted off the dance floor, who will be murdered on Wisteria Lane, what will the island do to the survivors, how will Dr House outsmart the cop who wants to jail him, etc. Instead of being reassured by our mass entertainment, we demand to be suprised.

What follows from this transformation in public mood? That Australians will be inclined to vote for Kevin Rudd at the federal election. Where once they craved security, now they relish change.

At this point, scholars of viewing patterns will be dying to interrupt our flow with the observation that the two most suspenseful serials -- Lost and Heroes -- have suffered serious declines in audience lately. Doesn't this disprove our thesis?

Not at all. Those shows appeal to the early adopters, and one of the characteristics of EAs is impatience. They need to know NOW what will happen next. So they go onto the internet and download all the episodes of Lost and Heroes that have been shown in America but not yet here. Naturally they don't watch when those episodes finally appear on Channel Seven. Naturally the ratings slide.

The only factor slowing the decline in viewing of the latest US shows is that half of Australia does not yet have internet connections that enable easy downloading. The networks have every reason to be terrified by Kevin Rudd's promise to invest $4 billion in giving everyone access to high-speed broadband. The stations' worst nightmare is a nation of neophiliacs with the tools to get their novelty fix in a new way.

What do you reckon? Are we back in the mood for adventure? And will we make it political?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 01:39 AM
• Comments (24)

WHO WE ARE: What really happened, if ...

A column about Australia by David Dale, published in The Sun-Herald 25/3/2007
Last week's revelation that the first Europeans to land in Australia were probably Portuguese (before the Dutch, the French and the English) hurls us into a branch of scholarship known as allohistory or "counterfactualism". That's the study of the might-have-beens of the past -- looking, for example, at what the world would be like if Hitler had won the war, if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, if the dinosaurs had survived the asteroid strike, or if Mark Latham had won the 2004 election. Actually, no allohistorian has dared to tackle the last of these, but you get the idea.

I must confess to being a dabbler in allohistory, and for a while now I've been working on a parallel universe in which all the European nations that sent explorers to this island between 1521 and 1770 made good on their territorial claims and built colonies where they landed. In 2007, the continent once known as Terra Australis Incognita is divided into four nations, temporarily at peace but with a history of shifting antagonisms and alliances -- in the west, Nieuw Holland, in the south Nouvelle Normandie, in the north Java le Grand, and along the east coast New South Wales, a land where the English dumped their surplus convicts after their belated settlement in 1788.

Although the Portuguese were the first to map the Australian coastline, they didn't do much with the territory across from Timor until the late 1700s. That was when they realised the potential of a narcotic plant called pituri (Dubosia hopwoodii), which the local Indigenes were drying and chewing. When Portugal's biggest colony, Brazil, declared its independence in 1822, thousands of Brazilians loyal to the king moved to Java le Grand and established pituri plantations. Over the 20th century, they promoted their export as a healthy alternative to tobacco, using the slogan "Join the dreamtime". By the 1990s Java le Grand's economy, based primarily on pituri and cork, had outpaced both Brazil's and Portugal's.

The French were the only colonists to take full advantage of the continent's culinary opportunities, particularly les cangouroux, les ouombattes, and les quandongs, washed down by fine wines made with grapes transplanted from Bordeaux. The settlers of Nouvelle Normandie reached agreement with the Indigenes to harvest the local game and package it for a fast food that would conquer the world. Grilled spiced mince on a brioche, marketed as "Le Rou", had low-fat qualities that easily surpassed the stodgy beef-on-a-bun products the Americans were trying to export.

In their homeland, the Dutch had too much water, but in their southern colony they had the opposite problem, which they solved by building an elaborate canal system from the western ocean to a new Zuider Zee they created 100 km inland. In the 19th century they used slave labour from Indonesia to turn their country into the flower basket and the coffee pot of Asia.

Nieuw Holland gained its independence from the Netherlands only in 1962, but now has a population of 20 million, mostly hardworking Protestants with a commitment to the environment through solar energy collectors in the desert and sleek windmills strung along the 5000 km canal network.

In 2007 the adjoining nations have agreed to replace their pounds, francs, guilders and pesetas with a shared currency called the Austral. There's such a flourishing cultural exchange that everyone on the continent now enjoys nata tarts, quiche, Heineken and roast beef. Their universe is not so different from ours after all.

If you'd like to read or create more of these might-have-beens, go below ...

To learn about the Portuguese claim, click here. To learn about allohistory, click here.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in Who We Are at 10:53 AM
• Comments (11)

The ratings race: Week 12

This blog is now a heritage item -- worth studying but no longer current. To join the latest discussion on media and popular culture, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

This is our Saturday special report, designed to allow footy fans to engage in arcane arguments about whether rugby league could or should ever succeed in non-rugby states, and vice versa for AFL. Certainly the NRL's support in Sydney and Brisbane was enough to put Nine slightly ahead of Seven on the night, but not enough to turn the tide. Seven is winning the week so far with 29.4 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine is on 28.0 per cent, Ten is on 22.4, the ABC is on 15.3 and SBS is on 5.0.

What Australia watched, Friday
Description Total Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,287,000 331,000 386,000 225,000 159,000 186,000
2 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,216,000 399,000 350,000 177,000 145,000 146,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,212,000 343,000 366,000 184,000 146,000 173,000
4 NINE NEWS Nine 1,160,000 333,000 411,000 191,000 142,000 82,000
5 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,035,000 318,000 312,000 189,000 140,000 76,000
25 NINE'S FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 466,000 297,000 M Not shown 169,000 A Not shown P Not shown
27 AIRPORT -RPT Nine 440,000 S Not shown 204,000 B Not Shown 90,000 146,000
28 AIRLINE Nine 422,000 S Not shown 208,000 B Not shown 87,000 127,000
30 NINE'S LIVE FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 413,000 413,000 Not shown in any other city
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am Friday March 23
What Australia watched, Thursday:
1. Missing Persons Unit Nine 1.314m
2. Seven News Seven 1.222
3. My Name Is Earl Seven 1.222
4. Lost Seven 1.211
5. Today Tonight Seven 1.148
6. Law and Order: SVU Ten 1.129
7. Nine News Nine 1.107
8. Home and Away Seven 1.086
9. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.073
10. Getaway Nine 1.059
11. A Current Affair Nine 1.054
12. How I Met Your Mother Seven 1.040
13. The Footy Show Nine 1.028
14. Law and Order: Criminal Intent Ten 1.019
15. Jamie At Home Ten 0.928

Nine won Thursday night but Seven looks set to win the week, averaging 29.6 per cent of the prime time audience so far, with Nine on 27.9, Ten on 22.8 (helped by growing support for The Biggest Loser), ABC on 14.7 and SBS on 5.0.
Updated 10 am Thursday March 21
What Australia watched, Wednesday:
1. House Ten 1.384m
2. Seven News Seven 1.338
3. McLeod's Daughters Nine 1.320
4. Police Files Seven 1.290
5. Today Tonight Seven 1.230
6. Nine News Nine 1.177
7. Cold Case Nine 1.156
8. SCU: Serious Crash Unit Seven 1.139
9. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.114
10. Heroes Seven 1.108
11. A Current Affair Nine 1.091
12. Spicks and Specks ABC 1.070
13. Prison Break Seven 1.027
14. Without A Trace Nine 1.025
15. Home and Away Seven 1.005
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Seven looks set to win the week, averaging 30.1 per cent of the prime time audience so far, with Nine on 27.3, Ten on 22.6 (helped by growing support for The Biggest Loser), ABC on 15.1 (helped by Spicks and Specks, and likely to be further boosted next week when The Chaser replaces Extras at 9pm) and SBS on 4.9.

Updated 10 am Wednesday March 21
What Australia watched, Tuesday:
1. Dancing with the Stars Seven 1.737m
2. All Saints Seven 1.510
3. Seven News Seven 1.413
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.285
5. The Biggest Loser - Intruders Ten 1.229
6. Nine News Nine 1.191
7. A Current Affair Nine 1.178
8. Home and Away Seven 1.148
9. NCIS Ten 1.110
10. 20 to 1 Nine 1.044
11. Temptation Nine 1.022
12. ABC News ABC 0.985
13. CSI 9:30pm Nine 0.934
14. CSI 8:30pm Nine 0.908
15. Crossing Jordan Seven 0.838

Updated 10 am Tuesday March 20
If there was a direct correlation between quality of performance and size of audience, the Despos would have scored more than 2 million viewers last night. But apparently half a million of its former fans are unaware that it has come good again this season, and the best episode of the year attracted a healthy but not spectacular 1.56 million.

That was nevertheless enough to put Seven in front for the week, with the prime time audience share now averaging 29.2 per cent for Seven, 28.3 for Nine, 21.5 for Ten, 15.5 for the ABC and 5.5 for SBS (thanks to 579,000 viewers for Mythbusters and no thanks to 228,000 for Pizza).

What Australia watched, Monday
1. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.563m
2. Seven News Seven 1.421
3. 1 vs 100 Nine 1.382
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.331
5. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.289
6. Bondi Rescue Ten 1.269
7. Nine News Nine 1.245
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.220
9. Brothers & Sisters Seven 1.160
10. The Rich List Seven 1.159
11. Home and Away Seven 1.092
12. CSI: NY Nine 1.077
13. What's Good For You Nine 1.046
14. ABC News ABC 0.979
15. Temptation Nine 0.935

Updated 10 am Monday March 19
It's a rare viewing night when ten programs can attract more than 1.2 million viewers. But that was the story on Sunday. Exhilarated by a day spent celebrating the Bridge's birthday, everybody stayed up to watch everything. Betwen 8.30 and 9.30 five million people in the mainland capitals were glued to the box.

Every station had its winners, but Nine did best over the longest time, and averaged 29.5 per cent of the prime time audience, to Seven's 27.3.

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.599m
2. Nine News Nine 1.577
3. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.432
4. Ugly Betty Seven 1.413
5. 20 to 1 Nine 1.396
6. 60 Minutes Nine 1.386
7. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Nine 1.347
8. Seven News Seven 1.318
9. CSI: Miami Nine 1.276
10. Constructing Australia: The Bridge ABC 1.245
11. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.218
12. Joanne Lees: Murder In The Outback Ten 1.069
13. F1: Australian Grand Prix (Race Coverage) Ten 1.036
14. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple ABC 0.981
15. ABC News ABC 0.967

Updated 10 am Sunday March 18
A wild theory went around last week that A Current Affair had managed to persuade the viewers of Australia that its rival Today Tonight should be punished for behaving deceptively, sensationally and unethically. The theory arose from Tuesday's ratings figures, which showed TT's audience had plummeted to 1.16 million (down from an average of 1.30 million the previous week) while ACA had risen to 1.17 million (from 1.13 million the previous week). On Monday ACA had attacked TT for trying to embarrass Mercedes Corby.

The theory lasted 24 hours, until Wednesday night's figures showed TT back up to 1.26 million and ACA down to 1.08 million. So after years of scandals, accusations and official wrist-slappings, there are still 2.3 million people in the mainland capitals who find the content of the daily commercial current affairs programs credible enough -- or at least entertaining enough -- to justify continued viewing.

Seven won the week, despite that TT-induced dip on Tuesday and a rugby league-induced fillip for Nine on Thursday and Friday. Seven's prime time audience share averaged 30.1 per cent, while Nine got 27.7 per cent, Ten got 20.9, the ABC got 15.8 and SBS got 5.4.

What Australia watched, week ending March 17
1. Dancing With The Stars (7) 1.87m
2. Ugly Betty (7) 1.51
3 House (10) 1.49
4. Grey's Anatomy (7) 1.46
5. Desperate Housewives (7) 1.44
6. CSI (9) 1.407 All Saints (7) 1.36
8 Australia's Got Talent (7) 1.35
9 Seven News (7) 1.33
10 Seven Sunday news (7) 1.32
11 McLeod's Daughters (9) 1,32
12 1 vs 100 (9) 1.30
13. CSI: Miami (9) 1.28
14 Better Homes and Gardens (7) 1.27
15 The Biggest Loser - Elimination (10) 1.27
16 Police Files Unlocked (7) 1.26
17 Missing Persons Unit (9) 1.24
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:06 AM
• Comments (129)

The Tribal Mind: Pay per non-view

by David Dale
LAST week this column received a phone call from a senior executive in the pay-TV industry. He expressed the view, more in sorrow than in anger, that this column was "against" his industry because we keep remarking on how few Australians watch its programs. We replied that we were not antagonistic -- simply baffled that, after 10 years and billions of dollars, pay-TV has been unable to create a single program that captures the hearts and minds of subscribers. And by the fact that it seems to be sustained almost entirely by footy fans and children.

The main pay providers, Foxtel and Austar, have been celebrating lately their move from chronic losses to modest profits. Foxtel now has 1.2 million domestic subscribers and Austar 601,000 subscribers, which means more than 5 million Australians have access to the technology. And yet, when we examine the audiences for subscription television in this ratings year, we find ...

Most watched programs on pay TV: 1 Football: A-league grand final (Fox Sports 3) 225,900 viewers; 2,3 Cricket matches; 4,5,6 AFL matches; 7 Rugby union match; 8 Movie: Chicken Little (Disney Channel) 96,000; 9-22 Sporting events; 23 Billy Thorpe memorial service (Sky news) 70,000; 24 Dangerous premiere (Fox8) 67,000; 25-29 sporting events; 30 Movie: The Pacifier (Disney Channel) 66,000.

This column is not alone in its puzzlement. Steve Allen, the managing director of the media buying agency Fusion Strategy, recently felt compelled to warn clients about the tragic state of drama on subscription TV. He noted that first showings of the Australian crime series Dangerous were averaging about 40,000 an episode, the Australian melodrama Love My Way was averaging around 45,000 viewers, and the US comedy Entourage was averaging about 30,000.

He continues: "Pay TV has trumpeted three cutting-edge programs as a sign of their progress, health, vitality and future. Considerable PR, cross-promotion and advertising has been put behind these, especially, to my eyes, Love My Way. Well, the results, on simple first-run analysis, are extremely disappointing -- extremely. For all these programs to be struggling with well sub-100,000 viewership on first run and at launch is staggering.

"Given that there are any number of overseas-series shows, on repeat, exceeding these shows' ratings, it is clearly concerning. To be meaningful for any advertiser, they need to be five times these numbers, specially if they are the future foundation of pay TV in this country.''

As we tried to tell the pay executive: this column is not against subscription TV, just in search of an explanation for its apparent unpopularity. About 88 per cent of US households subscribe to pay tv; 50 per cent of British households; 45 per cent of New Zealand households; and 25 per cent of Australian households. And those who do subscribe in this country spend only half their viewing time with programs they've paid for.

If you have a theory, tell us in the comment space below.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 07:14 AM
• Comments (54)

WHO WE ARE: Forewarned is eight-armed

A column about Australia, by David Dale, published in The Sun-Herald, 18/3/2007
You're up for the death penalty these days if you even suggest changing the Australian flag, so I won't go there. But the government has so far failed to criminalise attempts to change Australia's coat of arms, and I'm going to tackle that issue while I still can.

To see it, click here and quickly come back. It's a daggy looking thing, isn't it? A tired old emu and a motheaten kangaroo framing a shield engraved with archaic state insignia. My proposal will update it at minimal cost, while retaining the principles on which it was designed in the first place. I don't want to remove anything, or redraw any existing artwork. I just want to add one detail that will make this mighty symbol more relevant to the current state of our nation.

Essentially what you see when you look at the coat of arms is a meal. Both animals on it are edible -- the emu best served as prosciutto, the kangaroo best served barbecued, charred on the outside and rare in the middle, with beetroot sauce (left). The shield functions as a plate. So any proposed addition should be consistent with that culinary theme.

Where the current CoA notably fails is in portraying the close relationship of Australians with the ocean. Our home is girt by sea and 85 per cent of us live within 50km of it. Immigrants came across the sea, our boundless plains to share, but that, too, is ignored by the CoA. My addition will solve both deficiencies in one blow.

Lets put a third native animal into the scene: an octopus, sitting on top of the shield (where there is currently a star) with some of its arms embracing the kangaroo and some of its arms embracing the emu.

I hit upon this inspiration one morning when I was visiting the Sydney fish market, and saw a whole lot of octopus being tossed around in a modified cement mixer.

Traditionally Mediterranean fisherfolk used to tenderise their octopus by throwing them against rocks, but such is the demand for the leggy beast in trendy eateries that the fishmarkets have had to automate the process.

This demonstrates how Australia has changed. Nobody ate octopus in this country 50 years ago. Fishermen threw them back or used them as bait. Then some Mediterraneans settled in and showed Australians new ways to enjoy themselves. And by the 90s, ponytailed chefs in suburban bistros had made char-grilled chilli-coated octopus a candidate for the title of Australia's national dish.

Immigration transformed this land from one of the dullest places on earth to one of the most interesting places on earth, and that's what our coat of arms should celebrate. When I first raised this notion a few years ago, people assumed I was joking. In retrospect, I think I made a mistake with my campaign slogan: "To look its best, an octopus needs a coat of arms. For Australia, the opposite is true."

It was perhaps too sophisticated. Now I'm working on some sort of pun involving "ate" and "eight", or a slogan along the lines of "Australia: alert but not eight-armed - yet".

What do you reckon? How will I sell this idea? Or is there a better way to modernise the coat of arms?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in Who We Are at 07:11 PM
• Comments (8)

The Tribal Mind: Screens that divide us

If not for a visionary decision made 107 years ago, this continent would now be divided into five nations, each with its own laws, customs, border disputes and perhaps even language. But we bravely took the leap and transformed ourselves from a ragged bunch of colonies into a united nation, with values shared from east to west and from south to north.

Except when it comes to watching television. Then it's as if federation never happened. Consider the favourite TV shows of each state capital last week:

Sydney: 1 Dancing With The Stars; 2 Desperate Housewives; 3 RPA; 4 Grey's Anatomy, 5 Ugly Betty.

Perth: 1 Police Files Unlocked; 2 House; 3 Seven news; 4 Dancing With The Stars; 5 CSI.

Adelaide: 1 Australia's Got Talent; 2 CSI; 3 Seven news Sunday; 4 Ugly Betty; 5 CSI: Miami.

Melbourne: 1 Grey's Anatomy; 2 CSI; 3 CSI Miami; 4 Ugly Betty; 5 Dancing with the Stars.

Brisbane: 1 Ugly Betty; 2 Grey's Anatomy; 3 Seven news Sunday; 4 CSI; 5 House.

No program is shared by every capital. The shows that come closest to uniting the nation are Ugly Betty and CSI, which are loved in four cities. After that, the capitals deviate to their own private passions -- Sydney wallowing in glitz, Perth gasping at the sinfulness of human nature, Adelaide showing its traditional commitment to High Culture, Melbourne obsessing about romantic dilemmas, and Brisbane, as ever, rejecting superficiality and celebrating Inner Beauty. (Or is there another interpretation we might make of these regional differences? Tell us below.)

The divisions within our nation are not only geographical. Gender and age split the populace into four more countries, thus ...

Young women (under 40) are the main audience for: Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, House, What About Brian, Desperate Housewives, Bondi Rescue, The Biggest Loser, The Rich List, Brothers and Sisters, Saving Babies.

Young men (under 40) are the main audience for: The Simpsons, Heroes, My Name Is Earl, Prison Break, Supernatural, NCIS, Cops, Family Guy, Top Gear, Spicks and Specks.

Older women (over 40) are the main audience for: Dancing With the Stars, Desperate Housewives, House, RPA, All Saints, Home and Away, Better Homes and Gardens, McLeod's Daughters, Medium, Law and Order: SVU.

Older men (over 40) are the main audience for: CSI, CSI Miami, 60 Minutes, Police Files Unlocked, Lost, SCU: Serious Crash Unit, Australia's Got Talent, 20 To 1, 1 VS 100.

As you observe, only one ABC program appears on any of these lists -- Spicks and Specks. The audience for the rest of the ABC's output is confined to two further countries who share our continent: TRRYs (The Really Really Young) and TRROs (The Really Really Old). They're a story for another day.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 12:12 AM
• Comments (9)

The ratings race: Week 11

This blog is now a heritage item -- worth studying but no longer current. To join the latest discussion on media and popular culture, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

What Australia watched, Saturday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 SEVEN NEWS - SAT Seven 1,124,000 308,000 309,000 203,000 124,000 179,000
2 NINE NEWS SATURDAY Nine 1,103,000 291,000 358,000 210,000 149,000 96,000
3 AUSTRALIA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEO SHOW Nine 948,000 274,000 311,000 133,000 145,000 86,000
4 AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY TREASURES ABC 900,000 257,000 247,000 168,000 90,000 137,000
5 THE BILL ABC 866,000 221,000 243,000 202,000 79,000 121,000
6 2007 brand name CUP GRAND FINAL: CARLTON V BRISBANE LIONS Seven 830,000 39,000 357,000 185,000 146,000 103,000

Updated 10am Saturday March 17
This is a ratings chart for the true believers ... edited highlights of OzTAM's Friday audience figures, designed to show how the different permutations of live and recorded footy performed in different capitals, why Channel Ten does not care about Veronica Mars, and how The Catch-Up is doing (up on its normal figure because Ten put a motor racing practice session against it, instead of Oprah).

Nine's live biffo was number one program in Sydney and Brisbane, neither Seven nor Ten seem to have taken advantage of their AFL rights, and Nine won the night, nationally. But over the week so far, Seven is averaging 30.0 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine is on 28.0, Ten is on 21.6, ABC is on 15.2 and SBS is on 5.3. Over to the fans for more detailed interpretation:

What Australia watched, Friday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,275,000 370,000 401,000 183,000 150,000 172,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,261,000 322,000 350,000 251,000 146,000 191,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,103,000 306,000 295,000 208,000 145,000 149,000
4 NINE NEWS Nine 1,028,000 293,000 333,000 193,000 122,000 87,000
5 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,008,000 258,000 332,000 200,000 140,000 77,000
6 NINE'S LIVE FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 991,000 421,000 238,000 332,000 A Not shown P Not shown
13 SPOOKS ABC 820,000 163,000 312,000 151,000 86,000 108,000
20 SMALLVILLE FRI Ten 586,000 110,000 202,000 119,000 94,000 61,000
23 NINE'S FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 524,000 S 336,000 M Not shown B 187,000 A Not shown P Not shown
31 VERONICA MARS Ten 332,000 67,000 111,000 69,000 45,000 40,000
53 THE CATCH-UP Nine 200,000 63,000 67,000 32,000 18,000 20,000
95 LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN Ten 113,000 37,000 36,000 26,000 9,000 4,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates)

Updated 10am Friday March 16
Channel Nine won Thursday night, mainly on the strength of The Footy Show, which did impressively in Melbourne considering its emphasis on rugby league.

What Australia watched, Thursday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 MISSING PERSONS UNIT Nine 1,240,000 381,000 364,000 206,000 134,000 155,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,236,000 323,000 342,000 247,000 151,000 174,000
3 LAW AND ORDER: SVU Ten 1,208,000 324,000 356,000 219,000 151,000 158,000
4 MY NAME IS EARL Seven 1,149,000 312,000 352,000 225,000 147,000 113,000
5 LOST Seven 1,148,000 292,000 416,000 196,000 126,000 117,000
6 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,139,000 317,000 319,000 200,000 140,000 163,000
7 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,108,000 308,000 337,000 227,000 127,000 109,000
8 NINE NEWS Nine 1,106,000 325,000 350,000 193,000 145,000 93,000
9 THE FOOTY SHOW Nine 1,036,000 314,000 392,000 121,000 122,000 88,000
10 GETAWAY Nine 1,029,000 289,000 318,000 179,000 118,000 125,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland caplitals)

Updated 10am Thursday March 15
Some commentators read significance into the ratings for Tuesday, when A Current Affair scored a rare win over Today Tonight. They ventured the theory that the viewers were punishing TT for unethical behavour in using a private eye to embarrass Mercedes Corby over the weekend.

If that was true, the viewer outrage lasted only one day. On Wednesday TT was back on top, and ACA was down 300,000 on its average for last year. As you can see from the figures below, the only city where ACA is more popular than TT is Melbourne. Clearly its citizens have a finer moral sense than the rest of the country, and can detect a difference between Seven and Nine in current affairs coverage.

Rugby league coverage will help Nine over the next two nights, but probably not enough to let it win the week.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 HOUSE Ten 1,486,000 432,000 443,000 272,000 159,000 180,000
2 MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS Nine 1,321,000 293,000 440,000 249,000 182,000 158,000
3 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,286,000 357,000 343,000 214,000 163,000 209,000
4 POLICE FILES - UNLOCKED Seven 1,263,000 380,000 346,000 228,000 118,000 190,000
5 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,257,000 365,000 367,000 196,000 126,000 202,000
6 NINE NEWS Nine 1,127,000 315,000 372,000 205,000 143,000 91,000
7 SCU: SERIOUS CRASH UNIT Seven 1,121,000 332,000 331,000 195,000 105,000 158,000
8 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC 1,110,000 331,000 370,000 182,000 87,000 139,000
9 HEROES Seven 1,096,000 291,000 340,000 201,000 112,000 151,000
10 TEMPTATION Nine 1,082,000 272,000 371,000 202,000 128,000 109,000
11 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,076,000 292,000 368,000 196,000 120,000 99,000
12 COLD CASE Nine 1,053,000 297,000 311,000 180,000 121,000 145,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)
Updated 10 am Wednesday March 14
The fools, the blind, crazy fools. They went and voted off Naomi Robson and thereby eliminated the only reason for continuing to watch Dancing With The Stars. Her execution episode drew the biggest audience DWTS has achieved this year -- nearly 1.9 million viewers in the mainland capitals. It will have the same effect as the eviction of Jennifer Hawkins last year.

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1 DANCING WITH THE STARS Seven 1,866,000
2 ALL SAINTS Seven 1,357,000
3 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,338,000
4 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) Ten 1,177,000
5 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,175,000
6 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,166,000
7 NINE NEWS Nine 1,148,000
8 20 TO 1 -RPT Nine 1,119,000
9 NCIS Ten 1,118,000
10 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,111,000
11 THE ALL NEW SIMPSONS Ten 1,097,000
12 THE SIMPSONS TUES Ten 1,063,000
13 ABC NEWS-EV ABC 1,058,000
14 NUMB3RS Ten 944,000
15 CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION -RPT Nine 920,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australian watched, Monday
1. Seven News Seven 1.529
2. Today Tonight Seven 1.447
3. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.435
4. 1 vs 100 Nine 1.293
5. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.272
6. A Current Affair Nine 1.270
7. National Nine News Nine 1.238
8. The Rich List Seven 1.228
9. CSI: NY Nine 1.210
10. Home and Away Seven 1.172
11. Bondi Rescue Ten 1.093
12. Brothers & Sisters Seven 1.075
13. Temptation Nine 1.006
14. What's Good For You Nine 0.991
15. ABC News ABC 0.988

What Australian watched, Sunday
1. Ugly Betty Seven 1.503
2. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.498
3. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Nine 1.402
4. Seven News Seven 1.318
5. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.307
6. CSI: Miami Nine 1.279
7. National Nine News Nine 1.231
8. 60 Minutes Nine 1.194
9. 20 to 1 Nine 1.117
10. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.104
11. Planet Earth ABC 1.083
12. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple ABC 0.994
13. ABC News ABC 0.939
14. What About Brian Seven 0.901
15. Movie: School of Rock Ten 0.771

Last week started so well for Eddie McGuire, when Channel Nine's veteran police procedural, CSI, defeated Channel Seven's medical melodrama, Grey's Anatomy on Sunday night. Then he got two bits of bad news, one personal, one corporate.

As host of 1 vs 100, he learned that his game show has fallen behind Andrew O'Keefe's The Rich List, with audience figures of 1.23 million vs 1.27 million. And as CEO of Channel Nine, Eddie learned that his bold adventure in daytime television, The Catch Up, in which an assortment of rational and hysterical women debate issues and plug Nine programs, had sunk to an audience of 164,000 viewers a day, down from an opening figure of 224,000. The Catch-up is now averaging 50,000 less than The Oprah Winfrey Show on Ten, and 15,000 less than the The Young and the Restless, the cheap American soap it replaced.

Of course, the news could have been worse. 1 vs 100 is still doing much better than the 775,000 achieved by Channel Ten's game show, The Con Test, whose dismembered limbs will be thrown into the boneyard any day now. And Nine did have seven programs in the top 20.

Seven won the week, averaging 30.2 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 28.7, Ten got 20.2, ABC got 16.0 and SBS got 5.0. "Roll on rugby league" will undoubtedly be the McGuire mantra this week.

What Australia watched, week ending March 10
1. Dancing With The Stars Seven 1.73m
2. Ugly Betty Seven 1.70m
3. CSI Nine 1.69m
4. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.63m
5. CSI: Miami Nine 1.59m
6. RPA Nine 1.56m
7. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.48m
8. 60 Minutes Nine 1.47m
9. House Ten 1.46m
10. Seven news Sunday Seven 1.43
11. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.42m
12. Seven News Seven 1.38
13. Missing Persons Unit Nine 1.37
14. Police Files: Unlocked Seven 1.37
15. Today Tonight Seven 1.30
16. The Rich List Seven 1.27
17. All Saints Seven 1.25
18. 1 vs 100 Nine 1.23
19. McLeod's Daughters Nine 1.22
20. Better Homes and Gardens Seven 1.20
21. Nine news Nine 1.18
22. Heroes Seven 1.18
(OzTAM mainland capitals)

To find out how the old, the young, the rich and the suburban shopper view TV differently, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:24 AM
• Comments (133)

WHO WE ARE: Welcome as a fart in a two man sub

A column about Australia, by David Dale, published in The Sun-Herald, 11/4/2007
Australia has three virtues which some people mistakenly call vices: the tall poppy syndrome (healthy skepticism); the cultural cringe (modesty); and a scurrilous turn of phrase (sensayuma). In pursuit of the third of these virtues, I asked readers to suggest topical modern variations on such classic Aussie expressions as "a few sandwiches short of a picnic" and "ugly as a hatful of arseholes".

Some readers complained that by their very nature, witticisms about political or social issues were unlikely to become classics, since (hopefully) nobody in ten years time will understand references to Morris Iemma, Peter Debnam, Schappelle Corby, Eddie McGuire, the Qantas hottie, or Brian Burke. Well, maybe Schappelle Corby, since she'll be getting out of jail about then.

Alert reader Morris Graham made this observation: "I fear that in hunting for a modern National Metaphor you are looking for a needle in a haystack, even flogging a dead horse. True, these were common, but not Australian, expressions but if ever there was anything poetic in Australian language it has been replaced by foreign images. You might expect some local colour from Australia's most dominant interest, sport, but the cliches are from baseball, not cricket: 'out of left field', 'ball park figure'. Lleyton Hewitt was reported in a Davis Cup match as 'stepping up to the plate'.

"Don't look for redemption from a new generation. They have no poetry but a new imported language where meanings are reversed: what is 'hot' is 'cool' and what is 'good' is 'wicked'. And there's no room for imagery in SMS. But keep up the search. You might find a flash of gold in the pan some day."

We need only look at the vigorous wordplay sent in to this column in the past fortnight to overturn Mr Graham's pessimism. Here are my favourites:

As boned as an Australian sitcom.
About as politically correct as a Lakemba mufti.
As good as a politician's promise.
As exclusive as the Dick Cheney fan club.
As much hope as the Titanic with Mark Latham in the wheelhouse.
Like looking for WMDs in Iraq.
So unlucky he'd be killed by a tsunami in the Simpson Desert.
As sincere as a second term prime minister.
As popular as a cross city tunnel; as a paparazzo at a Tom Cruise wedding.
Wouldn't shout in a shark attack.
Shoot through like a George Bush supporter.
Playing up like a secondhand whippersnipper.
Slick as snot on a door knob.
Welcome as a fart in a two-man sub.
As useless as a back pocket on a singlet.
The wheel is spinning but the mouse is dead.
My boss goes on and on ... he'd take an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.
All over the place like a politician in an interview.
Wouldn't turn up at his own funeral.
Going off like your nanna in Spotlight.

Yep, we've still got it. So what if they'll be forgotten in ten years? By then there'll be others, about Prime Minister Turnbull, Opposition leader Garrett, Premier Goward, President Howard, Pope Abbott, etc, etc. The great Aussie insult will never die.

To read or suggest more, go below.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in Who We Are at 05:46 AM
• Comments (11)

The ratings race: Week 10

This blog is now a heritage item -- worth studying but no longer current. To join the latest discussion on media and popular culture, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

Updated 10am Saturday March 10
Nine won Thursday night, but its prime time audience share for the week up to Saturday is averaging 28.7 per cent, while Seven is on 30.7, Ten is on 20.4, ABC is on 15.5 and SBS is on 4.8. That's not close enough for Nine to end up winnng the week purely on the strength of Australia's Home Videos tonight.

What Australia watched, Thursday
1 RPA Network 9 1,598,130
2 SEVEN NEWS Network 7 1,394,435
3 MISSING PERSONS UNIT Network 9 1,350,103
4 TODAY TONIGHT Network 7 1,288,780
5 LAW AND ORDER: SVU Network TEN 1,179,807
6 MY NAME IS EARL Network 7 1,174,102
7 LOST Network 7 1,119,378
8 NATIONAL NINE NEWS Network 9 1,113,164
9 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) Network TEN 1,074,097
10 HOME AND AWAY Network 7 1,071,711
11 A CURRENT AFFAIR Network 9 1,067,776
12 GETAWAY Network 9 978,536
13 AMAZING MEDICAL STORIES -RPT Network 9 950,850
14 SAVING BABIES Network TEN 926,030
15 LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT Network TEN 918,914
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am, Thursday March 8
Heroes has now settled into a hardcore geeks-without-broadband audience of a million fewer than its opening night, and is being beaten by McLeod's Daughters. But even with House adding another story, Seven still won the night, so its prime time audience share for the week is averaging 31.8 per cent, while Nine is on 28.4, Ten is on 20.3, ABC is on 14.5 and SBS is on 4.8. The Con Test is stuck on 775,000.

What Australia watched, Wednesday
1. House Ten 1.463
2. Seven News Seven 1.396
3. Police Files: Unlocked Seven 1.368
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.282
5. Nine News Nine 1.225
6. McLeod's Daughters Nine 1.213
7. Heroes Seven 1.180
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.179
9. SCU: Serious Crash Unit Seven 1.175
10. Without A Trace Nine 1.108
11. Cold Case Nine 1.095
12. Home and Away Seven 1.089
13. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.034
14. ABC News ABC 1.022
15. Spicks and Specks ABC 1.003
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am, Wednesday March 7
Seven got a shock when its numbers dropped on Sunday night, and Nine's CSI was the most watched show. But it rebounded so strongly last night that its audience share for the week so far is averaging 32.9 per cent, while Nine is on 28.7, Ten is on 19.3, ABC is on 14.3 and SBS is on 4.9. Nine must be sweating on the start of the rugby league season.

What Australia watched, Tuesday
1. Dancing With The Stars Seven 1.733m
2. Seven News Seven 1.365
3. Today Tonight Seven 1.319
4. All Saints Seven 1.247
5. Nine News Nine 1.206
7. The Simpsons 7.30pm Ten 1.127
6. Home and Away Seven 1.147
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.111
9. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.069
10. The Simpsons 8pm Ten 1.067
11. NCIS 8.30pm Ten 0.936
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australia watched, Monday March 5
1. Seven News Seven 1.502
2. Desperate Housewives Seven 1.497
3. Today Tonight Seven 1.467
4. The Rich List Seven 1.267
5. A Current Affair Nine 1.258
6. Nine News Nine 1.243
7. 1 vs 100 Nine 1.229
8. Home and Away Seven 1.204
9. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.150
10. Temptation Nine 1.135
11. Bondi Rescue Ten 1.097
12. CSI: NY Nine 1.066
13. What's Good For You Nine 1.048
14. Brothers & Sisters Seven 1.047
15. ABC News ABC 0.968
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australia watched, Sunday March 4
1. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Nine 1.690
2. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.682
3. Ugly Betty Seven 1.657
4. CSI: Miami Nine 1.619
5. 60 Minutes Nine 1.458
6. Seven News Seven 1.421
7. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.394
8. 20 to 1 Nine 1.143
9. Nine News Nine 1.043
10. The Biggest Loser Ten 0.887
11. Ten News Ten 0.880
12. ABC News ABC 0.873
13. Planet Earth ABC 0.870
14. What About Brian Seven 0.840
15. True CSI Nine 0.744

Channel Seven won another week, but there's been slippage. This is no comfort to Channel Nine, since the viewers that Seven is losing seem to be moving mainly to Ten. House knocked Heroes off the top spot on Wednesday's chart, and there's yet another Simpsons resurgence under way, hence Ten's decision to program it for five hours a week. Nine has only one show in the week's top ten.

The prime time audience shares were Seven 29.6 per cent, Nine 27.4, Ten 21.3, ABC 16.7, and SBS 5.0 per cent. The four hours of Nine's Oscars ceremony averaged 1.09 million in the mainland capitals, which shows great endurance. The ABC is in particularly healthy shape, with more than a million viewers for its news, Foyle's War, Dalziel and Pascoe, Planet Earth, Spicks and Specks, and Australian Story.

What Australia watched, week ending March 3
1 UGLY BETTY Seven 1,881,000
2 DANCING WITH THE STARS Seven 1,726,000
3 GREY'S ANATOMY Seven 1,683,000
4 BORDER SECURITY (Rpt) Seven 1,606,000
5 HOUSE Ten 1,506,000
6 RPA Nine 1,505,000
7 SCU: SERIOUS CRASH UNIT Seven 1,478,000
8 SEVEN NEWS SUNDAY Seven 1,432,000
9 AUSTRALIA'S GOT TALENT Seven 1,426,000
10 ALL SAINTS Seven 1,381,000
11 CSI Nine 1,380,000
12 MISSING PERSONS UNIT Nine 1,378,000
13 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,367,000
14 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,346,000
15 BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Seven 1,273,000
16 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,264,000
17 HEROES Seven 1,219,000
18 CSI: MIAMI Nine 1,213,000
19 THE RICH LIST Seven 1,186,000
20 MY NAME IS EARL Seven 1,182,000
21 NINE NEWS Nine 1,178,000
22 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,176,000
23 MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS Nine 1,171,000
24 60 MINUTES Nine 1,160,000
25 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,156,000
26 THE ALL NEW SIMPSONS Ten 1,152,000
27 LOST Seven 1,150,000
28 LAW AND ORDER: SVU Ten 1,149,000
29 20 TO 1 Nine 1,145,000
30 FOYLE'S WAR ABC 1,116,000
31 PLANET EARTH ABC 1,111,000
32 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) - ELIMINATION Ten 1,111,000
33 BONDI RESCUE Ten 1,107,000
34 SEVEN NEWS - SAT Seven 1,105,000
35 WITHOUT A TRACE Nine 1,101,000
36 ABC NEWS-SUN ABC 1,092,000
37 DALZIEL AND PASCOE-EV ABC 1,087,000

To find out how the old, the young, the rich and the suburban shopper view TV differently, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:41 AM
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The Tribal Mind: the grey and the groovy

For decades television programming was predicated on the principle that "real men don't do niche". The tough guys who ran the commercial networks weren't interested in programs that appealed to a segment of the populace. They wanted everybody. It was a mass market, because, to the programmers, Australians were all the same. Those who didn't fit the mould were wankers, and they were welcome to the ABC.

Channel Ten was the first to break ranks, deciding in the mid 90s to say it specialised in programming for people aged 16-39, and, by the early noughties, putting out press releases boasting about how few viewers over 50 were watching particular shows. Last year it realised it had defined its niche too narrowly, and announced that, because of the increased average age of the population, it would henceforth program for people aged 18-49. After all, 50 is the new 30.

When network bosses receive their weekly ratings chart from OzTAM on Sunday mornings, it is now divided by niche. Essentially OzTAM splits Australians into six tribes: male, female, old, young, the rich and the suburban family types. We'll look at how men and women differ in their tastes next Tuesday, but today we thought you'd like to see how the other niches respond to the offerings on the box.

We've taken the liberty of inventing alliterative names for the four demographic slices - Greys, Groovers, Greedies and Grocery buyers, though we're sure the stations would never refer to them in this way:

What the groovers watched (viewers aged 16-39): 1 Grey's Anatomy (7); 2 Ugly Betty (7); 3 House (10); 4 Desperate Housewives (7); 5 Heroes (7); 6 Lost (7); 7 The Simpsons (10); 8 My Name is Earl; (7); 9 What About Brian (7); 10 Prison Break - On The Run (7)

What the greys watched (viewers aged over 55): 1 Foyle's War (ABC); 2 Dalziel and Pascoe (ABC); 3 Dancing With The Stars (7); 4 Seven news (7); 5 ABC news Sunday (ABC); 6 Australian Story (ABC); 7 Seven News Sunday (7); 8 RPA (9); 9 Planet Earth (ABC); 10 Missing Persons Unit (9).

What the grocery buyers watched: 1 Dancing With The Stars (7); 2 RPA (9); 3 All Saints (7); 4 Ugly Betty (7); 5 Border Security repeat (7); 6 Missing Persons Unit (9); 7 Seven news Sunday (7); 8 Seven news (7); Grey's Anatomy (70; 10 House (10).

What the greedies watched (people earning more than $80,000 a year): 1 Grey's Anatomy (7); 2 Ugly Betty (7); 3 House (10); 4 Dancing With The Stars (7); 5 Desperate Housewives (7); 6 RPA (9); 7 All Saints (7); 8 SCU: Serious Crash Unit (7); 9 Spicks and Specks (ABC); 10 Border Security repeat (7).

A pretty diverse bunch Australians are. Now if you'd like to suggest what this social segmentation might mean, go below ...

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:48 AM
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WHO WE ARE: The plausibility of the periodicals

A column about Australia, by David Dale, published in The Sun-Herald, 4/3/2007
You can tell a lot about a people from the things they read. But first you need to be sure the information you're given about a nation's reading habits is accurate.

For years, book publishers got away with calling every second release a "best-seller" because there was no reliable public data about actual sales. Now there is, in the form of ACNielsen's weekly Bookscan, which draws figures from the cash registers of 1000 retailers and shows that our favourite literary experiences include Harry Potter, diets, housecleaning, Dan Brown, and Bryce Courtenay.

But bookbuyers are a minority of the population. What most Australians read is magazines. And finally we can discuss with some confidence the particular periodicals they like best.

Confession: in another life I spent two years as the editor of a glossy magazine. I was aware that its publishers went to extraordinary lengths to boost its apparent circulation -- giving copies away with other products; donating or discounting copies for hotels, airlines and other upmarket locations; and sending copies to subscribers who hadn't renewed their subscriptions for months or even years (probably because they were dead). Publishers do this boosting in order to convince advertisers that their spiels will reach vast audiences, because the profits in magworld come from ads, not cover price.

Since then I've been skeptical about the sales figures that were published every six months by the industry body called The Audit Bureau of Circulations. But not any longer. The Audit Bureau has removed from its counting process some of the anomalies I encountered in my editing days, and has just released a whole new chart for Australia's most popular periodicals. We can have faith that this represents a fairly accurate portrait of the reading habits of Australians.

The Bureau claims Australia's top selling magazine is the Foxtel program guide, which averages 816,000 copies a month. I think we can learn more by looking at the kind of publications people need to actually go out and buy, so I've ignored it in the chart below. The other liberty I've taken is including the circulation figures published last year, even though they are not strictly comparable with the new figures. They either show how the popularity of the mag has changed or how many copies had to be removed from the analysis because they were not sold at full price.

What Australia reads
1. Women's Weekly 605,000 a month (apparently down from 610,000 a year ago)
2. Woman's Day 504,000 a week (down from 526)
3. New Idea 411,000 a week (down from 432)
4. Readers Digest 360,000 a month (up from 355)
5. Better Homes and Gardens 335,000 a month (up from 282)
6. That's Life 326,000 a week (down from 346)
7. Super Food Ideas 321,000 a month (down from 341)
8. Take 5 258,000 a week (down from 260)
9. TV week 273,000 a week (down from 281)
10. Cosmopolitan 203,000 a month (down from 216)

We may conclude either that Australians are diminishing their devotion to gossip, scandal and orgasms, or that they were never as interested in them as we assumed.

Two magazines defied the general shrinkage and took a leap in public estimation -- Readers Digest and Better Homes and Gardens. What's that about? Am I drawing too long a bow to see this as symptomatic of a social shift towards conservatism and traditional values? If it's a trend, we'll know in the July magazine audit.

What do you think it means? Tell us here ...

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in Who We Are at 10:21 AM
• Comments (11)

The Ratings Race: Week nine

This blog is now a heritage item -- worth studying but no longer current. To join the latest discussion on media and popular culture, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.
What Australia watched, Thursday
As Lost sank further, Nine won Thursday night. But the prime time audience shares up to this point in the week are ABC 15.7%, Seven 30.3%, Nine 28.1%, Ten 21.2%, SBS 4.8%.
1. RPA Nine 1.506
2. Missing Persons Unit Nine 1.350
3. Seven News Seven 1.283
4. Today Tonight Seven 1.238
5. Nine News Nine 1.193
6. My Name Is Earl Seven 1.182
7. Lost Seven 1.150

8. Law and Order: SVU Ten 1.147
9. A Current Affair Nine 1.129
10. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.101
11. Getaway Nine 1.042
12. Home and Away Seven 1.008
13. Saving Babies Ten 0.986
14. Temptation Nine 0.961
15. Law and Order: Criminal Intent Ten 0.960
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australia watched, Wednesday
The prime time audience shares up to this point in the week are ABC 15.9%, Seven 31.5%, Nine 27.2%, Ten 20.7%, SBS 4.7%.
1 BORDER SECURITY (Rpt) Seven 1,606,000
2 HOUSE Ten 1,504,000
3 SCU: SERIOUS CRASH UNIT Seven 1,478,000
4 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,415,000
5 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,360,000
6 NINE NEWS Nine 1,248,000
7 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,228,000
8 HEROES Seven 1,219,000
9 MCLEOD'S DAUGHTERS Nine 1,166,000
10 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,114,000
11 WITHOUT A TRACE Nine 1,100,000
12 SPICKS AND SPECKS ABC 1,069,000
13 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) Ten 1,043,000
14 ABC NEWS ABC 1,013,000
15 COLD CASE Nine 1,007,000
16 TEMPTATION Nine 997,000
17 MEDIUM Ten 995,000
18 PRISON BREAK - ON THE RUN Seven 978,000
19 TEN NEWS AT FIVE Ten 919,000
20 THE NEW INVENTORS ABC 893,000
21 EXTRAS ABC 838,000
22 DEAL OR NO DEAL Seven 779,000
23 THE CON TEST Ten 776,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australia watched, Tuesday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 DANCING WITH THE STARS Seven 1,726,000 544,000 504,000 315,000 174,000 190,000
2 ALL SAINTS Seven 1,381,000 461,000 422,000 166,000 151,000 181,000
3 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,285,000 347,000 313,000 256,000 164,000 206,000
4 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,251,000 376,000 401,000 239,000 128,000 107,000
5 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,221,000 359,000 334,000 212,000 132,000 183,000
6 NINE NEWS Nine 1,161,000 348,000 390,000 207,000 131,000 85,000
7 THE ALL NEW SIMPSONS Ten 1,157,000 252,000 354,000 213,000 165,000 172,000
8 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,098,000 342,000 312,000 202,000 92,000 150,000
9 THE BIGGEST LOSER (AUS) Ten 1,080,000 258,000 292,000 232,000 152,000 146,000
10 THE SIMPSONS TUES Ten 1,031,000 231,000 320,000 188,000 150,000 144,000
11 NCIS Ten 1,010,000 236,000 302,000 190,000 144,000 138,000
12 ABC NEWS ABC 1,001,000 304,000 261,000 196,000 117,000 123,000
13 CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION -RPT Nine 950,000 237,000 305,000 188,000 102,000 118,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)
Updated 10 am Tuesday, February 27
George Miller wasn't the only Australian winner from the Oscars. By showing the awards from 7.30 to nearly midnight, Channel Nine got Monday's biggest prime time audience share -- 30.1 per cent to Seven's 28.7.

Since the figure for Desperate Housewives was down by only a few thousand, it seems most viewers adopted a strategy of flicking back and forth between the Despos and DeGeneres. Supernatural maintained its usual 875,000 loyalists, but Top Gear dropped to 554,000. During daylight hours, Nine's new talk show The Catch-Up managed 244,000 against Oprah Winfrey's 170,000 and 299,000 for Seven's midday movie.

What Australia watched, Monday
Description Network Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,443,000 366,000 395,000 273,000 169,000 241,000
2 DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES Seven 1,367,000 405,000 415,000 212,000 159,000 175,000
3 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,326,000 356,000 353,000 285,000 149,000 183,000
4 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,325,000 421,000 404,000 222,000 156,000 122,000
5 NINE NEWS Nine 1,241,000 416,000 356,000 243,000 138,000 88,000
6 THE RICH LIST Seven 1,186,000 285,000 399,000 202,000 148,000 152,000
7 TEMPTATION Nine 1,141,000 341,000 358,000 210,000 136,000 97,000
8 BIGGEST LOSER ELIMINATION Ten 1,111,000 322,000 318,000 226,000 113,000 130,000
9 BONDI RESCUE Ten 1,107,000 340,000 320,000 189,000 120,000 138,000
10 ACADEMY AWARDS Nine 1,087,000 405,000 313,000 164,000 83,000 123,000
11 HOME AND AWAY Seven 1,071,000 297,000 306,000 217,000 102,000 147,000
12 ACADEMY AWARDS RED CARPET Nine 1,031,000 345,000 308,000 165,000 108,000 105,000
13 AUSTRALIAN STORY ABC 1,008,000 283,000 239,000 276,000 87,000 123,000
14 ABC NEWS ABC 993,000 316,000 270,000 165,000 111,000 130,000
15 BROTHERS & SISTERS Seven 981,000 280,000 325,000 151,000 121,000 104,000
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

Updated 10 am Monday February 26
Channel Seven won the first week of "normal" programming so convincingly (31.0 per cent of the prime time audience to Nine's 26.2 per cent), it's hard to see how Nine could possibly recover this year. But there are potholes in the road to the top for history's perennial number two network:

1) Despite the presence of Naomi Robson (previously rated by this column as one of the most beautiful people on television), Dancing with The Stars started modestly - averaging 1.81 million in the mainland capitals. For comparisons, go to The shows Australia loved.
2) On Wednesdays, Ten's House keeps pulling viewers from Seven's Heroes, which started with 2 million and is now below 1.4 million.
3) Nine keeps winning Thursdays because the sitcom How I Met Your Mother gets Seven's night off to very slow start.

Ugly Betty was expected to lose viewers to hottie hostie last night, after Nine paid the Fiennes romancer to wear a bikini and tell 60 Minutes she "might" be pregnant. In fact, 60 Minutes gained only 100,000 and Seven won Sunday with 32.1 per cent audience share to Nine's 27.3. Viewers may not be the suckers that Nine imagines.

But Seven's troubles are trivial compared to Ten's trials at the moment. Last week it averaged 20.8 per cent of the prime time audience (ABC 16.4, SBS 5.6). Its game show, The Con Test managed only 719,000 on Wednesday, putting it below the figure that brought the executioner to Yasmin's Getting Married last year. On Sunday, Ten's Celebrity Dog School managed 545,000 against Seven's no less silly Australia's Got Talent. On Friday the finale of the former youth favourite The OC got only 654,000.

You may imagine Ten's programmers are making daily calls to the producers of Thank God You're Here, screaming "Are you ready yet, are you ready yet?" But with Big Brother and Australian Idol still to come, Ten's performance is bound to improve this year. Can Nine say the same?

What Australia watched, Sunday
1. Ugly Betty Seven 1.851m
2. Grey's Anatomy Seven 1.730
3. Seven News Seven 1.419
4. Australia's Got Talent Seven 1.391
5. CSI Nine 1.379
6. CSI: Miami Nine 1.211
7. 60 Minutes Nine 1.159
8. Nine Sunday News Nine 1.157
9. 20 to 1 Nine 1.142
10. Planet Earth ABC 1.117
11. Foyle's War ABC 1.114
12. ABC News ABC 1.092
13. The Biggest Loser Ten 1.034
14. What About Brian Seven 0.939
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

What Australia watched, week ending February 24
1 Ugly Betty (7) 2.05m
2 Dancing With The Stars (7) 1.81m
3 Grey's Anatomy (7) 1.66m
4 Australia's Got Talent (7) 1.65
5 RPA (9) 1.53
6 Desperate Housewives (7) 1.54
7 Seven News Sunday (7) 1.45
8 SCU: Serious Crash Unit (7) 1.42
9 Border Security repeat (7) 1.42
10 All Saints (7) 1.39
11 Heroes (7) 1.37
12 CSI Ep2 (9) 1.36
13 Missing Persons Unit (9) 1.34
14 House (10) 1.34
15 CSI Ep1 (9) 1.32
16 Seven weekday news (7) 1.31
17 1 vs 100 (9) 1.27
18 My Name Is Earl (7) 1.26
19 Today Tonight (7) 1.24
20 Lost (7) 1.23
(OzTAM preliminary estimates, mainland capitals)

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. For further observations of Australian attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:05 AM
• Comments (186)