Sunday, August 19
Sunday, August 19 saw Nine’s The Block (1.119 million) edge out Seven Network’s Seven News (1.076 million) for the most-viewed show. However, the latter was consistently the highest-viewed show throughout the rest of the week, ironically all with viewership levels lower than the Sunday airing.
Americans may recognize some shows on Australia’s top 20 most-viewed daily shows. Little Big Shots ranked #4 with around 883,000 viewers on Sunday, August 19, with 60 Minutes coming in 8th place with 621,000 viewers.
One Australian program that made Sunday’s list was the 5th and final season premiere of Rake, which was ABC’s most-viewed show of the night with 715,000 viewers. In America, the show airs on the Audience Network. An American adaptation of the show was tried and failed in 2014 on FOX.
Network Ten placed one show in Sunday, August 19th’s top 10, which was Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures with 629,000 viewers. In general, the top 20 was filled with news programs and reality shows.
What is most remarkable is the same five shows were in the top five for all three reported age demographics. In A25-54, The Block was #1 with 571,000 viewers in that age bracket. Nine News Sunday, Seven News Sunday, Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures, and 60 Minutes followed. As with America, it appears there are more viewers in the A25-54 bracket than A18-49 (1.922 million across all five shows in A25-54 vs. 1.659 million in A18-49). When adding up the top five shows’ total viewership in the A16-39 demographic, 949,000 viewers are found, less than half of those in the 25-54 market.
American Shows: Monday, August 20-Monday, August 27
Australia’s version of Survivor brought in 666,000 viewers for Network Ten on Monday, enough to make it the night’s #11 show and the network’s #2 show, only behind Have You Been Paying Attention’s #7 overall finish. It also managed to score top five in all three reported age brackets: 364,000 adults between the ages of 25-54 watched the broadcast the day it aired, as well as 352,000 adults 18-49 and 236,000 adults 16-39. All three viewership figures were the #3 show of the night in the respective demographics.
The Tuesday night edition of Australia’s Survivor did even better relative to the competition. While it dipped a tiny bit (661,000 vs 666,000 viewers overall), it kept its #3 rank in A25-54 and rose to #2 in A18-49 and A16-39. It was also the most-viewed show of the night in Perth amongst viewers in those demographics.
Australia’s version of The Bachelor did even better than their take on Survivor, with 819,000 total viewers giving it a #6 finish on Wednesday, August 22. It was also Network Ten’s most-watched show that night. Even more impressive is the fact that it was #1 in all three reported age demographics. It even managed to have more total viewers in A18-49 than in A25-54 (524,000 vs 500,000), something that very few shows can say. This remains true not just overall, but in all five reported cities. The Thursday edition also topped the charts in the three reported age demographics, though all had less viewers than the Wednesday edition.
In general, though, Australia’s top programs charts are filled with news, sports, and reality shows, with little to no love for American shows. While a few scripted shows made the list, they are few and far between in the last days of August. For those of you who can’t wait for New Fox’s launch, a summer vacation in Australia may be the right move.
Right now, this feature is in a developing stage. Would you like to see it continue? Would you like the article to be more Australian-focused like in the first part of the article, or American-focused like in the second part? Let us know in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter!