Media Hunter

How to run a radio station Super Network style

Media Hunter hears that there are serious rumblings of discontent at 2HD and NEWFM that have resulted in more staff heading for the door.

Station sales manager Kathy Coleman has taken stress leave indefinitely after having a series of heated run-ins with owner Bill Caralis in the last month. Apparently Caralis has changed commission structures for some sales staff, effective immediately, which has caused serious unrest amongst the troops.

Advertisers call for web ratings fix

Source: Lara Sinclair, The Australian

INTERNET publishers are under pressure to spend up to $10million to fund a new ratings system that would allow advertisers to compare online audiences with those for television, radio and other media.

While advertisers spent close to $1.4 billion on all forms of internet advertising last year, there is still no single audience measurement system that all publishers agree on, the online equivalent of newspaper readership or TV ratings.

Newcastle TV ratings week 8 2008

Results tightened up a little this week after NBN's strong start to the first week of official ratings. Prime finished a strong second to NBN, just 2.8 points behind. Underbelly was the start performer again, actually increasing audience from week 1 and proving that networks may be rewarded if they are willing to invest in quality programming.

National TV ratings week ending 23 Feb

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Australians haven't exactly greeted the official ratings season with open arms, causing us to wonder if they've found better things to do than watch TV. Apart from Underbelly and So You Think You Can Dance, the only programs that could be described as "hits'' (as in, attracting more than 1.3 million in the mainland capitals) are fly-on-the-wall family fare such as RSPCA Animal Rescue, The Force, Border Security, RPA and Bondi Rescue. Pure dagsville.

Monster House gone after two weeks

Channel Nine/NBN has canned the local comedy show Monster House after two episodes. On its second outing it dropped 100,000 viewers to reach just 632,000. It has proven a weak lead-in to the expensive action drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Monster House will be replaced by 20 to 1 with Bert Newton. This is bad news for the network that were hoping this line-up would help in attracting a younger audience.

Vamos sees ongoing net boom

Source: Michael Sainsbury, The Australian

GLOBAL online advertising is set to double within three to five years as the search, display and classified categories, and internet and television ads, begin to blur, according to the Australian who runs Microsoft's $US2.4 billion ($2.6 billion) online ad business.

If broadly applied to Australia this would lead to internet advertising growing to $2.6 billion by as early as 2010.

National TV Ratings week ending 16 Feb

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

Channel Seven's hopes of winning the first week of "official" ratings, boosted when a judge ruled that Victoria could not see Nine's Underbelly last Wednesday, were dashed when NIne's cricket captured viewers over 50 and Ten's dancing captured viewers under 30 -- a pattern which recurred last night.

Seven's tentpole programs -- Border Security, Desperate Housewives, It Takes Two and Grey's Anatomy -- were well down on last year.

Newcastle TV Ratings, Predictions v. Reality

The first television rating week has been run and convincingly won by NBN. The decision by the Nine Network and NBN to run cricket in the first month of survey appears to have paid off. Nine won the week nationally and NBN cleaned up in Newcastle. Still its only week one and the cricket will come to an end soon.

How did my predictions stack up in week one? 

Underbelly makes strong debut

Source: John Davidson, Adnews

Despite being hit by ban in Victoria and ambush marketing from other networks, Nine’s new flagship program Underbelly made a strong debut last night (13 February).

In the four major markets minus Melbourne, Underbelly, based on Melbourne's gangland war, recorded an average audience of 1.325 million viewers across the two-hour, 8.30pm to 10.30pm timeslot.

Ballgames and fancy footwork top ratings

Source: Amanda Meade, The Australian

SEVEN was the clear winner in the summer ratings race. The network won seven of the 10 unofficial ratings weeks that ended on Saturday.

The Australian Open men's final tennis on Seven was the most watched program, with an average audience of 2.447 million. Nine's Australia v India Twenty20 cricket match was of less interest with an audience of 2.077 million