Seven lands a blow at the opening bell

The bell rang last night for the start of the TV ratings year proper, and Seven West Media’s Channel 7 came out swinging with a series of powerful punches.

From 6:30pm AEDT the three commercial networks were locked in a furious battle - Nine rolling out The Block, Sixty Minutes and the Schapelle Corby telemovie, Ten premiering So You Think You Can Dance and then rolling Sochi Winter Olympics coverage, and Seven going with My Kitchen Rules, a Sunday Night investigative special on the murder of Lisa Harnum, and the highly anticipated INXS telemovie ‘Never Tear Us Apart’.

To further complicate matters, the ABC was premiering the new series of the much loved ‘Rake’ drama.

When all was said and done, Seven was the big winner.

‘Never Tear Us Apart’ delivered over 1.9 million average viewers across the five metropolitan markets, destroying Nine’s ‘Schapelle’ which just managed over 1 million. Seven in this slot delivered 950,000 more metro viewers than Nine.

Sunday Night also easily took care of 60 Minutes - delivering more than double the 60 Minutes audience and averaging 1.793 million viewers across the metro markets.

And My Kitchen Rules made it three for three for the Seven Network, beating The Block comprehensively with an average metro audience of 1.6 million compared to The Block’s 1.27 million.

For the evening Seven scored the top four programs of the night and an overall 37.6 per cent share in one of the most fiercely competitive TV nights in recent memory. Nine managed 27 per cent and Ten 20.5 per cent.

For all the media speculation that Seven is perhaps over-valued when it comes to its share price, the network showed in no uncertain terms that it is still the clear leader when it comes to winning big with event television.

Ten would be content with the ratings performance of its Sochi coverage, but the disastrous debut of So You Think You Can Dance would be troubling the networks executives today. It managed just 466,000 metro viewers and wouldn’t be currently worrying programmers at Nine or Seven in terms of it threatening the established audience of The Block and MKR franchises.

And The Biggest Loser is struggling to challenge The Block/MKR dominance as well. News.com.au last week reported that since January 27 The Biggest Loser have averaged just 633,000 metro viewers, while for the same period MKR has managed 1.7 million and The Block 1.1 million.

Seven shares are down 9 per cent for the year to date in what could seem like irrational trading behaviour. For the same period Ten is up more than 25 per cent and Nine Entertainment Company is up 10.6 per cent. In the last fifteen days, there have been only three instances where Seven has had less than three of the top five programs for the day. In addition, Seven’s foundation programming such as My Kitchen Rules, Seven News, Home & Away, Better Homes and Gardens and Revenge continue to perform strongly.

The TV ratings year is a multi-round bout, not without its share of big right hooks and below the belt punches, but Seven showed at the opening bell that it’s fighting fit and ready to take on all challengers in 2014. Underestimate the group at your peril.