November 27th, 2008 7:58 pm

Wednesday, 26th November ‘08: There’s still Life in House

As TVAUS is down, here’s a special ratings report for those missing their daily ratings fix.

Wednesday Night finished as follows:

ABC: 18.4
Nine: 24.5
SBS: 4.4
Seven: 31.1
Ten: 21.5

It might have been a better performance by Network Ten but they still finished fourth behind the alphabet (19.1 to 21.1) in Sydney and were beaten by Network Seven in their coveted 18-49 demo. But the story of the night goes to Ten with their medical drama House picking up steam. House (Ten) managed 1.02M with 594k in the 25-54 bracket and a night topping 440k in the 16-39 demo. In comparison, Criminal Minds (Seven) netted 1.379M (A25-54: 625k; A16-39: 295k) and Christmas with the Kranks (Nine) pulling a paltry 692k* (A25-54: ~ 360k; A16-39: ~230k). So, you may ask, why the sudden spike in ratings for House? Here’s what I came up with:
i) The absence of Spicks and Specks and Nine’s poor attempt at scheduling (dumping The Mentalist even though they had an episode available)
ii) The special 65 minute episode

I would think the former was the reason for the sudden spike as last week House couldn’t even manage 900k with a 1.3M lead in.

The 9:30pm hour saw under-rated shows Life and The Unit pick up some ground. Here’s how that hour panned out:

Life (Ten): 889k; A25-54: 499k; A16-39: 324k
The Unit (Seven): 839k; A25-54: ~422k; A16-39: ~220k
Christmas with the Kranks (Nine): 692k*; A25-54: ~378k; A16-39: ~240k

Earlier in the night, Nine dominated the 7:30 hour, here’s the breakdown:

Two and a Half Men (Nine): 1.246M; A25-54: 641k; A16-39: 396k
Big Bang Theory (Nine): 1.001M; A25-54: 508k; A16-39: 353k
Air Crash Investigation (Seven): 1.14M; A25-54: 475k
Futurama (Ten) 1 hour average: 667k; A16-39 295k

Over on the ABC, The New Inventors finale garnered a respectable 1.01M with Summer Heights High averaging 449k.

Other notable figures include:

Prison Break (Seven): 446k
Newstopia (SBS): 142k
Late Show with David Letterman: 153k

*Two hour average for Christmas with the Kranks
Note: Some of my 16-39 and 25-54 figures are calculated

All data sourced from Oztam