Where have all the TV viewers gone?

IT’S been two months since a TV show cracked the all-important million viewers mark. And it’s the networks’ own fault, writes Cameron Adams.

IT is now two months since a program that wasn’t news, sport or the royal wedding — cracked the magic million mark when it comes to big city ratings on Australian TV.

So where are the viewers going after 7.30pm?

It must be baffling for networks — people will tune in for news, and the occasional TV ‘event’, but then tune out to get their nightly entertainment fix elsewhere in the competitive new media environment.

Both Nine and Seven’s news broadcasts usually get around a million viewers each, each night. That’s two million people switching on. Some viewers hang on for some neighbour from hell or bogan love rat action on A Current Affair.

The news can’t be streamed on Netflix and people still watch it over dinner — it’s comfort (or discomfort) TV for families.

But once that’s over, the TV landscape has all changed.

Putting sport (well, State of Origin and Australia in the World Cup) and Hazza and Meg’s nuptials aside, My Kitchen Rules, way back on May 13, was the last time a program that aired at 7.30pm hit a million viewers.

In 2018, a million viewers is the new two million viewers.

Australian Ninja Warrior was a huge hit for Nine last year, but season 2 has failed to replicate that success. (Pic: supplied)

TV is now experiencing what the music industry faced as it was forced to adapt to new listening habits — a gold selling album is the new double platinum selling album.

Bars have been lowered.

This year The Voice’s early episodes scraped past the one million mark but the grand final just missed tipping over the seven figure mark with around 400,000 less viewers than last year’s grand final, which was also a decline from the previous year.

Last year Ninja Warrior opened on 1.68 million, this year it was 929,000 and the figures keep dropping. Where are the viewers going?

Even My Kitchen Rules’ figures are way down on what they used to be — this year’s grand final made 1.5 million, which in 2018, is a big deal.

The Logies used to be ‘event’ TV, but the who’s who and who’s that of Australian TV was watched by 850,000 viewers this year.

We watch TV differently now. We often don’t even watch it on TV.

Streaming lets you watch programs without sitting through copious ads. Or you can watch programs on the TV networks’ own streaming/online services in your own time (which means instant ratings are becoming less reliable, but they’re still how TV networks measure whether a show lives or dies, however they can spin the figures).

The most talked about shows, such as Wentworth, are now on Foxtel or the various streaming services.

Watching online via streaming means you can skip past all the inane state-the-obvious commentary, constant replays and blatant padding on Ninja Warrior or all the tiresome backstories on, well, any reality TV show — you can’t skip the ads, but you’re still saving time. Or people record it and fast forward over everything they don’t want to watch. You can bang through Ninja Warrior in under 10 minutes, to be honest. TV networks haven’t adapted to the short attention span generation — people lose interest when you fill a show with waffle and overdo the ads.

Love Island was a good example of a network tapping into the new world. It built a fanbase through social media (even if people hate-watched it) and created an on-demand following.

The ABC put one of this year’s best shows, Killing Eve, up in full on their iView platform before it goes on TV later this month for those who may be stingy with their data. The word of mouth on Killing Eve is something no marketing budget could buy. Same with Mystery Road, the local drama that went up in full on iView first, but played out weekly for people who were happy to wait. Ditto SBS’s Counterpart.

SBS’s Handmaid’s Tale was available on the station’s streaming service, and delivered weekly via TV, a best-of-both-worlds strategy that gave it a substantial hit.

If you’re paying for streaming services or subscription TV, it makes sense you’d get your money’s worth. And there’s way more choices on Foxtel or Netflix or Stan than what free-to-air networks are offering, even when you factor in their digital channels (hello repeats).

Aside from special events, such as the royal wedding and sport, and the nightly news, free-to-air networks have failed to crack the all-important one million viewer mark in the past two months. (Pic: Ben Birchall/Getty Images)

The buzz shows — from Game of Thrones to Nanette, Black Mirror to Evil Genius, Wentworth to RuPaul’s Drag Race, Orange is the New Black to Broad City, Stranger Things to Unreal — are constantly being either watched, re-watched or discovered through that word of mouth or those Facebook posts — ‘What’s a good show to binge?’ It’s how we find TV shows now.

Selling Houses Australia — Foxtel’s biggest local hit, is now eleven series deep. Those people joking about host Andrew Winter being nominated for a gold Logie? He hosts a show people pay to watch and is part of a reality TV show where the hosts have real chemistry, not manufactured-for-TV chemistry and which is free of confected drama.

Who wants to sit on the couch watching the short, punchy guy from MasterChef shovelling food into his gob or the loud hosts of Ninja Warrior describing what we’re watching with our own eyes.

Most of those buzz shows? Edgy comedies and dramas. What do the big free-to-air networks keep serving us in prime time? Tired reality shows based around cooking, dating or renovating. Rinse and repeat.

Maybe there’s millions of people waiting for The Block for whom the surrogate version, House Rules, doesn’t cut it. But like Ninja Warrior last year, or Origin shows, people will watch free to air TV after 7.30pm only if it’s the right show.

Therein lies the challenge for our TV networks.

Cameron Adams is a Herald Sun entertainment writer.

@cameron_adams