Paul McIntyre: Most stations losing audience share while pay gains

If the summer TV ratings season is anything to go by, Australia's three commercial broadcasters will need more hype than ever to make 2006 look even marginally positive for their audience numbers.

That yapping dog called Pay TV has after nearly 10 years in the Australian market started to bite. This summer pay has seen huge audience gains at the expense of the Seven, Nine and Ten networks - pay viewers are up 27 per cent nationally during prime time and the biggest news so far over the Christmas break is that in Sydney, Pay TV has actually outrated the commercial broadcasters in audience numbers.

It's an ominous sign for Nine, Seven and Ten if they don't pull out some of those big-hitting shows when the official ratings season starts next month.

Outside of the spluttering audience performance of free-to-air TV since November, there's plenty of other news orbiting the TV sector.

James Packer's school buddy David Gyngell - he's the son of Bruce Gyngell, the first face on Australian TV in 1956 - who quit as chief executive of the Packer's Nine Network last year, looks to have landed a gig with British broadcaster ITV, based in Los Angeles.

Despite decades of close ties between the Packer and Gyngell families, Gyngell junior copped the ire of the late Kerry Packer when he quit as Nine's boss last May, publicly bagging the "multi-layered management systems" at parent company PBL.

Gyngell remains close with James Packer and there was some conjecture that he might return to Nine after Kerry's death last month. But apparently not, with news of his LA gig emerging this week - details are still scant but it may involve Gyngell running the US arm of ITV's production company Granada.

With Gyngell out of the running for a return to Nine, speculation this week swung to just who would take over the reins permanently from stand-in chief Sam Chisholm.

The latest candidate is Eddie "Everywhere" McGuire, Nine's hugely ambitious on-air sports and game show host who juggles his TV work with numerous private business interests and the president's chair at the Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne.

McGuire is certainly managed closely by the Packers - last June he was holidaying on their ship anchored in Monaco and was spotted several times around the French Riviera showing the signs of a bottle or two of French wine in his system.

McGuire has been lobbying strongly for Nine's top gig although it would be seen as a somewhat risky move. Nine continues to play down the urgency of filling the top job at the network as Sam Chisholm's two-year stand-in contract doesn't finish until May 2007. In that time, though, Chisholm has some work to do.

While still the top-rating network through the official 2005 ratings season, Nine lost audience share and the trend has continued through Christmas. Its prime time audiences are off another 7 per cent over summer, despite a very popular one-day cricket series.

Nine can console itself that it is not alone - Network Seven's rampaging 2005 has come to a screeching halt with its summer audience figures lineball with last year; Network Ten is down 3 per cent; and viewing numbers for the public broadcaster, ABC, are down 15 per cent.

Of course, while the Packer-controlled PBL outfit won't be happy with the current trajectory at Nine, its 25 per cent stake in pay TV outfit Foxtel is starting to look good.

Critically for the three commercial TV networks, though, all are down in two key advertising demographics in which pay TV is showing very solid gains - those aged 25 to 54, and the under-40s.

Nine is certainly leading the downward charge in prime time for the under-40s with a slump of 13 per cent. Seven is only just behind with a decline of 9 per cent while Ten is off 4 per cent. Pay, on the other hand, is up 31 per cent.

These figures include three one-day cricket matches on Nine but no Australian Open tennis on Seven - last year the tennis served as a huge opportunity for Seven as Lleyton Hewitt and Alicia Molik marched through the final rounds, generating record ratings in Australia.

But whether the tennis and cricket can save the broadcasters this month or not, the figures to date are not flash.

Pay TV traditionally performs better in the warmer months as the free-to-air networks save their best programming for the official ratings period. But pay's ratings romp over the eight-week Christmas TV break has been noted by advertising buyers.

"It continues to highlight the trend that subscription TV is attracting more and more eyeballs and is increasingly putting its hand up as a real and viable option for advertisers," says MindShare media investment director Geoff Clarke.