Tracy Versus Leila Versus Eddie…

Well in the last three week’s there have been three different hosts of the Nine Network’s A Current Affair and last week What’s On The Tube had a look at the programs rating’s while Tracy Grimshaw was presenting verses Leila McKinnon. The results showed that while overall Grimshaw’s ratings were better, there was no real significant difference with the ratings being just about at the same mark on the days compared.

Then in comes Eddie McGuire for a week at hosting the program and the results are showing that there is no real change to what the program has been achieving. Monday night saw an impressive spike in favour of McGuire but this can be attributed to the curiosity factor of McGuire hosting the show. Nine however attributed it to its exclusive home movies story with Roberta William’s, saying in a promo later in the week that it was its highest rating show of the year which lead to an interview by McGuire with Roberta Williams.

If what Nine said was true then the logical thought would be to think that an exclusive one on one interview between McGuire and Williams would attract roughly the same figure. Although the Friday night figure was a little higher than the two weeks prior, it was nothing significant enough to suggest people tuning in to see the interview.

When turning the figures into averages it shows that Tracy and Eddie attracted roughly the same audience share, Tracy 1.210 million and Eddie 1.230 which is higher because of the Monday night high. It seems though that on average viewers don’t warm as much to Leila with 1.160 million.

So what does all of this mean at the end of the day? Simply that Tracy Grimshaw’s job is safe as it should be; she is one of the best presenters on Australian Television. In a more complex answer the problem may lie with National Nine News and the dominance of Seven News. Seven’s news is attracting figures close to the 2 million mark while Nine is way behind with a rough national figure of 1.2 million. National Nine News needs a complete overhaul and it is evident that Million Dollar Wheel of Fortune is not going to rescue it.

So why is it that there has been this enormous shift in news viewers from Nine to Seven and the ABC over the past couple of years, is it the presentation style, story order and selection, presenter or something else? In the coming weeks What’s On The Tube will devote 1 week to comparing these factors so look out for that. In the mean time you can vote in this month’s poll question asking what news service you watch.

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