By James Manning

Hit 107 Survey 5 shares: 10+ 9.0%, Breakfast 7.5%

Cumulative audience: 10+ 239,000, Breakfast 120,000

One of the oldest FM brands in Australia – the station started life as SAFM – is looking to rebuild after dropping its breakfast show this month.

The Amos, Cat & Angus breakfast show finished just one week ago.

When the change was announced, head of content for the Hit Network Gemma Fordham said, “Amos, Cat and Angus have been an incredible asset to our network. However, with the shift in our target audience we’re excited to deliver a local show in Adelaide that will line up with our variety music strategy and that will also complement our two existing drive shows.”

Taking over the Hit 107 breakfast slot from January 21 next year are Rebecca Morse and Andrew Costello. The Bec and Cosi breakfast show marks a return to the station for both announcers.

Rebecca Morse and Andrew Costello

After presenting Network Ten’s Adelaide bulletin TEN Eyewitness News First At Five for over a decade, Rebecca “Bec” Morse knows a thing or two about what makes Adelaide tick. Bec is both an award-winning news journalist and presenter and is familiar with radio having worked at SAFM back in 2012.

Bec said in a statement last week, “I’m really excited to be joining hit107 breakfast next year. I started my media career in radio and loved my stint at the station several years ago, so it will be like coming home. Cosi and I have a lot in common – we are both passionate and proud South Australians and laugh at our own jokes. As for working both ends of the day, there will be coffee and there will be chaos.”

Andrew “Cosi” Costello is in his sixth season of hosting SA’s only travel show South Aussie with Cosi on Nine Adelaide and he’s discovered things that even locals wouldn’t know.

Cosi is also the founder of national charity Cows for Cambodia, raising funds for Cambodian families, and is no stranger to radio, having worked previously at SAFM and Triple M.

Cosi said, “I left the pig farm to join SAFM 18 years ago, and I fell in love with radio and its audience. This radio station runs through my blood and the opportunity to return to hit107 is like a dream come true. South Aussie with Cosi and my social media community mean the world to me and to be able to add the hit107 breakfast show to that stable is very exciting!”

Bec and Cosi will be joined by Hayden “Haydo” Naughton who will jump ship from Triple M Adelaide to anchor the show.

There is no ratings crisis at the station. Its current 10+ share of 9.0% is its second-best this year. The station’s best share in the past 20 surveys was 10.9% at the end of 2016.

Hit 107 cume needs to be higher to compete with the likes of Mix and Nova, but both the station and breakfast cumes are higher than sister station Triple M.

Ahead of the new breakfast show, Hit 107 is hosting an all-music breakfast show and today it was all about RNB Friday.

While the station doesn’t have a breakfast brand at present, afternoons are home to Carrie and Tommy plus Hughesy and Kate.

Cruise 1323 Survey 5 shares: 10+ 8.7%%, Breakfast 6.9%

Cumulative audience: 10+ 180,000, Breakfast 78,000

The unashamedly music-only format at breakfast and across the day has been a consistent performer. The music offering is surprisingly wide from daggy pop classic to cool retro rock. And it connects with the audience.

The music is broken briefly for chances to win cash with breakfast presenter John Dean.

Cruise 1323’s current share is close to the station average for the past couple of years. The high was 10.0% in survey 2 last year.

The best breakfast share in that time was 8.0% in survey 3 2017.

The station’s attraction for advertisers is the demos and Cruise narrowly trails Triple M 55-65 – Cruise with 16.7% to Triple M’s 18.2%.

But the real attraction for marketers is the combo buy with the two ARN stations – Mix and Cruise – offering a share of just under 34% 55-64 and 25% 40-54.

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Top Photo: Hit 107 drive hosts Hughesy and Kate

Hosted by The Loop presenter Liv Phyland, the series is written and produced by Ten with input from Playing For Keeps’ writers and producers. TGB is promising to dish the dirt on everything from the feuds on Playing For Keeps to the fashion to what’s really going on behind those perfect smiles.

Network Ten’s general manager of digital Liz Baldwin said: “Program extensions like The Jury Villa for Australian Survivor and After Paradise for Bachelor in Paradise are great ways to engage show fans off-platform, giving them more show content to enjoy. We wanted to try something different with Playing For Keeps. In addition to our regular behind-the-scenes cast interviews, we created a fun web series that explores the Playing For Keeps storyline in more detail, giving fans of the show the chance to see what it would be like in the real world for the characters on the show. It’s a grandstand exposé into Playing For Keeps’ real power players: the WAGs.

By Kruti Joshi

They can’t ignore it because that’s where the eyeballs are,” Nathan Saidden told Mediaweek.

“They don’t have a choice in a way,” added Theodore Saidden.

The brothers are the actors, writers and producers behind Australian YouTube channel Superwog1.

Their six-part series called Superwog will be screening on ABC Comedy and iview on October 9. However, the first episode of the program will premiere on the Saidden brothers’ YouTube channel on October 7.

Superwog marks the ABC’s first YouTube series collaboration and is ABC Comedy’s first original scripted series.

The commission follows the success of the Superwog pilot in 2017, which was the highest trending video on YouTube last year with more than 3.7 million views. Ninety percent of those came from Australia.

The Saidden brothers are hoping that the new ABC series will help them broaden their audience and expose their content to more people. “I hope that the TV audience enjoys it as much as the online audience,” Nathan said. “It’s great that it has a dual platform strategy. It represents the stage of media that we are in. The ABC isn’t just dipping its toe in the water, it is putting its whole foot in – that is really exciting.”

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This is an excerpt from the full article, which appears on Mediaweek Premium. Read the full article here or subscribe to Mediaweek Premium here.

The channel will offer a broader range of programming with a focus on premium Australian distinctive content exploring the world through cooking, cuisine and culinary cultures.

SBS director of TV and online content Marshall Heald said: “SBS Food provides us with an opportunity to build on SBS’s 30-year history in food and, through a refined content strategy, secure a more diverse mix of shows that will give audiences more of what they love to indulge in on the channel.

“SBS Food will feature more famous Australian and global food personalities including some of SBS’s much-loved favourites including Adam Liaw, Poh Ling Yeow, Shane Delia, Peter Kuruvita, Luke Nguyen and for the first time Maeve O’Meara, alongside Anthony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver and Kylie Kwong.

“We’re also excited to continue to discover and nurture homegrown talent and develop new programs following the success we’ve had introducing fresh new local faces to Australian audiences over the last 12 months.

“SBS Food is less reality food and more real food and will continue our commitment to broadcasting multicultural food-related content, introducing and educating audiences about different cultures, going to the core of SBS’s unique purpose.”

SBS Food will continue as a free 24/7 channel alongside SBS, SBS Viceland and NITV. As well as extending the sought-after SBS Food offering available on the SBS website, content from the channel will also be available on SBS On Demand.

SBS’s flagship food programs will continue to air on weeknights at 6pm and Wednesday evenings on the primary channel.

The public broadcaster first launched the Food Network channel in November 2015. The first program to screen was Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals.

The only new drama that got people talking this year was Mystery Road where viewership remained steady for its entire series. Compare that to the lack of buzz around Bite Club and Playing For Keeps, both of which are struggling to crack the half million mark.

Part of the problem here is networks’ desire to get as big and therefore as broad an audience as possible. Too many of them seem to think that putting young characters into shows will get young people watching but has that ever worked? Isn’t it more likely that kids want to watch adult shows not aimed at them, and they rarely connect with the “typical teenagers” that populate so many Aussie dramas.

800 Words wraps up next Tuesday with an episode that feels more like a season ender than a finale. This was a delightful show that was ruined by having too many romantic storylines. It’s one thing to have every adult in the town looking to hook up, but including lovestruck teenagers at high school was a step too far. The same could also be said about Doctor Doctor, which brought in an annoying teenager this season called Ivy (Annabel Wolfe), although it was a relief for adult viewers when she refused to stay at the school Charlie (Nicole da Silva) taught at and fled to Bali instead.

All this schoolyard drama would be fine if these shows screened in a family timeslot like 7.30pm but they don’t, so is it too much to expect that an Aussie drama screening at 9pm will contain adult content? And if kids are not watching the two Aussie dramas already set at high school, namely Home And Away and Neighbours, perhaps that’s because they don’t want to watch free-to-air TV at all and are probably watching YouTube instead.

There is possibly a case for a new Aussie school drama, given we have only ever done Class of 74/75, Glenview High and Heartbreak High. But would anyone have the balls to make one that reflected today’s issues? Instead of Brenda (Shannen Doherty) and Brandon (Jason Priestley) both going to 90210, what if an Aussie version had one twin forced to go to a struggling public school while the other lived it up at an over-funded private school?

Some clever Canadians once did a high school show in 1979 and it is still going strong all these years later. Degrassi has spawned five series and 621 episodes and part of its appeal has been its willingness to be controversial. If Australian dramas want to compete on the world stage (and who wouldn’t want some international sales to offset those expensive production costs?) then they need to harden up. The reason Wentworth has been sold to over 140 territories worldwide is that it has truly gobsmacking moments that make people talk. And on the inside, there are also no kids.

In that same period West Coast has fronted up for three. The West Coast Eagles 2005 match against Sydney Swans saw them play in front of the biggest TV crowd in those 17 years.

That clash between clubs from Perth and Sydney had a combined metro and regional TV audience of 4,443,000. The Perth audience that year was 511,000, but not as big as the following year when the two teams faced off again in the Grand Final – 549,000. The Perth audience cracked half a million one more time in 2013 – 503,000 – when Hawthorn played Fremantle.

The biggest Sydney crowd watching an AFL Grand Final was 991,000 in the 2005 match against West Coast. The following year when both teams were again in battle the number dropped to 759,000.

Sydney has subsequently started in three of the six most-recent Grand Finals, with the audiences dropping to 609,000, 551,000 and 534,000.

Biggest TV crowd for AFL Grand Final

2005: 4,443,000 (Metro 3,386,000, Regional 1,057,000)

The biggest audience watching a Collingwood Grand Final was 4,200,000 in 2003 when they played Brisbane Lions, who were in four successive Grand Finals (and won three of them including this one, which gave them the Threepeat).

Five times in the past 18 Grand Finals the combined national audience passed 4,000,000 average viewers – the most recent in 2016 for the Bulldogs v Sydney. Sydney played in four of those five matches.

In those years the metro viewing audience has passed 3,000,000 three times, the most recent also in 2016 for the Bulldogs v Sydney game.

The biggest regional audience was 1,234,000 for the Collingwood v Brisbane game in 2003. The regional audiences have passed 1,000,000 five times, the last time also for that Bulldogs v Sydney match.

Follow @MediaweekAUS on Twitter for a full breakdown of AFL figures on Sunday morning.

NB: Regional ratings data unavailable for 2001 and 2002.

featured West Tigers playing North Queensland Cowboys. As well as attracting the biggest audience, it is also the only time the national crowd has surged past 4,000,000.

That game boasted the biggest regional TV audience in that time – 1,540,000. The match also set the record for the biggest Sydney TV audience with 1,188,000 watching.

Biggest TV crowd for NRL Grand Final

2005: 4,103,000 (Metro 2,563,000, Regional 1,540,000)

The biggest metro TV audience however was 2,647,000 in 2016 for Cronulla Sharks v Melbourne Storm.

The biggest Melbourne audience watching an NRL Grand Final was 871,000 in 2006 for Melbourne Storm v Brisbane Broncos. That is also bigger than any Brisbane audience across this period of time. That city’s viewing record is 806,000, also for that 2006 clash.

This weekend’s combatants

Sydney Roosters: The club has played in four Grand Finals since 2001 (three in a row from 2002) and the biggest audience it attracted was 3,824,000 in 2003 against Penrith Panthers.

Melbourne Storm: The club has played in six Grand Finals since 2001, four in a row from 2006. The club’s biggest audience was 3,979,000 for the 2006 match against Brisbane Broncos.

Source: OzTAM – average audiences

Taste.com.au’s new video network taste.TV is now live, and shoppable ads will launch on the site on October 1. There are also evolved sampling offerings available with live opportunities in two new areas.

News Corp Australia’s director of lifestyle Fiona Nilsson said: “Taste.com.au has seen an increase of 200% in video plays and streams over the last year. Australian shoppers love food videos. We’re continuing to innovate and amplify our content in this area with taste.TV, which builds on our existing video offering, both on and off platform.

“Marketers are looking for ways to drive action with Australian shoppers and taste.com.au’s new commercial opportunities deliver on that. Shoppable ads will enable more opportunities to help drive transaction for our clients, putting their products directly on consumers’ shopping lists. Our new sampling opportunities have been designed to get clients’ products into the hands of shoppers to drive interaction with Australian consumers.”

taste.TV

The taste.TV content offering features a compelling mix of live shows, scheduled programs and bespoke video, along with taste.com.au’s library of over 500 essential how-to and recipe videos. All video content is located at taste.TV, a dedicated zone on taste.com.au.

New weekly programs include:

• Emergency Dinners – One quick and easy weeknight recipe in 10 minutes or less. Food editor Kim Coverdale will guide viewers through the midweek dinner rush, showcasing easy recipes and transforming supermarket ingredients into weeknight dinners. This will be streamed on Facebook on Thursdays at 4pm with live Q&A with taste.com.au experts. It will also be housed on taste.TV.
• Healthy Hacks – This will be streamed Saturdays at 9am on Facebook and housed on taste.TV. It is perfectly timed for weekend shopping and viewers will be shown inspiring meal prep, great recipes, clever ideas and must-buy ingredients.

New commercial opportunities are:

• Test Kitchen: a behind-the-scenes of the taste.com.au test kitchen, where the latest ingredients, products and gadgets are given the taste test.
• Grab & Go: how five ingredients can make an amazing meal.
• Household hacks: products and hacks to get households shipshape, clean, stored and organised.
• Easy Entertaining: tricks and tips to elevate any occasion whether it’s a fancy gathering, a relaxed barbecue or a lazy Sunday picnic.

Shoppable Ads

Launching on October 1, taste.com.au’s Shoppable Ads are focused on getting clients’ products to the point of transaction. Products featured in shoppable ad units on taste.com.au will be able to be shopped directly in a brand-safe environment via supermarket partner Coles.

Taste testers

Taste.com.au has a sampling audience of over 100,000 Australian shoppers signed up to sample products. This initiative drives word of mouth and consumer advocacy through product trial and reviews for clients and has evolved into two new areas:

• Taste testers LIVE: Puts products directly in the hands of Australian shoppers at live experiential events.
• Taste testers TRY: Gain valuable feedback from Australian shoppers in the research and development phase of a product’s life cycle.

Taste.com.au recorded a unique audience of 4.6 million in July 2018. It has had 32 million in-site searches, 4.2 million recipe printouts in the last year and 1.5 million taste.com.au users adding an ingredient to their shopping basket every month.

The social media giant is reporting more than 300 million people use Facebook Stories and Messenger Stories every day.

An Ipsos survey of Stories users commissioned by Facebook IQ found that 68% of people say they use Stories on at least three apps regularly, and 63% plan to use Stories more in the future.

The tech giant made the announcement in a blog post on its website.

Read the announcement below:

Now you can include Facebook Stories as an additional placement to News Feed or Instagram Stories ad campaigns, delivering your message in a full-screen, immersive environment. And soon you’ll be able to extend the reach and improve the performance of your Stories ad campaigns in Messenger too.

Facebook Stories ads support every objective that’s currently available for Instagram Stories ads, including reach, brand awareness, video views, app install, conversion, traffic and lead generation. Facebook’s full suite of targeting and measurement capabilities is also available for Stories ads across platforms.

Advertising in Stories has proven to drive valuable business outcomes. In the Ipsos survey, 62% of people said they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in a Story, and brands testing Facebook Stories ads are already seeing results. iHeartRadio, Kettle Chips and KFC are among the advertisers who have seen brand lift from their Facebook Stories ad campaigns.

For performance marketers, Stories ads can also inspire people to take action. More than half of people surveyed said they’re making more online purchases as a result of seeing Stories. In addition, 38% of people said that after seeing a product or service in a Story they talked to someone about it, and 34% said they went to a store to look for it. Tentree, a sustainable, eco-friendly clothing company, and Skout, a dating app, both found that adding Facebook Stories to their Instagram Stories ad campaigns resulted in more customer actions at a lower cost.

By Peter Olszewski

Now the former Australian Financial Review scribe and the Financial Times’s current global publisher of FT Live and managing director of FT Asia Pacific tells Mediaweek, “The background to that comment is that, until that point, I had been a journalist, not only at the Financial Times but also at The Economist, The Times in London, CNBC and The Australian Financial Review.

“I joined the FT’s commercial team in 2008. Observing, analysing and commenting on business and the corporate world is one thing. Playing the game yourself is totally different.

“Some people think that transitioning from editorial to commercial feels like crossing over to the ‘dark side’ but I think I emerged into the light. It’s a lot of fun (and worry) having your own P&L instead of writing about other people’s!”

And she’s happy to report a healthy balance sheet at the Financial Times for digital and for print.

“The FT has a global print circulation of 190,000 and the newspaper is profitable in its own right even before advertising – content revenues outpace production and distribution costs,” she says.

“In some of our markets, it’s a status symbol to carry an FT under your arm or have a copy poking out of your handbag. In terms of growth, print-only subscriptions for FT Weekend – the home of our global lifestyle, arts and culture content – increased 6.9% in 2017.”

That the times they are a-changing rapidly is also a boon to the Financial Times bottom line, as Mackay noted.

“Given the uncertain and unpredictable times in which we live and operate – the Trump era, North Korea, the threat of terrorism, the rise of fake news, and the huge business and technology upheaval heralded by AI – quality, independent perspective has rarely been in more need,” she said.

“The FT has a total paid circulation of more than 930,000, and we recorded a 7% increase in total circulation in 2017, which demonstrates the growing demand for quality journalism.

“Our motto is ‘Without Fear and Without Favour’. It describes our mission and accounts for increased interest in turbulent times.”

The publisher has also moved with the times in terms of how it generates revenue, especially via programmatic advertising.

“Programmatic is very important to our clients and is, therefore, an integral part of the FT offering,” Mackay said.

“While the FT is not available in the open marketplace, buyers have the option of accessing inventory via private marketplace and programmatic guaranteed channels. Many FT buyers take a two-pronged approach by securing the FT’s first party registration data directly, while simultaneously running a PMP deal, which involves using their own data.”

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This is an excerpt from the full article, which appears on Mediaweek Premium. Read the full article here or subscribe to Mediaweek Premium here.

New portal launched by Channel NewsAsia

Mediacorp’s Channel NewsAsia has launched a new lifestyle portal targeted at professionals. The site, CNAlifestyle.com, will focus on food, travel, fashion in Singapore and lifestyle trends throughout Asia. Material culled from the site will eventually appear on most of Mediacorp’s TV and radio outlets. Phin Wong, CNA Lifestyle supervising editor, said, “Lifestyle categories such as entertainment, dining, and wellness consistently rank among the Top 10 areas of interests of CNA’s audience.” Serene Seow, deputy editor of Elle Singapore, is the site’s style editor, and Aaron de Silva, formerly of the Robb Report Singapore and Men’s Folio, will be the site luxury editor.

China’s ByteDance planning long-form video streaming

Beijing ByteDance Technology, operator of popular news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and short video app Tik Tok, plans to run long-form content in China’s video streaming market to compete head-to-head with industry leaders iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku Tudou. ByteDance plans to buy exclusive rights to programs and films and to also produce its own original films and drama for an app called Xigua Video, scheduled for launch late this year or early next year, possibly as a paid subscription service.

Thailand to launch its first interactive live game show

Line Thailand and Thai TV presenter Woody Milintachinda have partnered for Thailand’s first interactive live mobile game show, Ten Ten. The show, which will rely on ad market revenue, will launch in October with cash and prizes being given away daily.

Hits TV to launch in Vietnam

Singapore-based Rewind Networks’ Hits TV will launch in Vietnam on October 1, on K+, a Vietnamese-language pay-TV service owned by French company Canal+, which in turn is owned by Vivendi. Hits will be exclusively broadcast on K+’s DTH service in Vietnam. This is Rewind’s second deal with Canal+, with Hits having launched on Canal + Myanmar in February.

Hooq nominated for Academy Awards gong

Singapore-based premium video-on-demand service Hooq’s original production Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, directed by filmmaker Mouly Surya, has been selected to represent Indonesia as its entry for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film.

Hooq has also appointed Michael Fleisher as its general counsel, and Lawrence Basillio as its regional director of customer service operations. Fleisher has over 20 years of legal and commercial media experience with leading companies, including BBC Worldwide, BBC News, NBCUniversal, Channel 4 and Nickelodeon. Lawrence Basillio is a customer service operations expert with more than 18 years of experience with multinationals.

SPH appoints digital analytics agency

Singapore Press Holdings has appointed Happy Marketer as its digital analytics agency to assist help implement Google Analytics 360. Happy Marketer, established in 2009, will work closely with SPH’s 17 newspaper titles, 80 magazine titles and different units to make sure all data can be organised and be able to be used by editors, marketers and data teams.

iflix partners with afro urban specialist Trace

KL-based streamer iflix has partnered with global Afro urban specialist media group Trace which will make two of its premium channels available freely to iflix users, specifically to cater to the company’s younger audience. The two channels to appear on iflix has part of this new partnership are Trace Urban and Trace Sports Stars. Trace Urban is the leading international urban music channel, focusing on hip hop, pop and R&B hits, as well exclusive interviews of celebrities, magazine shows and documentaries related to urban artists and culture. Trace Sports Stars is the leading sport channel exclusively dedicated to the lives of sports celebrities, through factual, reality, lifestyle, magazine, gossip and top TV shows. It also features original programs with rights available for syndication, globally.

Singapore beauty and fashion mag’s AR cover

Nüyou, a bilingual Singapore-based monthly fashion and beauty magazine for bilingual career women, has unleashed Moomoko, a beauty junkie and a well-travelled fashionista with an adventurous streak who is in fact a virtual character which, thanks to Augmented Reality, literally leaps out of the cover of the September 2018 Nüyou issue along with her best friend, local star Rebecca Lim. NüYou publisher, SPH Magazine, says, “Moomoko is the first virtual character to be created by a local magazine and we are thrilled about how AR can open up new ways for us to engage our readers through immersive storytelling. Numerous brands such as Sephora and Magnum are already leveraging AR to drive tangible business outcomes in Singapore. Research shows that the best AR campaigns increase dwell time by more than 85 seconds, interaction rates by up to 20% and click-through rates of 33%.”

Asian video industry reports on Vietnam market

The Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) hosted the Vietnam in View conference in Ho Chi Minh City earlier this month. At the conference, Vu Tu Thanh, Vietnam consultant for AVIA and deputy regional managing director and Vietnam senior representative for US-Asean Business Council, gave a market overview, saying, “The Vietnam market has high growth and a rising demand for premium content coupled with low ARPU. With a pay-TV penetration rate of just under 50%, there are still untapped households, especially in non-urban areas.” The conference heard OTT services in Vietnam are proliferating with the growth of the internet, smartphones and smart TVs. Esther Nguyen, founder and CEO of POPS Worldwide, noted that short-form, or bite-sized, content is very popular now in Vietnam and predicted that branded content would play a key role soon. She also noted that subscription revenue for OTT services was very low, but she predicted growth.

Ride-hailing company invests in online content

Indonesian ride-hailing and online payment company Go-Jek has invested in Jakarta-based digital media startup Kumparan as part of its expansion into online content. Kumparan is a hybrid news and social media site that enables users to create content, makes crowd-sourcing possible and enables interaction between journalists and readers. Go-Jek plans to become an online multimedia content provider for Indonesia, producing original films, in partnership with local film production houses. Go-Jek also bought an adtech startup – Promogo – this month to challenge Grab’s advertising initiative GrabAds. Promogo is an OOH ad platform that installs ads on private vehicles like cars and motorcycles.

Mediaweek Asia: In Brief

• Leading Filipino broadcaster ABS-CBN has this month opened ABS-CBN Studio Experience or Studio XP, an indoor “amusement park”, with 15 attractions divided into three studios – Fantasy, Reality, and Retail.

• Astro has secured the Premier League broadcast rights in Malaysia for the next three seasons from 2019/20 to 2021/22.
• The judges for the 2019 season three of Asia’s Got Talent were announced last week and include seasoned judges David Foster, Anggun and Jay Park. Two hosts from season two – Alan Wong and Justin Bratton – will also adjudicate in the Sony Pictures Television Networks Asia series, scheduled to kick off on AXN early next year.
• China’s biggest music-streaming company, the Tencent Music Entertainment Group, has halved the amount it plans to raise in a US listing to about US$2 billion, in what will be one of the biggest listings this year in New York by a Chinese company.
• Chinese mobile news aggregator app NewsDog is expanding its Indian presence. It currently has two offices in Indian cities and 50 employees. It will now double the number of employees and set up offices in all major Indian cities by year-end, hoping to attract 100 million users a day over the next two years.
• The Condé Nast Center of Fashion & Design in Shanghai has appointed Reuter Communications as its agency in China.
• US esports live streaming video streaming platform Twitch has been banned in China after its website became unavailable last week. Speculation is this happened after the Amazon-owned streaming service had a surge in viewers tuning in to the Asian Games in Indonesia where an esports competition took place as a demonstration sport.
• Philippines OOH media company IDOOH has partnered with Voyager to deploy Voyager content through freenet on IDOOH in-vehicle screens, providing passengers access to in-vehicle shopping, entertainment, news, games, sports and lifestyle content.

• BBC iconic brand Doctor Who made an appearance at the Taobao Maker Festival in Hangzhou, China, on September 13-16. Organised by Taobao, China’s largest mobile commerce destination developed by Alibaba Group, the four-day festival is a celebration of China’s young entrepreneurs.

By James Manning

BREAKFAST TV WATCH

Breakfast TV averages metro

Week 38

Sunrise 264,000 (Sydney 74,000, Melbourne 63,000)
Today 230,000 (Sydney 68,000, Melbourne 56,000)

Week 39

Sunday

Sunrise 269,000 (Sydney 80,000, Melbourne 80,000)
Today 223,000 (Sydney 64,000, Melbourne 66,000)

Monday

Sunrise 267,000 (Sydney 73,000, Melbourne 65,000)
Today 231,000 (Sydney 73,000, Melbourne 55,000)

Tuesday

Sunrise 285,000 (Sydney 77,000, Melbourne 82,000)
Today 232,000 (Sydney 66,000, Melbourne 52,000)

Wednesday

Sunrise 280,000 (Sydney 77,000, Melbourne 63,000)
Today 233,000 (Sydney 69,000, Melbourne 51,000)

Thursday

Sunrise 305,000 (Sydney 84,000, Melbourne 66,000)
Today 211,000 (Sydney 65,000, Melbourne 43,000)

Thursday Ratings

Seven

Home and Away ended the week with three Thursday back-to-back episodes pulling an average of 523,000.

The Front Bar then screened on Seven or 7mate across the country. The very funny Grand Final edition of the program did 362,000 across five markets with 229,000 in Melbourne, where it was out-rated by Nine’s AFL Footy Show. This edition of The Front Bar did 222,000 last year. Guests last night included Gillon McLachlan and Santo Cilauro.

Nine

A Current Affair dipped just below 700,000.

The Grand Final edition of the NRL Footy Show went to air at 8.30pm, but Sydney and Brisbane viewers got episodes of Driving Test and RBT after 7.30pm. The NRL Footy Show then did 78,000 in Sydney and 51,000 in Brisbane.

The early start in Melbourne paid off in as much as it managed to out-rate The Front Bar when the two shows went head-to-head. The AFL Footy Show numbers were Melbourne 247,000, Adelaide 45,000 and Perth 49,000. The Melbourne audience for this edition last year was 285,000. Last night Carrie Underwood performed and the show had interviews with both Grand Final coaches.

TEN

We slipped up yesterday by calling this week’s episode of Playing For Keeps the launch episode. It did launch last week, however, where the audience was 575,000, which dropped to 465,000 for the second episode.

Meanwhile on Thursday night the channel’s best was The Bachelor with a very healthy audience watching heartbreak as the number of girls dropped from four to three. The audience of 837,000 was enough to secure TEN as #1 25-54 across the entire evening. The audience on Thursday last week was 882,000.

Also helping drive that win was Gogglebox, which did 612,000 after 738,000 a week ago.

Earlier in the night The Project was on 487,000 after 7pm with Steve Price talking about the challenges facing the ABC.

ABC

Viewers turned to ABC News to learn about the latest executive departure with 715,000 watching, which pushed the bulletin ahead of A Current Affair.

7.30 then featured the exit interview with departing ABC chairman Justin Milne, who did his best to avoid answering many of Leigh Sales’s questions for the audience of 572,000.

Grand Designs Australia then did 484,000.

The crime drama Loch Ness followed on 329,000.

SBS

A repeat of Tony Robinson Down Under was the channel’s best on 296,000.

The BBC’s recent production of War And Peace followed, launching with 192,000.