Screentime’s ANZAC Girls was the most watched Australian drama series on the ABC in 2014 with a peak audience of 1.8 million.
December Media’s The Doctor Blake Mysteries, which has been renewed for a third season, had 1.6 million, followed by Screentime’s Janet King (1.5 million) and Matchbox Pictures’ Old School (1.4 million).
Essential Media and Entertainment’s The Broken Shore was the top-rated telemovie with 1.5 million ahead of Essential’s Jack Irish: Dead Point (1.4 million) and Story Ark Productions’ Carlotta (1.3 million).
Among other strong performers were CJZ’s The Checkout (1.5 million peak), Essential’s arts documentary The Real Mary Poppins and Catalyst (both 1.4 million), Working Dog’s Utopia (1.2 million) and Countdown: Do Yourself a Favour (1 million in the five metros).
Gallingly for Network Ten, the ABC ended the 2014 ratings year as the No. 3 channel with a five city prime-time share of 10.5%.
ABC ranked third across each of the metro markets, with top share recorded in Adelaide (11.7%) and Melbourne (11.1%).
ABC iview is the No. 1 TV streaming service with more than 20 million plays per month. Weekly program plays have increased by 29% over last year.
ABC Television was the No. 1 network during day-time (6am – 6pm) with a total TV share of 19.7%, up from 17.8% last year. It was the fourth ranked network in prime-time with a total TV share of 14.4%, just slightly behind the third placed network with a 14.6% share.
ABC2 held its ground with a five-city 7pm-midnight share of 1.9% among total people. Among 25-34’s, share was 2.6%, up from 2.3% in 2013.
ABC3 remains the No. 1 channel among 5-12s with a day-time share of 21.3%, followed by ABC4Kids with 17.1%. ABC4Kids retained its position as the top channel among pre-schoolers, with a 49.8% day-time share among 0-4s.
From the ABC media release:
ABC iview
In 2014, the top non-kids programs on iview consisted almost entirely of Australian first-run content, with Australian content comprising nine of the top ten programs (Doctor Who was the exception). Drama has been the most played non-Kids genre on iview in 2014, and Australian first-run dramas represented seven of the top eleven most-viewed iview programs this year (based on average plays per episode).
Most viewed programs this year included:
• JONAH FROM TONGA – all episodes were exclusively available for 48 hours on iview prior to the ABC TV broadcast. Across the weekend, the ‘binge’ recorded 550,000 episode plays. The series went on to deliver an additional 1.4 million program plays ‘post-binge’, bringing the total series plays to 2 million (an average of 333,000 per episode), joining Angry Boys and Ja’mie as the most played iview programs on record.
• Series 8 of DOCTOR WHO was popular on iview, recording 1.4 million plays (an average of 116,000 per ep).
• THE TIME OF OUR LIVES S2 recorded an average of 118,000 iview plays per episode.
• RAKE S3 recorded an average of 109,000 iview plays per episode.
• New Australian dramas in 2014 were also among the top ten programs on iview – THE CODE recorded an average of 101,000 iview plays per episode, JANET KING had 104,000 average plays per episode, ANZAC GIRLS had an average of 84,000 plays per episode and OLD SCHOOL had 82,000 average plays per episode.
• UTOPIA was the third most viewed program on iview in 2014 (based on average plays per episode) with an average of 114,000 plays per episode.
• PLEASE LIKE ME S2 had an average of 89,000 plays per episode (up from 86,000 for S1).
• FRESH BLOOD aired exclusively on iview, featuring 24 comedies (73 episodes). Across all episodes, the program recorded 880,000 program plays.
• Most viewed Children’s programs include PLAY SCHOOL, PEPPA PIG and BEN AND HOLLY’S LITTLE KINGDOM.