Is Nine losing its Voice? That's the question the network must be asking after the singing competition came to an end with the lowest viewing figures yet for a season finale.
Just 1.15 million metro viewers tuned in for the 2016 grand final of The Voice, which came complete with a bared nipple and a Tourette's syndrome sufferer, as well as the world premiere of the new single from Good Charlotte (judge-brothers Joel and Benji Madden's band). That was down from 1.5 million viewers 12 months ago, a 23 per cent drop year-on-year.
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Even the contrived bump most reality contests receive by carving out the "winner announced" segment as a separate program delivered only a modest lift, with 1.29 million viewers across the five mainland capitals. Last year the comparative figure was 1.59 million – a drop, year-on-year, of almost 19 per cent.
That's a long way from the heady heights of 2012, when the show averaged 2.43 million viewers an episode in its debut season, finishing with a finale audience of 2.75 million and a winner announced audience of a whopping 3.24 million.
But a lot has changed since then. Dismal though Sunday's figures were, they were enough to give Nine the number one and number four slots on the night.
In April, Fairfax revealed that audiences for traditional TV had dropped 5 per cent in the year-to-date. Crucially, they were down almost three times that much in the 16 to 39-year-old segment of the audience.
Research released recently by lobby group Think TV claimed "watching live TV and playback TV on a TV" still accounted for more than 84 per cent of all video consumption in Australia. However, that figure fell to just 68.9 per cent in the 18-49 age group.
Experience overseas suggests the lower the age group, the lower the figure. In the UK, for example, 18-24 yearolds consume just over 57 per cent of their video material via broadcast TV and associated catch-up services. In other words, almost half of them are simply not watching broadcast television at all.
Even when people are watching traditional TV, they're not necessarily watching the main channel any more. According to media analyst Steve Allen of Fusion Strategy, "roughly 25 per cent of peak night audience is now via digital channels". In the past year alone, the networks have added three more channels to the already crowded field: 9Life, 7 Flix and SBS Food.
In addition, there are catch-up platforms – which are now monitored by ratings agency OzTam but not included in overnight viewing figures – and time-shifting via personal video recorders (though this is a relatively small factor in relation to live broadcasts such as The Voice grand final).
There is, too, the so-called "Netflix effect", wherein an estimated 5 per cent of viewers are now watching streaming or subscription video-on-demand services (such as Stan, Amazon Prime or iTunes) during peak broadcast times.
"There's no question the TV audience is fragmenting, and not just on free-to-air TV," says Allen. "It's happening in every medium, even the all-powerful (to some) internet."
The Madden brothers got their band, Good Charlotte, back together for their first TV performance in six years.
The television landscape has become so fractured, in fact, that ABC director of television Richard Finlayson recently labelled overnight figures "redundant".
Talking to Michael Bodey in The Australian, he cited the example of Jack Irish, which gained only 46 per cent of its final audience via its initial broadcast (the rest came via regional viewers, encore screenings, iview and catch-up).
"We just simply cannot look at overnight ratings figures as the sole guide any more," Finlayson said. "The live metro (ratings figure) is so redundant it's ridiculous."
As for The Voice, Allen says: "I don't think it's over and out, but its tricks of the trade are now passé."
So, maybe the truth is that Nine hasn't lost its Voice entirely. But it probably needs to learn a new song all the same.
Karl Quinn is on Facebook and on twitter @karlkwin
The Voice by the numbers
Season 1, 2012
Premiere 2.19m
Average 2.43m
Finale 2.75m (June 18, 2012)
Winner announced 3.24m
Season 2, 2013
Premiere 1.94m
Average 1.96m
Finale 2.03m (June 17, 2013)
Winner announced 2.28m
Season 3, 2014
Premiere 2.23m
Average 1.62m
Finale 1.66m (July 21, 2014)
Winner announced 1.52m
Season 4, 2015
Premiere 1.63m
Average 1.47m
Finale 1.50m (August 30, 2015)
Winner announced 1.59m
Season 5, 2016
Premiere 1.45m
Average not yet known
Finale 1.15m
Winner announced 1.29m
(All figures are overnight, five-city metro audience only, courtesy of OzTam. The 2016 figures are preliminary and subject to revision.)
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