How bad were The Ridges ratings, really?

From the moment that The Ridges was announced, the expectation as to the quality of the show was fairly low.  While the show debuted to reasonable ratings with an average audience of 325,130 viewers, the numbers fell week after week after week until Jaime Ridge stepped into the ring to play fisty-cuffs with The GC‘s Rosanna Arkle, more than doubling the previous week’s low point to just shy of 300,000.

While the critics lambasted the poor socialites, in another corner of the television world the decry over the investment into current affairs continued.

Of the performance of the show, TV3 said:

“The series as a whole has performed really well, and we gave it an hour long finale because the show deserved it”

On one hand, people might say that TV3′s comment is the type of self-indulgent praise you’d expect them to offer up but on the other hand, it may very well have met the network’s ratings requirements.

While you may have seen our ratings graph for The Ridges, here’s a new one we’ve put together that puts the ratings in a different context.

How did The Ridges rate compared to Campbell Live on the same day?

So far this year there have been 191 episodes of Campbell Live.  Of those, only 6 rated higher than the season finale of The Ridges. Not a single episode of Campbell Live has rated higher than The Ridges season premier.  That’s right: not even the much-hyped Kim Dotcom interview.

When you look at the graph on the scale of things, there’s really not that much difference between the two.  Only the second to last episode was outside of the range of Campbell Live’s average audience.

Based on these numbers, if Campbell Live can secure the sponsorship of an international motor vehicle brand then I don’t see why a second series of The Ridges couldn’t be an impossibility.

The next time you feel the urge to diss The Ridges ratings, consider what that says about Campbell Live’s.

About the author

Regan is one of the co-founders of Throng Media.
He's currently watching Survivor, Homeland, House, Glee and can't wait for the return of Game of Thrones.
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  • Reece

    So they are both ratings bombs.

  • RamjamNZ

    For a long time I have said I don’t know how TV3 can be happy with the ratings Campbell Live scores. Just because your Austin A30 goes as well as my Morris 1100 it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be better off in a brand new Audi. It just means TV3 are happy with clangers that keep them in third place in a 4 horse race

  • Preston

    Campbell Live is not a high rating show and never has been. It gets crushed nightly by Shortland Street and Close Up. Campbell Live probably needs that car sponsorship money to stay on the air since the ratings are not good. So… what is your point?

    • Not Preston

      Preston stop throwing shadow and go watch John Campbell’s full Media3 interview. He’s quite clear about things like money and ratings.

  • John

    Campbell Live is a low rating show.

    • Liberty

      “Campbell Live is a low rating show”

      Ask
      yourself. Why would anyone want to listen to a raving Marxist for a very long half and hour

      Or
      be inspired by a inspirational character
      such as Mr Burns on ch 4

  • Name

    There are a couple of flaws in your argument: One being that you’re using 5+ as your yardstick, and neither of the FTAs do to measure commercial success. It is not a good indicator of network action – you’re better showing HHS or 25-54.

    Secondly, sponsors have a variety of reasons to be associated with shows. A show may rate it’s socks off but could be terribly racist etc and have trouble being sold in. Campbell Live would find ready sponsorship, The Ridges would struggle.

    • Hams

      Pathetic
      The 5 yo has more commercial clout with their parents than the 16-25 yo unemployed losers watching Campbell Live whine on about school lunches.

    • http://www.facebook.com/reganjcunliffe Regan Cunliffe

      So what you’re telling me that in order to make this look better we should adjust the graph to reflect smaller numbers?

      In regards to sponsors, I’d suggest that The Ridges would have far more appeal than Campbell Live. If you look at the credits, there were at least 7 including make-up, hairdresser, automotive and even Mitre 10. And what would be more acceptable to the viewer? Product placement for advertorial?

      • n0exit

        When I first read this I thought you were trolling to get comments, it appears I was mistaken.
        Firstly, lets get some simple and minor points out of the way, you’re using the wrong type of graph, it should be a comparative bar graph not a line as the event doesn’t continuously occur over time, it occurs once over a given period (see attached pic).
        Secondly, 5+ is a terrible indicator because not all age groups are represented equally in viewing numbers, its called skew, so for Campbell, he skews heavily over 55 and 90% of his audience are over 25 and near 60% are MHS (w or w/o kids). So if I was Mazda, I would think yes, people over 55 would buy be small – medium cars, add to that the female and city skews and it would have no trouble getting sponsorship.
        Thirdly, audience numbers is also a misleading measure. Campbell has on every night the two shows have been on had a higher share and rated between 1 to 2 points of Close up. More people have TVs on when the Ridges are on so of course absolute numbers look similar but CL is doing better.
        Fourthly, you are comparing a scripted (or semi-scripted) show to a news based show, ever head or a slow news day?

        Would you like me to carry on?

        • http://www.facebook.com/reganjcunliffe Regan Cunliffe

          Re: point 1, line graphs are better for comparing trends over time than bar graphs; especially when multiple series are being compared. Side by side bar graphs are harder to read for this form of data. You will reach the same conclusions whether you use a bar or a line graph.

          Re: points 2&3, see this post: http://www.throng.co.nz/2012/10/the-ridges-outperforms-campbell-live-in-key-25-54-demographic/

          Re: point 4, we looked at this entire year’s ratings for Campbell Live; re-read the post above. Interestingly enough, Wednesday is almost always Campbell Live’s best night of the week.

    • http://www.facebook.com/reganjcunliffe Regan Cunliffe

      Regarding your first point, when you look at the actual 25-54 data, it’s not a flaw in my argument. http://www.throng.co.nz/2012/10/the-ridges-outperforms-campbell-live-in-key-25-54-demographic/

  • Hams

    Watch the left wing excuses trotting out now for their hero.

    TVNZ axes Close Up and Campbell Live rates lower than The Ridge’s mouse. Whatever way you look at it The Ridge’s win and John Campbell loses very very badly.

    He may very well be the most over-rated man on TV come He circulation of these figures.

  • Avenging Dork

    No you’re totally right. Comparing two shows that are aimed at entirely different segments of the population is valid. It’s like how McDonald’s sells more Quarter Pounders per day than Westmere Butchery sells organic beef… they should just give up and stop being so self righteous and left flank about the whole thing!

  • Gary Wills

    I have had enough of reality show and never watched them and wished the networks would not produce anymore reality shows such as Surviver, X Factor, and the Ridges. I hope they continue with Campbell Live for many more years.

  • Phil

    Campell Live is quality current affairs show. You should view the rubbish the commercial networks in Australia show e.g. A Current Affair (9) and Today Tonight (7). Both rate highly and are pretty much neck and neck in the ratings. The results for CL are good considering the fodder TV3 used to serve when it was cash strapped i.e. Australia game show Family Feud, NZ’s version of Give Us a Clue and even the “revamped” Sale of the Century. It takes time to build an audience and they have done this with their flagship bulletin 3 News at 6pm.

    • http://www.facebook.com/reganjcunliffe Regan Cunliffe

      Except 3 News has been on the air for more than 20 years…

  • http://www.facebook.com/chris.philpott Chris Philpott

    Hi Regan. I would be really interested to see how The Ridges’ ratings compare to The Block NZ, which was airing in that time slot prior to it (iirc). I don’t know if the problem is that The Ridges rated badly compared to Campbell Live; to me, the problem with it from a ratings standpoint was that it rated much lower than TV3 programming in that time slot usually does.

    • http://www.facebook.com/chris.philpott Chris Philpott

      Also, sorry I’m late with the reply – only just saw this post :)