KERRY STOKES'S Seven Network has declared itself an Olympic record holder, claiming its coverage of the Beijing Games has become the biggest single advertising event in Australian TV history.
The network is understood to have booked $142.5 million in advertising sales - plus an additional $8 million for its online partner, Yahoo, and $10 million for SBS - for its coverage of the Games.
The 17-day event, which cost the network more than $90 million in rights and production costs, was watched by 12.2 million viewers in Australia's metropolitan markets, "surpassing our coverage of the Sydney 2000 Games", Seven Media's head, David Leckie said.
Seven's shares jumped 52c, or 7 per cent, to $8 yesterday.
Media watchers said the real contest will be in the coming weeks. Seven will have to prove whether it can leverage its Games bonanza to boost new programs and revive ratings momentum which had stalled before the Olympics. This week "will be a critical gauge of Seven's ability to retain viewers post-Olympics", Goldman Sachs JBWere said.
Seven's audience without the Olympics had dropped 3.2 per cent this year as the broadcaster held back programs like Dancing With The Stars and Border Security for the final sprint. Nine added 1.3 per cent with Gordon Ramsay's kitchen shows and the Ten Network lost 1.9 per cent on Big Brother's terminal decline.
As athletes were battling it out in China, Seven's head of sales, James Warburton, met with advertisers and agencies in Australia to promote the network's schedule for the remaining 13 weeks of the TV season, which will determine how much advertisers will be ready to pay for airtime next year.
Nine has stated it will aim for 35 per cent of the $2.9 million metropolitan TV advertising market in negotiations later this year, while Ten has signalled it is seeking about 32 per cent. Seven, which garnered 39 per cent in the June half, will fight hard to hold its share, media buyers say.
The battle kicked off even before the Olympics closing ceremony on Sunday, when Ten launched its latest season of Australian Idol to an average of 1.4 million viewers. Seven will introduce its family drama Packed To The Rafters tonight and Nine is showing a high-profile telemovie, Scorched, on Sunday before starting its Gold Coast crime series, The Strip, next week.
"It's going to a very very tough competition," said Fusion Strategy's managing director, Steve Allen. While Seven would probably win the year, he said the jury was out among the key viewers aged 16 to 54, coveted by advertisers for their spending power.
Before the Olympic Games, there was a gap of just 33,000 viewers between the top network in that group, Nine, and Ten, which was third.
