The campaign, created in partnership with Bohemia Group, evolves the brand’s proposition by using colour to unite contrasting stories that reflect the news cycle. Aligning news with pop culture, the colourful animated creative aims to break new ground in terms of speed and simplicity.

Designed to find growth for the brand, the campaign extends from the news.com.au newsroom via strategic media placements.

Julian Delany said: “News.com.au leads the market for digital news in Australia. Our positioning is to deliver ‘the news in colour’ and this remains true to what our entire team seeks to deliver every day.

“We’re investing in TV and out-of-home to find new audiences and affirm or create a news.com.au habit. It’s an ambitious campaign with the flexibility to create new TVCs and assets to move with the news cycle, delivering to consumers the idea that you can find the freshest stories on news.com.au.

“Bohemia and our editorial team are working closely to select the stories to best represent the news.com.au brand – tone and language to directly reflect how we talk to our audience every day.

“Centering the campaign on colour allows us to demonstrate that news.com.au delivers the full spectrum of news. It’s a great vehicle to showcase the breadth of our content, pace of delivery and different angles on the news that Australian consumers enjoy and trust. Not only are we comfortable in contrasts, our consumers expect them. The colourful wit in these contrasts is the foundation to our mass appeal.

“The campaign is about creating awareness and driving loyalty. We want to encourage consumers to reassess how and where they access their news. Don’t wait for an algorithm to determine what you want to read or decide what you think is important. Visit news.com.au, where you can find, at any given time, the stories everyone will be talking about that day.”

The campaign will run until the end of the year across free-to-air and subscription TV plus on out-of-home via 300+ large and small format digital sites in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Credits

News DNA
Julian Delany: Managing Director
Ainslee O’Brien: GM Commercial Integration
Kate de Brito: Editor-in-Chief, news.com.au
Lisa Muxworthy: Editor, news.com.au
Olivia Diamond: Marketing Director, news.com.au

Bohemia Group
Rebecca Hamilton: Media Director
Rebecca Alexander: Strategy Director
James Turner: Media Manager
Julia Stratton: Media Executive
Ruby Hudson: Media Coordinator

• APN Outdoor CEO James Warburton on Adshel bid and growth plans

APN Outdoor has submitted a revised proposal to acquire 100% of the Adshel businesses in Australia and New Zealand, from HT&E.

In a statement to the ASX, APN Outdoor has explained that Adshel’s street furniture assets, combined with APN Outdoor’s transit and billboard platforms, represent an important strategic expansion for APN Outdoor.

Key Highlights of Proposal:

• Purchase price of $540 million

• Adshel’s FY18PF EBITDA is estimated to be $48 million to $50 million, implying an acquisition multiple at the midpoint of 11.0x EV/EBITDA (pre-synergies)

• Expected pre-tax cost synergies of not less than $15 million per annum, phased in over 18 months

APN Outdoor’s strategic rationale

The acquisition of Adshel would increase diversification across APN Outdoor’s out-of-home formats and provide a new platform for growth.

Upon completion of the proposed acquisition, APN Outdoor would become a more diverse out-of-home media group combining its billboard and transit platforms with Adshel’s street furniture assets in Australia and New Zealand. APN Outdoor would expect to benefit from an increased audience reach and a diversified asset base across a number of out-of-home formats.

The out-of-home advertising industry’s fundamentals remain sound, supported by growing audiences, increased digital inventories and enhanced data analytics. The out-of-home industry’s share of total advertising spend in Australia remains under-represented relative to international markets, providing further opportunities for sector growth.

Within the out-of-home advertising industry, street furniture offers solid growth prospects through digitisation. Adshel is still in the infancy of inventory digitisation, with only a small proportion of its Australian inventories digitised.

In addition, the sharing of digital technology and data analytics capabilities across the combined group would be expected to improve advertiser ROI and create an opportunity for APN Outdoor to invest further in innovation.

APN Outdoor chief executive officer and managing director James Warburton said: “The acquisition of Adshel would represent an important step in our strategy to expand APN Outdoor, deliver new solutions and ideas to our advertisers and generate long-term, sustainable growth for our shareholders.

“There is an opportunity for us to use our expertise in large-scale digital developments to support the rollout of digital across Adshel’s street furniture format, particularly in Australia. We expect this would enable us to bring digital to a broader range of advertisers and complement our existing product offering to those advertisers.

“The combination of Adshel and APN Outdoor also represents an opportunity to realise meaningful cost synergies through the rationalisation of duplication across management, sales and back-office functions.”

By Kruti Joshi

The sold-out event was held at the Sydney Cricket Ground on June 21.

Fox League commentator Matty Johns said night football is holding back the game with time being inconvenient for families with kids wanting to watch the footy on the ground or on television.

“I’d be going early Wednesday night or Sunday afternoon. With the State of Origin, you could put one game a series at four o’clock in the afternoon. I think State of Origin would go to another level,” he said.

Johns was the moderator for a panel session at The Ultimate Footy Lunch. NRL greats and Fox Sports commentators Ben Ikin, Gorden Tallis, Steve “Blocker” Roach, Michael Ennis, as well as The Daily Telegraph’s Michael Carayannis and David Riccio joined Johns on the panel.

Matty Johns, The Daily Telegraph’s Michael Carayannis and David Riccio with Fox League’s Mike Ennis, Steve “Blocker” Roach, Ben Ikin and Gorden Tallis

Most of the panel members spoke in support of Johns about moving the Origin kick-off to an earlier time. Riccio said: “TV ratings wise, you can’t tell me Origin is not going to be the most-watched show anyway – I’d watch it at midnight.”

NRL boss Todd Greenberg, who was present at the event, defended the current scheduled kick-off time of 7.50pm for the second Origin game on Sunday June 24. He said: “There is some romance around afternoon kick-off times, but for us the priority is big crowds and big ratings. I have absolutely no doubt that on Sunday night we will have a full house, and more importantly, it will be the highest-ranked program on television this year bar none. So the short answer is we are contracted, but we will always look at playing games in the daytime.”

Fox League presenter Yvonne Sampson was the emcee for The Ultimate Footy Lunch. There were special guest appearances on stage by Brett Finch and James “The Professor” Rochford, who auctioned some “valued” NRL items like a jug of former NSW Origin coach Laurie Daley’s tears.

The Daily Telegraph editor Christopher Dore, The Sunday Telegraph editor Mick Carroll, News360’s Kathy Lipari, News Corp’s head of sport Tim Morrissey and News Corp’s MD for NSW, Michael Wilkins, joined the readers at the afternoon function.

The event started at 11:30am with red carpet arrivals and drinks. The two-course lunch began just after 12:30pm and wrapped up at about 2pm with readers hanging around for some time after to mingle with the talent present.

Chris Dore from The Daily Telegraph, Kathy Lipari from News360, News Corp’s Tim Morrissey and Michael Wilkins, and Mick Carroll from The Sunday Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph’s Michael Carayannis and David Riccio with Fox League’s Yvonne Sampson and Mike Ennis

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg and The Sunday Telegraph’s Mick Carroll

Fox League commentator Mike Ennis with The Daily Telegraph editor Chris Dore

—

Top photo: The Daily Telegraph’s David Riccio on the panel with Fox League commentator Mike Ennis and Steve “Blocker” Roach

Here are the highlights from his presentation:

Today, we have two big announcements to share. First, Instagram is now a global community of one billion! Since our launch in 2010, we’ve watched with amazement as the community has flourished and grown. This is a major accomplishment, so from all of us at Instagram, thank you!

Second, we’re announcing our most exciting feature to date: IGTV, a new app for watching long-form, vertical video from your favourite Instagram creators, like LaurDIY posting her newest project or King Bach sharing his latest comedy skit. While there’s a stand-alone IGTV app, you’ll also be able to watch from within the Instagram app so the entire community of one billion can use it from the very start.

IGTV is different in a few ways. First, it’s built for how you actually use your phone, so videos are full screen and vertical. Also, unlike on Instagram, videos aren’t limited to one minute. Instead, each video can be up to an hour long.

We’ve made it simple, too. Just like turning on the TV, IGTV starts playing as soon as you open the app. You don’t have to search to start watching content from people you already follow on Instagram and others you might like based on your interests. You can swipe up to discover more, switch between “For You”, “Following”, “Popular” and “Continue Watching”. You can also like, comment and send videos to friends in Direct.

Also like TV, IGTV has channels. But, in IGTV, the creators are the channels. When you follow a creator on Instagram, their IGTV channel will show up for you to watch. Anyone can be a creator – you can upload your own IGTV videos in the app or on the web to start your own channel.

—

Top photo: Kevin Systrom

Screen Australia’s Sandy George and Rakel Tansley have revealed the most popular Australian dramas for international drama buyers:

Focusing in on just the data for 2017, more net returns flowed from the eight-part series The Kettering Incident to investors than from any other television drama with investment from Screen Australia – excluding children’s drama.

The moody mystery drama from Porchlight Films and Sweet Potato Films headed the 2017 top 10, whether Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) net returns were lumped in with rest of world (ROW) or not. (ANZ sales added only between $5K and $110K for the year to each of the dramas in the lineup.)

One production company, Matchbox Pictures, had three dramas in the top 10: Deadline Gallipoli, which was produced with Full Clip Productions, Wanted series 1, which was produced with R & R Productions, and The Slap.

Essie Davis in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Every Cloud Productions had two series of the same drama, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, in the list, in the second and third spots.

Half of the top 10 screened locally on ABC TV.

Actual net returns back to investors cannot be reported against individual projects for reasons of confidentiality, but the total from ROW for all 10 in 2017 was $2.93 million. It rises to $3.05 million with ANZ added.

The criterion used to determine this top 10 was net returns to investors in calendar year 2017. Wanted series 1 is the most successful of the 10 when a different criterion is applied, namely the value of sales signed off during 2017 – because rights to Wanted were sold to a very major territory. The Kettering Incident sold to the most territories during that period, however. (Payments usually arrive long after sales contracts are signed, delaying the flow of net returns to investors.)

Rachel Griffiths with Charles Dance in Deadline Gallipoli

As a group, the top 10 dramas have notched up a total of 340 rest of world (ROW) sales valued at nearly $70 million since first becoming available to buyers – and that amount boiled down to a net return of $20 million for investors.

Top of the Lake series 1 has attracted the most sales in its lifetime and those sales are worth double the value of the sales of any of the other nine dramas. (It made a lot fewer sales in 2017 than the other nine according to Screen Australia data.)

How a television drama performs abroad each year has a lot to do with where it is in its sales cycle. A lot of buzz early on augurs well.

Further series were recommissioned in six out of 10 cases. US versions were sparked by two of the four not recommissioned: The Slap, Secrets & Lies, The Kettering Incident and Deadline Gallipoli.

Top photo: Elizabeth Debicki in The Kettering Incident

ANZ and media agency PHD have partnered with JCDecaux to launch a campaign for the new ANZ App.

ANZ has been using outdoor elsewhere this week too. On Monday we reported how the financial institution had taken over the Adshel Live network for an hour on Tuesday morning.

Read more here.

When commuters were waiting at their bus, train or tram stop in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne this week, the accompanying JCDecaux digital panels having been showing accurate timetable information for specific stops that contextualises the benefits of being able to use the ANZ App to get on top of your money, wherever you are.

The only out-of-home provider with access to tram, train and bus networks, JCDecaux has incorporated accurate timetable information that works seamlessly across its dynamic digital panel network in high pedestrian dwell time locations across three cities to engage commuters. The timetable information was retrieved for use from publicly available government platforms.

PHD group business director on ANZ Jordan Smith said: “Partnering with JCDecaux, this data-led out-of-home campaign aims to leverage dwell time on public transport routes encouraging people to ‘get on top of their money’ by downloading the ANZ App. It’s testament to the great work we do with ANZ and we thank them for allowing us to do new and innovative work.”

JCDecaux’s head of creative solutions Ashley Taylor said: “This is the first time that we have seen this type of dynamic data used to influence the creative on screen and have real time relevance to align with ANZ’s product offering. It is also fantastic to see this type of execution run at such a large scale across our extensive, best-in-market JCDecaux SMARTFRAME digital network with different public transport networks coming together to deliver an engaging and unified message.”

The campaign launched this week in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Credits

Client: ANZ
Creative Agency: TBWA and JCDecaux Creative Solutions
Media Agency: PHD

Despite speculation recently that Nine could be picking up the rights, Racing Victoria (RV) and Seven West Media (SWM) have announced that premium Victorian thoroughbred racing will continue to be televised live and free on the screens of the Seven Network until at least June 30, 2020.

The new agreement will see 21 premium Victorian Saturday meetings, headlined by the $5 million Stella Artois Caulfield Cup (2,400m) on October 20 and the $5 million Ladbrokes Cox Plate (2,040m) on October 27, broadcast annually across Australia on Channel 7 and/or 7TWO.

Seven said it will cover premium Victorian and Sydney racing on the one channel on a minimum 21 occasions throughout the year.

The premium broadcast will commence on the opening day of Victoria’s Spring Racing Carnival – September 1, 2018 – when Caulfield hosts the $1 million Memsie Stakes (1,400m) and Randwick hosts the Chelmsford Stakes (1,600m), for which the great Winx is the defending champion.

RV and SWM’s premium broadcast agreement comes on top of their existing joint venture partnership, Racing.com, which sees Victorian and South Australian racing showcased on free-to-air Channel 78 (metropolitan) or Channel 68 (regional) every day throughout the entire year.

It is in addition to the broadcast agreement that sees SWM broadcast the four days of the Lexus Melbourne Cup Carnival from Flemington on Channel 7.

Seven Melbourne managing director Lewis Martin said:

“Seven is undoubtedly the home of thoroughbred racing in Australia. We’re incredibly proud and passionate about bringing more of the best Victorian racing to fans across the country live and free.”

The mini make-better focused on George, a cattle farmer and former rodeo cowboy, who worked with Queer Eye cast members Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness and Tan France.

Meanwhile, the other two Fab Five members Antoni Porowski and Bobby Berk teamed up to give the local pub a much-needed makeover by renovating the bistro and introducing a new signature dish to the menu.

In honour of the Fab Five’s contribution to the town, the Mayor of Yass, Rowena Abbey, arrived at the end of the night and officially made them “YASS Queens” by presenting them with tiaras.

Netflix’s Queer Eye has been adapted from the Emmy Award-winning series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which premiered 15 years ago.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy creator David Collins (Scout Productions) serves as executive producer for Queer Eye, along with producing partners Michael Williams and Rob Eric. David Eilenberg, Adam Sher, Jennifer Lane and Jordana Hochman also serve as executive producers.

Queer Eye’s Fab Five with Yass mayor Rowena Abbey

Karamo Brown with cattle farmer George

Queer Eye’s Fab Five at a cattle farm in Yass

Cattle farmer George with Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness and Tan France

By Andrew Mercado

This is the ballsiest drama currently being made in Australia and the only one that can match American cable dramas when it comes to gore and explicitness. Last year, Juicy Lucy (Sally-Anne Upton) had her tongue ripped out by The Freak (Pamela Rabe) and that was possibly the most outrageous sequence ever filmed for Australian television. Lucy is back this season, sans tongue, leading to some hilarious new ways of communication, but The Freak is yet to be seen, having been buried alive in last season’s finale.

Having done away with Meg Jackson (Catherine McClements) in episode one, and then murdering the show’s central character Bea Smith (Danielle Cormack) at the end of season four, The Freak may indeed be gone, but unless you see a blood-dripping final breath, and even when you do, nothing is what it seems in Wentworth. Is the next to go Franky Doyle (Nicole de Silva)? Or is it poisonous Sonia Stevens (Sigrid Thornton)?

Nicole de Silva as Franky Doyle in Wentworth

New this year are two more iconic characters from Prisoner. There’s Rita Connors (Leah Purcell) still wearing a black leather jacket and still with a boyfriend (nice to see Shane Connor back at FremantleMedia after his Neighbours axing and court case). And Susie Porter looks like she is about to have a lot of fun playing Marie Winters, another wicked woman, the kind Wentworth specialises in. No other Aussie drama can have you thinking it is about to jump the shark before pulling it back for yet another twist.

Meanwhile, Home And Away had its first gay kiss in nine years and nobody cared. That was either because there was no tabloid outrage this time round, or because nobody cares about a new character called Ty (Darius Williams), who is only around for six weeks. If Wentworth is the most unpredictable Aussie drama on TV, Home And Away never tries anything new. Could its latest villain, Ebony (Cariba Heine) be any more obvious? Why are so many men in Summer Bay prone to yelling, violence and drug deals?

We are also now more than halfway into the landmark 30th year of the Seven soap and barring the re-appearance of Alf’s (Ray Meagher) long-lost blink-and-miss wife (Belinda Giblin), there is yet to be any major celebration of this milestone. Summer Bay is still rinse and repeat these days and if Seven wants people to start talking about Home And Away again, it is going to have to do better than more and more River Boys.

—

Top photo: Rarriwuy Hick and Leah Purcell in Wentworth

Mediaweek’s Peter Olszewski rounds up the latest media news from the Asian market: Friday June 22, 2018.

Aussies win at SOPA Awards in Hong Kong

Australian journalist and digital editor of Frontier Myanmar Sean Gleeson’s honorable mention last week in the Excellence in Feature Writing category at the 2018 SOPA (Society of Publishers in Asia) Awards for an article that recorded the rise and fall of the Myanmar Times was somewhat ironical, coming only about five days after Ross Dunkley, Perth-born co-founder of the Myanmar Times, fell from grace after being arrested allegedly in possession of large amounts of drugs at his home.

Frontier Myanmar, founded by Sonny Swe, Dunkley’s former Myanmar Times partner, won awards and commendations in four categories.

The publication’s editor, Australian journalist Thomas Kean (pictured above), together with reporters Hein Ko Soe and Kyaw Phone Kyaw, won an award in the Excellence in Business Reporting category for a story about the shaky mobile money sector.

Former Phnom Penh Post reporter Claire Knox, now REA’s digital news editor in Melbourne, won an honorable mention in the Excellence in Art and Culture Reporting category for an article about ikebana in the Philippine Airlines rebranded inflight magazine, Mabuhay.

More: Fairfax’s Year 12 with Cancer: Gabbie’s Story wins Asian media award

Asians invest in Aussie esports media company

Singapore-headquartered, Hong Kong-listed gaming hardware manufacturer Razer Inc has led an oversubscribed share placement round, which saw Australian esports media firm Esports Mogul raise A$4.41 million. The placement also saw a significant investment from the Singapore-based technology firm Cloud Alliance, with other support coming from local institutions and existing shareholders. In late November 2016, Esports Mogul announced it had completed a successful ASX listing after a heavily oversubscribed $7 million prospectus offer capital raise. Esports Mogul operates Mogul Arena, a platform for organising esports competitions, and a gaming news website gamegeek.

Video streamer iflix makes two crucial strategic hires

Southeast Asian streamer iflix has appointed Adeana Greenlee as global director of go-to-market and Tamim Fares as global director of engagement and monetisation. Greenlee founded Ogilvy Public Relations Myanmar, the country’s largest public relations firm. She joined iflix as general manager of iflix Myanmar, then general manager of iflix Indochina, where she was responsible for managing and expanding iflix’s business in Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

Fares has more than a decade of experience with global technology and media organisations including Vodafone, STC and Leo Burnett. At Vodafone Qatar, he was head of consumer marketing/segments, responsible for setting commercial, channel, product and brand strategies for multiple consumer segments.

Adeana Greenlee and Tamim Fares

SCMP launches video-driven English-language Chinese cultural platform

The South China Morning Post has “incubated” Goldthread, an English-language platform focusing on food, travel and culture in China with an emphasis on video as well as editorial. Goldthread, available on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram with a stand-alone website coming later this year, officially launched on June 19. SCMP’s Victoria Ho heads the Goldthread team as executive producer. Ho, a former editor of the defunct Mashable Asia, joined SCMP in February this year to work on a video project said to be modelled on Al Jazeera’s AJ+.

Late closing deal for Vietnam World Cup broadcast rights

After nearly two years of what the Vietnam Investment Review called “strained negotiations” over the price of broadcasting rights for the 2018 World Cup, Vietnam’s national TV broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) announced reaching an agreement for World Cup rights at 6.30pm on Friday June 8. A Viettel representative revealed that the rights deal was almost US$15 million (A$20.3 million,) double the price of the 2014 World Cup’s TV rights, and about seven times higher than the 2006 World Cup at around $2 million.

New group CEO for Astro Malaysia

Pay-TV operator Astro Malaysia’s Group CEO Rohana Rozhan has resigned, effective January 31, 2019, to be replaced by Astro group chief content consumer officer Henry Tan, who has been with the company for 10 years. Rozhan’s resignation came the day after the company announced that its earnings had dropped by almost 11% for its first quarter ended April 30, 2018, which in turn triggered further speculation that the company may go private. Astro said Rozhan’s resignation was due to her intention “to pursue other goals”, and she will remain on the Astro board as a non-executive director.

Taiwan live streamer shelves plans for US IPO

Taiwan’s live-streaming platform M17 Entertainment, parent company of Singapore’s Tinder-like dating and networking app Paktor, shelved its plans for a US IPO on June 15, with company co-founder Jeffrey Huang – a veteran rapper who pioneered Taiwan’s hip hop scene – publicly lashing out at two investment banks. According to Bloomberg, Huang used “a four-letter expletive” on Facebook to express displeasure with Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, the lead underwriters of the sale.

Astro Radio grabs a bigger audience

Malaysia’s Astro Radio increased its share of listeners to 15.8 million weekly, or 78.2% of people over the age of 10 in peninsular Malaysia, according to the latest GfK Radio Audience Measurement survey. Malay-language radio station Era is the number one radio station in Malaysia, following a listenership increase to 6.8 million.

In Singapore, the latest Nielsen Radio Diary Survey showed Mediacorp strengthening its position as the top radio network in Singapore. The four most listened-to were all from Mediacorp, with the top three stations also increasing in listenership. With Mediacorp’s English radio stations, Class 95 pulled ahead of its competitors, adding 21,000 more weekly listeners, making it the number one English station with 774,000 weekly listeners. Contemporary hit radio station 987 added 79,000 listeners per week, the largest growth for any radio station in the market.

Thailand’s MCOT expands digital

Thailand’s state majority-owned media group MCOT, the operator of two digital TV channels, has restructured by launching a new digital department to oversee new digital platforms that will fully use its news and information programming. Kematat Paladesh, president and vice chairman of the company’s risk management committee, said the launch of the digital platforms will diversify business risk in a decline in advertising spent on TV and a rising trend for other media platforms, especially online. He said, “Today, between 70% and 80% of MCOT revenue is from TV advertising. In the next two to three years, we expect half of our revenue will remain from TV advertising, and another 30% will be from radio. Meanwhile, 20% of our revenue will be from new digital platforms in the next two to three years, up from only 1% today.”

Continued at mediaweek.com.au.

By Peter Olszewski

This month he’s relocating from Asia to London because “business is growing too fast in UK to not be there”.

Before he flew to London, Copping told Mediaweek he was signing a deal for a “very special project about storytelling in conjunction with an airline”.

• Aussies In Asia: Craig Galvin – digital trailblazer and iflix short-form content global director
• Aussies In Asia: CommsDay publisher Grahame Lynch

This turned out be a partnership with Vietjet, an international low-cost airline from Vietnam, to launch a pioneering marketing campaign engaging staff and their customers through video storytelling.

CEO Copping adds, “It is a very unique and pioneering marketing concept enabling consumers and teams to create their own user-generated video content using Binumi.”

Earlier in the month, on June 11, Binumi signed another partnership with the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), whose CEO, Dr Mario Hardy, said, “Our partnership with Binumi provides an opportunity for our members and industry stakeholders to learn how to scale and control their video output.”

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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.

By James Manning

Seven

Home and Away ended the week with 601,000 from four markets after hovering around 700,000 for the rest of the week.

Live AFL then took over on Seven in southern capitals and on 7mate in Sydney and Brisbane. The one-sided match saw 510,000 watching Essendon surprise the Eagles.

Essendon fans celebrate their win

Nine

A Current Affair did 748,000 as the program updated its Wednesday greedy bank story before reporter Dan Nolan had news on the ACA Solar Power giveaway and how much the winners had saved in electricity costs over the summer.

No Thursday night NRL because of Sunday’s State Of Origin (and don’t forget the women’s game tonight).

Nine went with RBT at 7.30pm with 540,000 watching.

The Footy Show got an early timeslot in Sydney (85,000) and Brisbane (52,000).

TEN

Guy Pearce was a guest on The Project with 515,000 watching. He was plugging his new music, and not the great new series of Jack Irish starting soonish on ABC.

MasterChef had an elimination challenge with six people wearing black. It came down to Ben and Aldo, with the big Italian due to be sent home. He was saved, temporarily it turned out, by a challenge featuring all previously eliminated contestants to allow one back in the competition. Young and talented Brendan Pang made it back in, narrowly beating Lisa. The series ended the week on 796,000 after 788,000 a week ago.

Todd Sampson’s Body Hack 2.0 then did 430,000.

ABC

Grand Designs Australia did 464,000 followed by QI on 290,000 and then Victoria on 165,000. Repeats of the UK historical drama have replaced Foxtel’s Wentworth in the Thursday timeslot.

SBS

The Socceroos’ second FIFA World Cup match did 1.65m for the 10pm kick-off against Denmark. The win gave SBS its second primary channel winning share in six days after also finishing in first place last Saturday with the Australia v France match.

• World Cup TV ratings: After Saturday record – what’s next for SBS?

SBS’s broadcast of Australia v France

Next up is the important Australia v Peru game at the not-so-friendly timeslot of 12am Wednesday.

Meanwhile the audience watching the first half of France v Peru at 1am was 191,000.

The channel’s best non-sport audience last night was 251,000 watching Great British Railway Journeys.