Initiative Week In Review w/c 07/03/10 – 13/03/10

Channel 7 (TVW-7) won the week overall with a commercial share of 40.8%, followed by STW-9 with 30.7% and NEW-10 with 28.5%. The network won twelve of the top fifteen programmes for Total People and these included News, Criminal Minds, Airways, Border Security Australia’s Front Line, Today Tonight, Bones, Monday My Kitchen Rules and RSPCA Animal Rescue.

Overall, the highly anticipated launch of "V" on Channel Nine (STW-9) secured secured top spot against all of our demographics and eleventh position with Total People, reaching an average audience of 172,000. Top Gear remains popular in the top ten against People 25-39 and 25-54, and remains in the top five with People 18-39.

Off peak audiences reached a low this past year, down 6%. This is most evident on Network Seven and Ten, where audiences have declined across January - February, 16 and 20% respectively. However increases have been recorded across the digital platform, with Channel Nine's GO! havine strong results in off-peak, as well as from the Winter Olympics telecast.

Some very cool sustainability and innovation in the advertising industry news from Los Angeles: Outdoor billboard signage can be re-used as shopping bags! As Initiative reports: "... The vinyl "super-graphics" applied to the sides of buildings, when the campaigns finishes, are being turned into sturdy, stylish reusable shopping bags distributed through grocery chains. Each of the Billboard2Swag bags is unique and although there's no guarantee a particular bag will have anything recognizable on it, there are some eye-catching abstractions."

NIELSEN’S 2010 SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT
This report had some interesting findings – topline as follows:

• Nearly two in five people are interacting with companies via social networking sites
• 86% of internet users look to the online community for opinions on products, services and brands.
• social media participation rates were increasing at a rapid rate
• Twitter's audience alone grew by more than 400% in 2009
• Nearly one quarter (23%) of online consumers read tweets in the past year, 14% followed companies or organizations via Twitter - up from 5% in 2008, and 13% posted tweets - up from 4% in 2008.
• Wikis continued to grow as a popular form of online content - 73% of consumers read a wiki in the past year compared to 61% in 2008 and 37% in 2007.
• Facebook continues to dominate the social networking space with 83% citing it as their main social networking platform spending more than eight hours on average on the site each month.
• Mobile social networking is also on the rise with 26% participating in mobile social networking in the past year - lead by younger consumers with 66% under 35.

To read the full report from Initiative please click here.