Nine News #1 for third successive year

•  Nine News is Australia’s most-watched news service for the third year running

Ratings figures released at the end of last week show that Nine News won the past week on average five city audience, measured across the week, giving it 21 weekly wins out of the 23 ratings weeks so far in 2015.

With 40 weeks in the official ratings calendar, Nine News is now in an unbeatable position and claims the title of Australia’s No. 1 news service once again.

The national win comes two weeks after Nine News won the ratings year in Sydney and Melbourne (with 21 wins from 21 weeks) and one week after it clinched the year in Brisbane (with 21 wins from 22 weeks).

Each weeknight, Nine News has an average of 89,000 more viewers than Seven News.

Nine News (6.00-6.30pm) is averaging 1.082 million viewers each weeknight in 2015, compared to Seven News (6-6.30pm) which has an average weeknight audience of 993,000 (down 8.1% year-on-year, coming off the back of a 6.3% drop last year). It is the first time since the introduction of OzTam in 2001 that either news service has failed to average more than one million viewers.

After being first to launch a one-hour news service last year, Nine News 6.30 (6.30-7.00pm) has also dominated the 2015 ratings year. Nine News 6.30 is averaging 1.033 million viewers each weeknight in 2015, compared to Seven News/Today Tonight which has an average weeknight audience of 937,000 (down 6.7% year-on-year) – an average lead of 96,000 viewers each weeknight.

Darren Wick, director of news and current affairs, said: "We are privileged that Australian audiences continue to turn to Nine News as their first choice for breaking news, information and engaging stories. We are committed to working even harder to maintain their trust and loyalty. This country deserves the best, up-to-the-minute news, and Nine is committed to bringing that to every family, every home, every person, every day."

Source: OzTam. Consolidated data from 08/02/15 to 23/07/15. Overnight data from 24/07/15 to 30/07/15.

Source: Nine Network

[blockquote] Mediaweek Podcast: Listen to the podcast Mediaweek's James Manning and Andrew Mercado recorded with Nine's Darren Wick in July about how Nine News' continued ratings success.[/blockquote]