In fact, going off the ratings alone, the ABC would have been better off airing Gardening Australia. The episode which aired the week prior attracted 332,000 metropolitan viewers – 131,000 more than the number who tuned in on Friday to hear the news commentary and commemorations to the Queen.

Similar coverage continued across the weekend, but none of the networks’ news specials managed to make much of an impact.

On Saturday, 7 News: King Charles III Proclaimed and 7 News: The Passing of Queen Elizabeth recorded 279,000 viewers and 136,000 viewers respectively. And the ABC continued its coverage on the main channel to 206,000 viewers.

The most popular offering on Sunday, again, came from Seven. 7 News: The Queen’s Final Journey Begins drew 428,000 viewers. And Nine also aired the 2016 documentary Elizabeth at 90: A Family Tribute to 252,000.

An engagement report sent to ABC staff on Monday, and seen by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, noted that the broadcast TV audience “softened” on Saturday as the nation entered the second day of the news cycle. The report notes, “the 7pm ABC News on Saturday was below average with 440,000 national viewers compared with a 2022ytd [year-to-date] average of 761,000″.

That trend – an uptick on Friday, followed by a slump over the weekend – was consistent across ABC News’ digital news operations too.

All in all, when it comes to TV offerings, it seems that most Australians were happy to glean everything they needed to know from the nightly news – and, across the board, Seven was their network of choice.

Nine’s The Block, however, kept surging on. With 983,000 viewers (up from 922,000 the week prior), it was the second-most popular show of the night and attracted at least 130,000 more than any of the breaking coverage on Friday.

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