Fed: Seven wins with dancing movie before the stars hit the air

AAP General News (Australia)
02-14-2007
Fed: Seven wins with dancing movie before the stars hit the air

By Michael Gadd, National Entertainment Writer

SYDNEY, Feb 14 AAP - The Seven Network could waltz into an even more dominant position
on Tuesday nights with the return of Dancing With The Stars next week after a film about
dancing attracted one of the night's top audiences.

Today Tonight and Seven News were number one and two, respectively, last night, but
the surprise success was the film Shall We Dance, starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez,
which finished third with 1.2 million viewers.

Seven had delayed the start of its celebrity dancing phenomenon to avoid a possible
clash with the third final of the Tri Nations one-day cricket, which was not required
after England won the first two matches.

Last year's fifth series of Dancing With The Stars was the weakest for Seven since
the show began, with its season finale dropping below two million viewers for the first
time.

But the popularity of Nine's flashback show 20 to 1, which performed exceptionally
well last year and was a great chance for the network to snatch some viewers from Seven,
was below expectations last night with less than one million viewers.

Navy legal drama NCIS was Ten's best performer with 1.1 million viewers while the two
episodes of The Simpsons rounded out the night's top 10.

The return of All Saints on Seven was the ninth most popular show with 1.1 million viewers.

Today Tonight attracted an audience of 1.5 million with 1.19 million viewers tuning
in to Nine's A Current Affair which was the fourth most-watched program of the night.

AAP mdg/imc/cdh

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