Friday's ratings were:

EP1: 256,000

EP2: 288,000

Weekly average: 266,200

Good to see that the second friday episode was the highest rated of the week! Who knows, once the floods in Queensland are all sorted out and January ends figures may rise over 300,000. Also, thursday's figures showed that Melbourne made up almost half of the show's audience, indicating a bit of local support.

Interesting news:

Monday's (17th January)

315,000

*2nd highest rated show on 11 on Monday (Futarama 318,000)

*4th highest rated show on Digital

*32nd highest rated show on ALL Channels

From DS and Media Spy. Well done Neighbours! Maybe Neighbours will still be on air if we ever get the chance to write for the show, Ben!

Edited January 18, 201114 yr by Edward Skylover

Well Neighbours has just got a little bit more interesting with the revealation that (Spoiler tags because I know most here are at UK pace)

Sonya is Callum's real mum!

Although admittedly the set up for this is far from perfect (it does feel like something the writers just pulled out of thin air) I think it does have the potential to be a great storyline.

More ratings for the week of Jan 17.

Mon: 315,000

Tues: 319,000

Wed: 321,000

Thurs: 284,000

Fri: 224,000

Jan 24.

Mon: 330,000

It also seems that Eleven's audience share dips considerably at the weekend when Neighbours doesn't air...

Also, Ten's new News hour shows from 6pm premièred to just 606,000 and 537,000 respectively.

Re: Sonya's story... It does look interesting, and I'm intrigued to see how it all plays out, but it is a shame that certain facts look like they will be forgotten, like Callum's aunt in Ballarat who he went to stay with after his Nan was hospitalized before Toadie adopted him. What's frustrating is that this all happened in the last 3 years, the same length of time Susan Bower has been with the show, making it her original story development after she axed the East Timor story, so she should be able to remember her own recent history!

Kym opens up about health battle

NEIGHBOURS star Kym Valentine has broken her silence on the illness that led to her stay in a private Melbourne hospital last month.

Valentine revealed she was suffering "emotional and physical" ailments after a horror run of illness in recent years.

The Ramsay St favourite -- now looking fit and healthy -- has chopped off her trademark long locks to mark a fresh start for 2011.

Valentine, 33, took three months off work last year before checking herself into the clinic.

"In the past I had a series of private emotional and physical issues that led to a decline in my health, which are still too raw to talk about," she said.

"However right now I feel great and I'm so excited to be back at work. I'm very grateful to the producers for allowing me time off to get healthy again and this year is already looking fantastic."

Valentine, who started as Libby Kennedy on the show in 1994, returned to work on the Neighbours set last week and decided to change her look.

"I've had my hair long forever, and thought 'Well, it's a new year, I feel like a new me. So why not a new 'do?' " she said.

It has been a tough few years for Valentine, who in 2008 had pneumonia, and then suffered a collapsed lung on a flight from the US to Melbourne.

She took a month off, and revealed she had been sick on and off for two years because she was stressed and run down. Last July Valentine spent a week in hospital with another lung problem.

Source: Herald Sun

Neighbours pips TEN Evening News

The first week of official ratings is a bit like playing musical chairs as everyone scrambles to see where the numbers are falling in the morning. For some there are sighs of relief, for others it’s a hell of a way to wake up to the day.

But in its third week TEN Evening News has now been pipped at the post by the programme it replaced.

On Tuesday night Neighbours pulled 311,000 on ELEVEN.

TEN Evening News was just 310,000. It’s only a 1,000 difference, but in television’s numbers game a win is a win. At least in this case the network can be upbeat about the way the soap is performing on a digital channel.

TEN Evening News was strongest with Mal Walden in Melbourne on 97,000 viewers. Sandra Sully had 66,000 watching in Sydney. 6pm With George Negus was 382,00.

The network continues to remind us that such significant change to their 6 – 7 hour will take time to bed in, and they are right. Hopefully for their sake the shareholders are listening.

Thanks Ben.

I just thought I'd post in this topic that on the official website (www.neighbours.com.au) there'a poll if you scroll down to the bottom of the page.

What age-group do you want to see more of on Neighbours?

Most visitors to that website are teenagers which I suspect is why the poll has turned out this way but I plea with anyone who reads this thread to vote one of the other options as I know that the prodcuers take these polls very seriously for some reason (Once they asked what viewers opinions were on Lyn Scully and decided to bring her back based on a poll)

Please vote! The vote as currently stands:

What age-group do you want to see more of on Neighbours?

Teens 64.0%

20s 21.6%

30s 9.3%

40+ 5.1%

Do they take votes of people not in the UK or Australia?

They took mine.

They take votes from all countries! Please comment in this thread if you have voted!

I voted. (for 40+)

Edited February 17, 201114 yr by CarlD2

Thanks Carl, not many other people seem to be posting about this. Is it possible we could pin this or even make this news on the website? I am DETERMINED to get the teens not to be the leading group in this poll.

There are some Neighbours fans at Television Without Pity. If you made some general comments about the show and then mentioned the poll, some might vote. They hate the Kennedys so they might say they prefer teens to the Kennedys, but some might vote for the 20/30/40 group.

I voted 20s, but really I'd be happy with any age so long as it isn't teenage. Unless it was upping Chris from recurring to permanent.

Logically, everyone who doesn't want more teens should really vote for the 20s, as that is in second place and in with more of a chance of toppling the teens.

The problem with the official site is that it is housed by a load of 12 year olds and those with a brain of a 12 year old, so all opinion is screwed towards their view, and most of the time it's not the majority of opinion. But, Susan Bower takes that site seriously, maybe b/c it's the official site, or maybe b/c their opinion supported her insane decisions over the last 2 years. Probably the latter, considering this is the same site that she uses to publicly declare that Australia loves the teens and the Aussie fans want more, when that couldn't be further from the truth. In all honesty that site probably only counts for 5% of the Neighbours audience, and anyone with half a brain would see that ratings went up during adult centred weeks/eps, compared to those with the teens.

Teens do have their place, but they have a good group with Summer/Andrew/Tash/Chris, and Callum & Sophie who are entering that phase; they don't need any more.

Ben - what is your opinion of the Kennedy's? I've been thinking recently about why the show's fortunes have dwindled the past few years and it occurs to me that the long-term characters may have become a problem. I only watch the show for them, i.e. Karl, Susan, Lou, Lyn, but at the end of the day after so many years what can you do with them that will excite the audience? On a show like EastEnders, for example, with such a huge cast, the characters don't tend to be the centre of storylines for a long while before someone else gets their turn, but on Neighbours or Home and Away, the cast is so small that characters have huge storylines and receive a lot of air-time that they run out of steam pretty quickly in comparison.

Would you agree, or would you say there's still plenty they could do with them? I definitely think they should stay on the show but all I can think of them doing is never-ending comedy storylines. I look at shows like Coronation Street, with Ken Barlow, and wonder how they've managed to keep him fresh for so long in the show and so loved? I don't watch Coronation Street, so I wouldn't know how they've managed to do this, could anyone shed some light on this?

I can see opportunities for Toadie, having recently just got together with Sonya, obviously having children is an option for a storyline, but with Karl and Susan what can you do? Libby, also, being single, could get married again or be involved in love storylines, plus in a few years they can show her bringing up Ben when he is a teenager.