ABC has responded to media articles around ratings numbers for Q+A.

In defending the show ABC looks to its national audiences.

“Each week more than half a million people watch Q+A, an unscripted, thought-provoking hour of topical discussion and debate,” ABC said in a statement.

“In 2022 to date Q+A has achieved a total average audience of 518,000 viewers across metro and regional broadcast markets and ABC iview” (Ed: Total TV for the previous week was 296,000).

“Broadcast share for the program in 2022 to date is 8% in metro markets and 7.5% in regional markets. This is similar to the Thursday 8.30pm timeslot in 2020 and 2021.

“Q+A‘s ABC iview audience grew by 70% in 2021. The Q+A YouTube channel has more than 100,000 subscribers and 2022 episodes to date have achieved more than 100,000 views. Including archived content, the Q+A YouTube channel has recorded more than 4 million views in 2022 to date. Digital articles on Q+A content averaged 165,000 views per article in 2021.

“Foreign Correspondent and Q+A work well together as an offering for current affairs audiences on Thursday nights.”

Those numbers are all correct.

But so is this: The show hit a new low of just 168,000 metro viewers this week.

In the same week last year it was 232,000.

In the same week in 2020 in a Monday slot it was 563,000.

The idea of moving to Thursdays was supposedly to give the show an earlier slot and increase its viewership…