The footage was a bit short and uninteresting, but their point about lax security was made.

The giant rating is a good indication of people's interest in political matters this year. (Which, given the soap opera qualities of the year-long campaign, isn't surprising.)

The Chaser's ratings should stay high right up to the election, then. It may even play some part in the election result, particularly now that it's all about which party -- sorry, team -- has the best personalities.

Does anyone remember last year's episode in which Craig Reucassel gave a lollipop to John Howard, who humourlessly put it down and walked away? That is where The Chaser is most valuable: cutting through the PR machines and catching pollies off-guard as themselves. Showing up Howard for the humourless arrogant little coconut he is can never be a bad thing.

Still haven't had a chance to watch Wednesday night's show, but they are amazing figures. That is a lot of people watching...

Purely visceral, though, wasn't it?

After watching the footage on last night's show, can someone please explain to me how they can show the footage when charges are still pending? Surely it's part of the evidence, and it's more footage than went to air at the time. Is it because the officers in question couldn't be identified?

From today's Crikey newsletter:

APEC stunt makes Chaser most popular ABC comedy ever.
The APEC stunt ep of The Chaser's War on Everything delivered the highest ever audience for an ABC comedy and the broadcaster says it was the third highest rating program ever on the ABC (behind Seachange's Series 3 finale, 2.4 million on 10 December, 2000; Paralympics Opening Ceremony, 2.29 million on 18 October, 2000). An average of 2.245 million people watched, with 726,000 in Sydney; 699,000 in Melbourne; 341,000 in Brisbane; 250,000 in Adelaide and 228,000 in Perth. And in regional Australia, The Chaser scored an even rarer honour: it was the most watched program on the night with 736,000 people on average watching. That's 2.981 million in total. It wasn't the biggest audience for a program this year: that honour still belongs to Seven's first ep of Kath & Kim with more than 3 million viewers across the country. The ABC's most popular program of the year, Spicks and Specks, averaged an all time high of 1.653 million viewers at 8.30pm. And Chris Lilley's Summer Heights High lifted to 1.375 million thanks to The Chaser lead-in. But the ABC could still only finish fourth on the night.

-- Glenn Dyer

The BBC highlighted the idea of "A comedy team managing to break through security, before being caught" At least the BBC saw the lighter side of it. They didn't give APEC much cred.

How was the international message framed? Did it highlight the failure of the 'coalition of the killing' to find Osama bin Laden, or did it just paint Aussies as juvenile trouble-makers?

Being a fan of the show since it started, it seems like the publicity is good for the ratings but has negative effects on the qualtiy of the show. The team put themselves in a situation where they can't have the best of both...

It's either great quality and decent ratings or fantastic ratings and a decent to good quality show. Too many people know about them, this won't help... eventually they won't get aweay with stunts and it'll just be a sketch show or a "What if..." show.

I don't think it's bad. It's great television but not as good as it was last season. But i've got Curb and Phili to watch over September, i'm not asking much. Anything good and Australian is a blessing right now. Also, Summer Heights High on straight after Chaser, not bad at all.

Oh, and I should point out that I agree with everything they do, I just don't see how it makes good television.

Fair enough. I'd like to see them be a bit more clever and less predictable, like they were a couple of years ago.

Adam, WTF?

It's an "empty laugh"? More like a highly revealing insight into the charade that is "security theatre." They say this is all to prevent attacks, but if anybody can get through with a Canadian flag stuck to their car, then what's to stop a terrorist.

It just shows that the "security" is more about trying to prevent protest and dissenting opinions than security.

They managed to get enormous publicity around the world and ambarras the government - that doesn't show a lack of talent. What do you think they should have done instead?

It's a bit sad to see once-talented people barging into stuff and wearing comedy hats/wigs/costumes for cheap empty laughs. What's their point, that they can get through a security barrier? BFW.

CNNNN was fantastic.

Well, given as (according to the SMH) they managed to get past at least one police barricade, I'd assume that there's some reasonably good footage to be had...

Appropos of nothing, I live within the Sydney CBD and frankly, it's not been that bad. I mean, I'm somewhat pissed off that martial law has been declared in the area between myself and my local video store; but in terms of gridlock, riots and police strip-seaches every time I venture out for a paper- it's been somewhat of a disappointment.
Damn!

11 people arrested in the motorcade. It was one detail in a story on PM tonight, along with how pissed off people in Sydney are and Jeff Kennett telling them to get their heads out of their arses - don't they know it's good for the economy, dammit?

As far as I know, Chas hasn't been shot yet so expect to see more of them over the week.

I hope they got some good footage :)