The Seven Network won Thursday night, but is resigned to losing the week to Nine.

Seven’s win was delivered by Lost (1.9 million) at number one, plus strong showings by My Restaurant Rules, Home and Away, Today Tonight, Seven News and The Amazing Race.
Indeed, every program Seven ran between 6pm and 10:30pm won its
timeslot and finished in the top seven programs nationally.

Seven won with a 32.5% share from Nine on 27.8%, Ten down on 20.9%, the ABC with 14.2% and SBS on 4.5%.

However, Nine’s strong showing on Sunday and Monday nights – and Seven’s blank screen episode in the middle of the high-rating Blue Heelers
on Wednesday night – has given Nine a big enough lead going into the
nights dominated by AFL and NRL broadcasts (tonight and Saturday night).

Nine is a clear leader after last night 30.0% to Seven’s 28.6%, but
Seven circulated figures showing that “excluding transmission impacted
Wednesday” Seven led Nine by 30.0% to 29.7%. Even if this was the
case, Seven would concede that with the AFL and NRL games tonight on
Nine and the AFL game on Ten tomorrow night, Seven would have a hard
time winning.

Nine is therefore the favourite for only its second win of the year by
the time transmission ended at midnight on Saturday. That will
cheer the mob at Willoughby who will boast that they are coming
back.

They have done better since Super Nanny USA appeared and was moved into Monday nights, but Nine News and A Current Affair continue to be done over by Seven News and Today Tonight. For four nights in a row this week, Seven News and Today Tonight have beaten Nine’s two programs nationally and in Sydney. The continuing losses in Sydney are not pleasing Nine.

Nine’s NRL and AFL Footy Shows both had moderate nights. Total
audience around the country was 1.102 million, with the Sydney audience
of 299,000 – up from the levels of the previous two weeks. The Brisbane
audience for the NRL show was also a touch higher at 147,000.

But the Melbourne audience for the AFL Footy Show, with Eddie
McGuire and Sam Newman fronting it, fell under 400,000 viewers to
397,000. That’s 74,000 lower than three weeks ago.