Power of 10 tanks in the US. Will Nine be forced to bring back The Price Is Right instead of new game show The Power of 10, which only lasted a handful of eps in its mid-season US return? Nine has spent a lot of money on a local version of Power of 10 — to be hosted by Today show weatherman, Steve Jacobs –which first aired successfully on CBS in the northern summer season. But the US network pulled it last week after just three of the six ordered eps had aired. According to US media reports it could return in summer. — Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV ratings 
The Winners: Something approaching a normal Monday night last night with 11 programs with a million or more viewers. The slow end to the Fourth Test helped Nine News which was the most watched program with 1.539 million people. That pulled A Current Affair higher with 1.390 million, just in front of Seven News with 1.387 million people and Borderline (a Kiwi Border Security type program) with 1.337 million. Home And Away returned with 1.319 million, comfortably ahead of Today Tonight with 1.239 million. Coastwatch on Seven at 8pm (another Kiwi program) averaged 1.166 million and the 7pm ABC News had 1.102 million. The cricket averaged 1.084 million, thanks to the big audience in the last couple of hours. Top Gear on SBS was 10th and cracked the million mark for the first time with 1.026 million and Nine’s repeat of CSI averaged 1 million people. Seven ran back to back eps of Criminal Minds from 8.30pm to 10.30pm and the 959,000 average may have been beaten by CSI in the first hour. It beat Nine’s fresh ep of the poor The Closer from 9.30pm (820,000).

The Losers: Deadly Surf on Nine at 7.30pm, 759,000 (beaten by The 7.30 Report, Ten and SBS, so last overall). And Inferno at 8pm, 580,000 (also last). It’s only summer, but it is getting close to the start of ratings next month. These were notable failures in a summer season where repeats and poor first run programs have become the norm on most networks.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne by big margins, thanks to the cricket, but Seven News prevailed in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, where the game finished well before 6pm because of time difference. Today Tonight beat ACA in Sydney, lost Melbourne heavily (they must be pining for you know who), won Brisbane and Adelaide, but lost Perth. The TT win in Sydney was close, but went right against the trend last night. The 7.30 Report averaged 765,000. Ten News, 858,000; the Late News/Sports Tonight, 447,000. Nightline, 288,000. SBS News, 235,000 at 6.30pm; 212,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise, 332,000 on a holiday morning; 7am Today, 215,000.

The Stats: Seven won the night 28.6% to 25.3% for Nine, with Ten on 19.1%, the ABC with 16.1% and SBS on 10.9%. Seven won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Melbourne. After Seven’s big win Sunday night (49.5% to 19.3% for Nine, 16.6% for Ten, 9.6% for the ABC and 4.8% for SBS) Seven leads the week 39.6% to 22.1% for Nine. Now that would normally be enough to give the week to Seven, but Nine has the 20/20 cricket from the MCG on Friday night, which will make it close.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: This is the week when the first faint stirrings of the 2008 ratings become apparent. Home And Away returned with more than 1.3 million people and blitzed Nine’s fill-in, Two And A Half Men (983,000, worse than what Temptation was getting). Seven’s 7.30-8.30pm reality/factual program slots were filled with Kiwi imports in the same vein and they fed the audience’s thirst for border protection.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports