The Winners: Seven’s Border Patrol (from NZ) was the top program with 1.492 million people. Seven News with 1.388 million was 2nd and Bones on 1.277 million (a repeat at 8.30pm) was 3rd. Then Outback Live Rescue, 1.230 million at 8pm (a ratings reject doing much better than expected); the Today Tonight special, Unseen 24 hours in 60 Minutes ,at 6.30pm with 1.180 million. Nine’s repeat of 20 to 1 at 6.30pm averaged 1.082 million and Nine News averaged 1.033 million in 7th. Ten’s Melbourne Comedy Festival at 8.30pm averaged 973,000, Castle at 9.30pm, 887,000. Glee on Ten at 7.30pm averaged 880,000. The repeat of the Dickie Attenborough Life In Cold Blood averaged 887,000 at 7.30 pm.

The Losers: So many candidates. If this was the best the networks can do on the first night of summer ratings, heaven help us. Seven at least had a series of familiar repeats, Bones and Castle from 8.30pm, and old summer standbys in Border Patrol from NZ. Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader on Ten at 6.30pm: 340,000 viewers . Seven’s Band Of Brothers at 10.30pm, 378,000. Firewall, Nine’s movie, 714,000 from 8.30pm.

News & CA: Seven News again nationally, but lost Adelaide. Seven News beat Nine in Sydney, 359,000 to just 221,000. In Brisbane the win by Seven was larger: 308,000 to just 167,000 for Nine. The 7pm ABC News averaged 915,000. Ten News, 651,000, SBS News at 6.30pm, 88,000. On Sunday morning, Weekend Sunrise, 334,000, Today on Sunday, 265,000, Insiders, 250,000 at 9am on the ABC; Inside Business, 159,000 at 10am; Offsiders, 128,000 at 10.30am on the ABC. Meet The Press on Ten at 8am, 65,000.

The Stats: Seven won 6pm to Midnight All People with 31.6%, from Nine with 26.9%, Ten with 21.2%, the ABC with 13.7% and SBS with 6.5%. (No comparisons until next week. Last week the networks were trying in the last week of ratings). Seven won all five metro markets.

Digitally: Nine’s GO finished with a very high 5% last night, its best so far. (That left its main channel on 22.00%) S7TWO was far behind on 1.90% (Seven’s main channel was on 29.70%, a big lead for the week). Ten’s ONE averaged 1.10% (Ten’s main channel, 20.10%), ABC 2, 0.50% (ABC 1, 13.10%), SBS TWO, 0.30% (SBS ONE, 6.20%). because of Go’s strong showing, the FTA digital channels had an aggregated share of 8.80%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven finished the ratings year winning all seven nights, the three key demos and all five metro markets last week.

Yesterday: The first day of summer ratings, no cricket, hot weather in some places. It was like Christmas Day afternoon without the turkey, ham and pudding to sleep off. Boring. Last night’s ratings gave us a real taste of what the coming 11 weeks will be like. All I can say is go read a book, flee the country if you can, or catch up on DVDs, learn to Twitter, Facebook, or whatever. The gems will be few and far between.

Nine’s GO had its highest ever share last night: 5%. That means quite a few regular Nine viewers preferred what was on GO. Nine might argue that it retained the viewers in its camp, Seven would argue that its audience share wasn’t affected last night and it was up with its recent Sunday night figures, even though the night’s programming had repeats from 8.30pm to 10.30pm. In fact, apart from the absence of Sunday Night, Seven’s schedule was typical of recent Sunday nights. The Today Tonight special at 6.30pm kept the public affairs flavour though and gave us a night that wasn’t too far from a week ago, except for Bones and Castle. Seven had the five top programs and six of the top 10.

TONIGHT: Andrew Denton talks (again) to Clive James on Elders. The last time Denton did James on Enough Rope, more than half the interview was left out (especially the interesting stuff on princess Di —  I was in the audience for the taping). Only 29 minutes or so has been set aside for this chat. Will there be a Part 2? Clive James can talk under any wet substance.

Make ‘Em Laugh on the ABC at 9.35pm. A series on American humour. SBS of course has Top Gear; it’s a repeat. Seven has the final of FlashForward at 8.30pm. Ten has a repeat of The Mentalist as the highlight for its schedule tonight. Ten has summer standbys, Futurama and Supernatural. The 7pm Project is on at 7pm for an hour and there’s a repeat from 11.15pm

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports