The Winners: Border Patrol with 1.350 million at 7.30pm on Seven was tops, with Seven News second with 1.246 million and Nine News 3rd with 1.180 million. Seven’s Outback Wildlife Rescue averaged 1.158 million at 8pm and the Bones repeat on Seven at 8.30pm averaged 1.119 million in 5th. The Zoo at 6.30pm averaged 994,000 and beat Christmas with The Australian Women’s Weekly at 6.30pm with 981,000 and the 7pm repeat of What’s Good For You with 711,000. Glee on Ten at 7.30pm averaged 871,000. Ten’s 8.30pm movie, The 40 Year Old Virgin, averaged 801,000.

The Losers: So hard to find winners actually. So many repeats, so many second class programs. But Don’t Forget the Lyrics on Ten at 6.30pm, 451,000. Band Of Brothers late on Seven, 326,000. Nine’s 8.30pm movie, The Sentinel, 620,000. Doctor Who on the ABC at 7.30pm, 731,000. Low.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Melbourne and Adelaide where Nine won (it was by over 120,000 in Melbourne, Seven won by 105,000 in Brisbane). The 7pm ABC News averaged 936,000. Ten News, 567,000. SBS News, 152,000. In the morning, Weekend Sunrise, 323,000, Insiders on the ABC, 272,000 (probably its biggest non-election morning after audience so far). A strong finish for the year for Insiders. Today on Sunday on Nine, 220,000. Weekend Sunrise, 154,000, Offsiders, 121,000.

The Stats: Seven won with a 6pm to Midnight combined share of 30.1% from Nine with 27.9%, Ten with 20.3%, the ABC with 15.2% and SBS with 6.6%. Seven won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Melbourne, with the 6 pm averaging 445,000, a figure that would not look out of place in ratings.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine won last week, Seven was second but it is summer ratings. The data shows that last week viewing in prime time 6pm to 10.30pm on Seven fell, it was marginally down on Nine, down noticeably on Ten, up on the ABC, up on SBS and up on Pay TV.

In fact Pay TV and its myriad channels had more viewers  in the 16 to 54 age groups on Saturday might than Nine which won the FTA battle from 6pm to 10.30pm, according to figures from Fusion Strategy in Sydney. The FTA channels were combined figures for the main channel and the digitals of the networks.

Collectively 1.315 million people watched sport during the daylight hours on FTA TV yesterday. 649,000 watched the Test cricket on Nine, 390,000 watched the V8 Supercars on Seven and 276,000 watched the Australian Open Golf on Ten. It was live, occasionally dramatic, often soporific (but hey, it’s early summer) and interesting, unlike the rest of the schedule.

TONIGHT: Well, the cricket during today (this afternoon) if you can. It will be live and interesting. Apart from that, The 7.30 Report and The 7pm Project because they will also be live and interesting (and not TT and ACA). Top Gear is a repeat of the Vietnam visit (boring). The rest? Well viewers showed last week that they didn’t much like most of the stuff on Monday night and not much has changed tonight. Another good night to do the Christmas Shopping online.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports