The Winners: Seven News with 1.3 million and Today Tonight with 1.323 million. Both helped by Lleyton Hewitt playing just before the 6pm news started. Seven’s 7pm tennis audience fell under a million last night to average 987,000. Ratings analysts say younger viewers are not watching the tennis, meaning its skewing towards older, 55 plus viewers.

The Losers: Not much interest from the audience in anything apart from the tennis. It was real depths of summer fare on offer and the audience seems to be responding by not tuning in.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market as did Today Tonight, finally , after weak performances in Sydney and Melbourne against ACA. Nine’s strong showing in Sydney last night just vanished as tens of thousands of viewers seemingly vanished. Odd. The 7pm ABC News averaged 818,000 and the summer edition of the 7.30 Report averaged 663,000. Ten News averaged 726,000, the late News/Sports Tonight, 279,000. SBS News at 6.30pm averaged 132,000, 140,000 for the late edition. 7am Sunrise, 7am Today, 251,000.

The Stats: Seven won the battle with the Free To Air Networks and with Pay TV included in the 6pm to midnight overnight All People group.

In the FTA battle Seven had a combined overnight average of 35.7%, with Nine on 27.4%, Ten on 17.1%, the ABC, 14.9% and SBS on 4.9%. Seven won all five metro markets and leads the week with a combined share of 32.3% to 27.9% for Nine. On a main channel basis, Seven leads with 29.1% to 24.7% for Nine.

Including Pay TV with its 83 measured channels and more than 20 “other channels lumped into one group, Seven won the night with a combined overnight share in All people 5 pm to midnight of 28.0%, with Nine on 21.5%, Pay TV on 19.0%, Ten on 13.4% and the ABC 11.7 and SBS with 3.8%. Over the week Free To Air TV leads with a share for its 11 channels of 81.6%, with pay TV on 18.4%.

Digitally: A strong night with 7 Two and Nine’s Go tying with a 3.5% share each in the combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People battle. That left Seven’s main channel on 32.2% and Nine’s main channel on 23.9. ABC2 was next with 2.0% (ABC3 was on 0.6% and ABC1, 12.2%). Ten’s One averaged 1.6% (Ten’s main channel was on 15.5%. SBS TWO was on 0.6%, SBS One, 4.2%. GO leads the week with 3.3% share to 7TWO on 3.2%. The digital TV channels averaged more than 11% share last night.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Tennis, tennis and more tennis. Roger Federer was very good, as was the Aussie battler, Lleyton Hewitt. I wonder if Seven told Tennis Australia to program Hewitt late in the day session to act as a lead in to the 6pm News? If it did, it worked, the audience for the News was up nearly 300,000 from the day before and Seven News in Sydney won, as did the Melbourne News, after losing the night before to Nine.

TONIGHT: Tennis, on Seven. And on Nine from this afternoon the One Day cricket, Australia vs. Pakistan. A repeat of Midsomer Murders on the ABC, a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of a repeat of Love Actually on Ten at 8.30pm.

SATURDAY: Tennis on Seven day and night. Taggart on the ABC, repeats elsewhere.

SUNDAY: Tennis and cricket. the ABC has Lucky Miles as a mid-evening alterative to the tennis of the latter stages of the cricket.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports