The Winners: The fresh episode of Two and a  Half Men was tops with 1.420 million (down on last week). Seven News was second with 1.387 million (but lost in Sydney and Melbourne). Today Tonight was third with 1.355 million (but lost Sydney). Australian Story was strong at 8pm and averaged 1.250 million for the ABC, with Nine News 5th with 1.193 million. The Mentalist averaged 1.150 million at 8.30pm for Nine and The Big Bang Theory averaged 1.143 million for Nine at 8pm. Seven’s My Kitchen Rules at 7.30pm was watched by 1.107 million. 9th was A Current Affair with 1.082 million. Home and Away again won the 7pm slot with 1.072 million, just in front of the 7pm ABC News with 1.040 million, and the 7pm repeat of Two and a Half Men with 1.004 million. Desperate Housewives, Seven, 8.30pm , was 13th with 1.001 million (fading) and Brothers and Sisters averaged 900,000 for Seven at 9.30pm.

The Losers: The Biggest Loser, 667,000. From what I saw last night it was as ponderous as the contestant couples are. It’s far too serious and everyone needs to lighten up. The host change isn’t working either. Good News Week, Ten, 8.30pm, 838,000 until 10pm. It’s being let down by The Biggest Loser.

News & CA: Seven News may have won nationally but that was due to wins in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Its wins in the last two cities were large. It lost Sydney and Melbourne to Nine. TT lost Sydney to ACA, but won Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The 7.30 Report averaged 750,000. Four Corners returned with 760,000, Media Watch, 668,000 and Q&A, 412,000. Lateline averaged 268,000, Lateline Business, 147,000. Ten New, 871,000, the late News/Sports Tonight, 242,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 164,000, 144,000 for the late edition. 7am Sunrise, 349,000, 7am Today, 321,000.

The Stats:

FTA: Nine and Seven tied with a combined overnight All People share of 29.3%. Ten was on 18.3%, the ABC 17.0% and SBS with 6.1%. Nine won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Seven won Adelaide and Perth. Nine was a clear winner last Monday night, last night, closer, but Nine gets the door prize with its main channel ahead of Seven. Seven leads the week with a combined overnight share of 29.9% to 27.7% for Nine. Seven said it won prime time 18 to 49s and 25 to 54s in prime time. Ten, 16 to 39s, Nine All People by audience numbers.

Digitally: The six digital channels averaged nearly 10% of the audience last night. 7TWO won with 3.8% (Seven’s main channel was on 25.5%). Nine’s GO was next with 2.8% (Nine’s main channel was on 26.6%, and won the night). ABC 2 was on 1.7% (ABC 3, 0.3%, ABC 1, 15.0%). Ten’s ONE averaged 0.9% (Ten’s main channel, 17.3%). SBS TWO, 0.4%, SBS ONE, 5.7%. Nine’s GO leads with 3.7% from 7TWO with 3.3%. Seven’s main channel with 26.6% leads the week from Nine’s main channel on 24.0%.

Pay TV: The split was FTA’s 11 channels, 84.5%, Pay TV’s 100 plus channels, 15.5%. That broke down to Nine winning with 24.1%, from Seven on 24.0%, Pay TV with 15.5%, Ten with 15.0%, the ABC 14.0% and SBS, 5.0%.

Regionally: A clear win to Nine with WIN/NBN getting a combined overnight All People share of 30.1%, from Prime/7Qld with 25.3%, the ABC with 19.3%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 16.5% and SBS, 8.87%. Ten’s programming again didn’t click with regional viewers.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven and Nine drew in combined overnight All People, Ten was a distant third. Nine’s main channel did slightly better, Seven’s digital channel won last night. The ABC perked up with Four Corners, Media Watch, Australian Story and Q&A back in the game.

In fact Q&A was the highlight, not for Mr Rudd’s appearance, but for the performance of the Gen Y audience who asked good questions, persisted and were not scared. Us older folk should stop complaining about Gen Y, especially the Gen Xers starting to feel the heat and all the smug boomers still alive and upright. I look forward to Tony Abbott appearing in the same forum.

Australian Story started 2010 with a very sold report. Maintaining the standard it finished 2009 with. More than 1.2 million people agreed and it beat the commercial opposition in the 8pm slot. It was very good TV at its best, in the same vein as the Black Saturday documentary on Sunday night.

My Kitchen Rules should be an early contender for being the aggravating program with the year with the most talentless contestants of the year. They are all so ordinary and boring and not very good.

Ten had a poor night. It will have a much better one tonight. The 7PM Project lifted to a steady 723,000 last night. That’s more than Neighbours. Not bad. Seven News and Today Tonight in Sydney remain weak. It is only early days, but there is a distinct weakness appearing in a market Seven dominated last year. Viewing levels on Sydney were weak compared to Melbourne. Not one Sydney program over 400,000 viewers, against four in Melbourne. At 5.30pm, Deal or No Deal averaged 142,000 in Sydney for Seven, Hot Seat, 130,000 for Nine, so Seven had the slight lead-in advantage.

TONIGHT: More cricket on Nine. This one is from Adelaide. The second part of Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour of Europe is definitely worth watching on the ABC at 8.30pm. Seven has the second episode for the week of My Kitchen Rules, then two hours of Grey’s Anatomy. Will viewers wake up to this program’s lack of interest? Ten has the fine Bondi Rescue back for another year, The Biggest Loser and a fresh NCIS. Why, it must be ratings. The Biggest Loser is 30 minutes on Ten at 7.30pm. Could be a problem.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports