The Winners: MasterChef averaged 1.869 million for a particularly cruel elimination test. Seven News was second with 1.479 million people and Glee averaged 1.402 million at 8pm which was its highest combined overnight audience so far. Today Tonight averaged 1.314 million in 4th, with Nine News 5th with 1.268 million people. Sea Patrol averaged 1.199 million at 8.30pm for Nine and The 7pm Project had its biggest ever audience last night with 1.098 million viewers. A Current Affair was 8th with 1.088 million and the 7pm ABC News averaged 1.058 million, Nine’s Getaway averaged 1.039 million and was 10th and the last million viewer program.

The Losers: Seven again from 7.30pm onwards.

News & CA: Seven News and Today Tonight had another strong night, winning all markets. Ten News averaged 880,000, the late News/Sports Tonight, 224,000. The 7.30 Report, 741,000. Lateline, 249,000, Lateline Business, 133,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 178,000, 170,000 for the late edition. 7am Sunrise, 387,000, 7am Today, 290,000.

The Stats:

FTA: Nine won with a share of 29.8% from Seven with 24.3%, Ten with 24.2%, the ABC with 16.5% and SBS with 5.2%. Nine won everywhere bar Perth where Seven won. Ten won the demos, Nine won All People. Nine leads the week with a share of 28.4% from Seven with 26.7%. Ten is on 23.3%, but leads in all the demos.

Main Channel: Nine won here with a share of 25.3%, from Ten with 23.3%, Seven on 21.7%, ABC 1 with 13.7% and SBS ONE with 4.9%. Nine won everywhere bar Perth where Seven won. Ten was second in a couple of markets. Nine leads the week with 25.2%, from Seven on 23.9% and Ten with 23.4%.

Digital: GO won with 4.5%, from 7TWO with 2.6%, ABC 2, 2.3%, ONE, 0.9%, ABC 3, 0.5% and SBS TWO, 0.4%. The six FTA digital channels averaged a high 11.2% last night. GO leads the week with a share of 3.1% from 7TWO with 2.8%. Adelaide again had the highest digital share of 12.9%, more than Pay TV’s 9.7% share (and I know about different penetration rates, but Pay TV has over 100 channels against the 6 available on FTA).

Pay TV: Nine won with a share of 24.7%, from Seven with 20.2%, Ten on 20.0%, Pay TV on 14.6%, the ABC, 13.7% and SBS, 4.3%, The 11 FTA channels had a share of 85.4%, Pay TV’s 100 plus channels, 14.6%.

Regional: WIN/NBN won with a share of 30.5%, Prime/7Qld was next with 23.4%, SC Ten, 22.7%, the ABC, 16.3% and SBS, 7.1%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 26.6%, from Prime/7Qld with 21.3%. GO won the digitals with 3.9%, from 7TWO with 2.1% and ABC 2 with 1.6%. WIN/NBN leads the week with 29.8% from Prime/7Qld with 27.6%.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: One big winner from last night and that was Ten’s The 7pm Project. It beat not only Home and Away on Seven and Nine’s boring repeat of Two and a Half Men, but also the 7pm ABC News. It had its biggest ever audience, and it is not just down to the fact that it’s the lead in to MasterChef at 7.30pm. That does help, but the program was slowing improving before MasterChef started. And as everyone knows in TV, it’s the eyeballs that count, not the way you get them.

It is another one in the eye for Ten’s rivals who were telling some impressionable media in Sydney and Melbourne earlier in the year that The 7pm Project was finished and was going to shift. The 7pm Project had more viewers than the high budget, highly promoted A Current Affair on Nine at 6.30pm. The 7pm Project had Neighbours at 6.30pm (647,000 viewers) as its lead in, ACA had Nine News at 6pm with 1.268 million viewers as its lead-in. Advertisers like shows that add viewers, not lose them.

Home and Away at 7pm for Seven is another losing viewers from its lead-in TT. The 7pm Project and Home and Away share similar demos (16 to 39 and 18 to 49). Ten’s show has been slowing eating away at Home And Away this year.

The Matty Johns Show on Seven again had more viewers in Sydney (270,000) and Brisbane (134,000) than Nine’s Footy Show two hours later (Sydney, 2172,000, 104,000 in Brisbane).

It took Sam Stosur’s success to get Nine off its bum and interested in showing her exploits live. They missed the quarter final and scheduled the semi final live in at 11.15pm Thursday after the Footy Shows had aired live in various markets. That pre-empted Nightline which was due to start at 11.15pm. The morning’s preliminary ratings showed 247,000 people watched Nightline until 11.45pm, which was when the tennis was on.

Because it wasn’t coded separately by Nine it’s hard to work out just how many people watched: around 300,000 at most? It was also on Fox Sports.

Nine has been showing the highlights a night late and had the women’s quarter finals in for 1.30am Friday, and the semi final highlights in for Midnight tonight. With the men’s semi finals down to be shown on Sunday at 2.05am. The women’s final was down to be replayed as highlights at 1pm Sunday. Nine hadn’t scheduled the men’s final live or as highlights up to 6am Monday. We should be thankful for TV Networks bearing small mercies. Nine will now claim her as a TV highlight when until yesterday she was ignored and at best a programming afterthought.

At least Fox Sports have been showing the Open and live and have a commentary team there. Nine doesn’t.

Glee was its usual soapy self and had its best audience (and the PVR figures should boost it again). MasterChef was again unfair last night. Italian Food Safari good as was Costa’s Garden Odyssey. And that was the night.

TONIGHT: NRL and AFL on Seven and Nine. Better Homes and Gardens on Seven. The second part of the UK thriller, Midnight Man. Ten has the MasterChef master class and The 7pm Project.

SATURDAY: Watch for the announcement of when the French Women’s Tennis Final will be on Nine: probably from around 10.45pm. Apart from that, ignore Nine, just more boring movies. Ten has AFL live in some states, junk in others instead. The ABC says goodbye to the repeat of Doc Martin at 7.30pm, Midsomer Murders at 9.20pm. Seven has Rugby Union Australia vs. Fiji at 7pm.

SUNDAY: Morning chats, if you missed the tennis, look to see if it’s on around 1pm on Nine. Seven has the Swans vs. Essendon. Nine has NRL. Seven has Sunday Night at 6.30pm, Bones at 8.30pm. Nine has Underbelly at 8.30pm. Ten has MasterChef and The Good Wife. The ABC starts Hercule Poirot at 8.35pm, again. And Dr Who at 7.30pm. Compass on the ABC after Midsomer Murders.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports