The Winners: Two and a Half Men did very well for Nine. Seven laid an egg at 8.30pm. Ten snaffled the demos. Tonight will be a cracker, lot’s of choice. Junior MasterChef is now more than a million viewers under its opening audience of 2.2 million.

  1. Two and a Half Men (Nine) (7.30pm) (series return) — 1.459 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.370 million
  3. Two and a Half Men (Nine) (8pm) (repeat) — 1.316 million
  4. Undercover Boss Australia (Ten) (8.30pm) (new series) — 1.314 million
  5. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.264 million
  6. Sherlock (Nine) (8.30pm) — 1.245 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.216 million
  8. Nine News (6pm)– 1.186 million
  9. Junior MasterChef (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.125 million
  10. Two and a Half Men (Nine) (7pm) (repeat) — 1.079 million
  11. The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.056 million
  12. ABC News (7pm) — 1.033 million
  13. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.007 million

The Losers: A good night of choice. It’s amazing how the networks can find good programs when they want to. Seven’s The Event, 642,000 at 8.30pm a little disappointing.

News & CA: A bad start to the working week for Today Tonight with losses to ACA in Sydney and Melbourne. Seven News lost Sydney to Nine, won the rest. Ten’s The 7pm Project returned with a low figure. Let’s give it a few nights to see if viewers return. If not, the Games break could have ruined the habit for the program among viewers. Sunrise and Today started the week a bit closer.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.370 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.264 million
  3. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.216 million
  4. Nine News (6pm)– 1.186 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 1.033 million
  6. Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 867,000
  7. The 7.30 Report (ABC) (7.30pm) — 807,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 763,000
  9. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 756,000
  10. Media Watch (ABC) (9.20pm) — 702,000
  11. Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 702,000
  12. Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 641,000.
  13. Lateline (ABC) (10.35pm) — 322,000
  14. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.40pm) — 263,000
  15. SBS News (6.30pm) — 190,000
  16. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.10pm) — 148,000
  17. SBS News (9.30pm) — 125,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 382,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 347,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine won easily with a share of 32.4%, from Seven on 24.0%, Ten with 21.1%, the ABC with 16.7% and SBS with 5.7%. Nine leads the week with 30.6%, from Seven on 26.5% and Ten on 19.9%.
  • Main Channel: A win for Nine here with a share of 26.6%, from Ten with 20.6%, Seven on 20.0%, ABC 1, 14.3% and SBS ONE, 5.0%. Nine leads the week with 24.1% from Seven with 22.2% and Ten on 18.9%.
  • Digital: Choice on the main channels cut the viewers for the digitals whose FTA total share was 13.5% last night. GO won again with 4.0%, from 7Mate on 2.1%, 7TWO with 1.9%, Gem was on 1.8%, ABC 2, 1.5%, SBS TWO, 0.8%, ONE and ABC 3, 0.5% each and News 24 on 0.4%. The FTA shares ranged from 11.0% in Sydney to a peak of 16.1% in Adelaide and 15.2% in Perth.
  • Pay TV: Nine (three channels) won easily with a share of 27.3%, from Seven (three channels) with 20.3%, Ten (two) on 17.8%, the ABC (four) on 14.1%, Pay TV and its 100 plus channels on 13.2% and SBS (two channels) on 4.8%. That left an FTA share of 86.8%, made up of 11.5% for the nine FTA digital channels and 77.3% for the five main channels. Foxtel’s shares ranged from 15.5% in Perth (and 15.3% in Sydney), to a low of 9.2% in Adelaide.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN won here with a share of 32.5%, from Prime/7Qld on 24.3%, SC Ten on 21.7%, the ABC with 15.6% and SBS on 5.9%. WIN/NBN won the main channels from SC Ten with prime/7Qld third. GO won the digitals with a share of 4.4%, from 7Mate on 2.7% and 7TWO with 2.1%, The nine FTA channels had an FTA share of 13.7%. WIN/NBN lead the week with a share of 30.5%, from prime/7Qld on 27.3%.

Major Markets: Nine all the way and even the digitals lost share and viewers to the main channels, as did Foxtel. It was Nine from Seven and Ten in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth and overall in Brisbane where in the main channels, it was Nine from Ten and Seven. That was also the order in Melbourne, both overall and in the main channels. GO won every market in the FTA digitals, 7TWO, Gem and 7Mate were the place getters. Nine leads the week from Seven and Ten everywhere bar Adelaide where Seven is still the leader, from Nine and Ten.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine won because of the fresh episode of Two and a Half Men and the boost it gave to the repeat at 8pm, which then helped Sherlock at 8.30pm. The 7.30pm episode was the first of the new series. It is smuttier and tackier than the last series … and Melbourne loved it. 522,000 people watched. “Only” 379,000 watched the episode last night in Sydney.

TONIGHT: Good choice again, but it’s back to normal with a 7pm repeat of Two and a Half Men as a lead in for the first independent local version of Top Gear. Shane Warne is in this episode. And no doubt there will be some fleeting glimpse of the UK hosts, somewhere.

It’s up against Seven’s latest cooking show, Iron Chef Australia (which is really based on the US version of the Japanese original which is on SBS on Saturday nights, even though it finished in 1999) at 7.30pm, then Packed to the Rafters at 8.30pm.

Ten has Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation at 7.30pm then a fresh NCIS at 8.30pm, which sort of makes Top Gear the one to get squeezed. SBS at little old Insight at 7.30pm. The ABC has Foreign Correspondent.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports