The Winners: No more Packed to the Rafters for the year, we have been promised a happier series next year. Kleenex will double their sponsorship offer to keep it all weepie. But last night was just enough. The “sneak peek” for the new series Winners and Losers worked right after Packed to the Rafters. Nine had nothing above a million after 7pm, Ten has two and did well.

  1. Sneak peek: Winners and Losers (Seven) (9.30pm) — 2.240 million
  2. Packed to the Rafters (Seven) (8.30pm) — 2.080 million
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.304 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.251 million
  5. Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.175 million
  6. NCIS (Ten) (8.30pm) — 1.158 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.107 million
  8. Nine News (6pm) — 1.098 million
  9. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.030 million

The Losers: Nine, deliberately ran dead because it knew it has nothing capable of matching Packed to the Rafters on Seven or Ten’s solid Tuesday night line up. Iron Chef on Seven at 7.30pm, 905,000. Bye bye.

News & CA: Seven News won everywhere bar Brisbane where it lost narrowly to Nine. ACA won Melbourne and Brisbane, but lost nationally. Nine News and ACA‘s audience were less than 300,000 (297,000 and 292,000) respectively in Sydney, which is low for a Tuesday. Today narrowed the gap on Sunrise in the morning, but the Seven program was again over 400,000.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.304 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.251 million
  3. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.107 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.098 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 887,000
  6. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 787,000
  7. The 7.30 Report (ABC) (7.30pm) — 728,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 718,000
  9. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.40pm) — 356,000
  10. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 215,000
  11. SBS News (6.30pm) — 175,000
  12. SBS News (9.30pm) –114,000
  13. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 90,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 407,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 357,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 34.8%, from Nine (3) on 25.8%, Ten (2), 21.0%, the ABC (4) on 13.6% and SBS (2), 4.8%. Seven leads the week with 30.4% from Nine on 25.3% and Ten with 24.2%. Seven won all the demos.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 28.6% from Ten with 20.4%, Nine on 20.1%, ABC 1 on 11.2% and SBS ONE with 3.7%. Seven leads the week with 25.6% from Ten on 22.9% and Nine on 19.9%.
  • Digital: The nine channels had a total FTA share of 16.1%. GO won with a share of 4.0%, from 7TWO on 3.5%, 7Mate was on 2.7%, Gem on 1.8%, ABC 2, 1.4%, SBS TWO, 1.1%, ONE and ABC 3, 0.6% each and News 24, 0.4%. GO leads the week with 3.4%, from 7Mate and 7TWO on 2.4% each.
  • Pay TV: Seven won (3 channels) with a share of 29.1%, from Nine on 21.6% (3), Ten (2), was on 17.5%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 13.7%, the ABC (4), 11.3% and SBS, 4.0% (2). That left the 14 FTA channels with a share of 86.3%, made up of 13.5% for the nine digital channels and 72.8% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: A big win for Prime/7Qld with 35.6% from WIN/NBN on 26.3%, SC Ten was on 20.3%, the ABC, 12.2% and SBS, 5.6%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels from WIN/NBN and SC Ten. GO won the digitals with 4.3%, from 7TWO on 4.2% and 7Mate on 2.7%. The nine digital channels had a total FTA share of 16.5%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 31.3% from WIN/NBN on 27.1%.

Major Markets: Overall, Seven won everywhere from Nine and Ten. In the main channels, Seven also won everywhere, but in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, Ten was second and Nine third. GO won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, 7TWO won Adelaide and Perth. 7Mate was in the placings everywhere. Seven leads from Nine and Ten everywhere bar Perth, where it was Seven from Ten and Nine. The digital channels FTA shares ranged from the usual low in Sydney of 13.6% to a high in Melbourne of 18.0%. Pay TV’s shares ranged from 15.5% in Sydney down to 9.8% in Adelaide.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The tissues won with the final Packed to the Rafters for the year. But that wasn’t the big story of the night. That was sneaky Seven running one of its “sneak peeks” right after Packed to the Rafters at 9.30pm. It was for Seven’s new 2011 series called Winners and Losers. Seven was sneaky because the “peek” ran for five minutes and one second, which was enough to make it a program and therefore included in the ratings for the night. (Smaller news updates for example, don’t count).

It worked with Seven getting a turn on of more than 230,000 for the “peek”. If that’s repeated next year with the new complete series, then Seven will have a hit and Ten and Nine will be under pressure. Long form drama are expensive, but get them right, they are ratings gold.

Packed to the Rafters was the most watched program in regional areas with 838,000 viewers, with the 2.08 million metro viewers, there were just over 2.9 million viewers across the country, with the seven day playback figures to come next week. The “sneak peek” of Winners and Losers had 895,000 viewers in regional areas, taking its national audience to 3.13 million people.

Nine has gone to TV’s archaeology vault and is resurrecting This Is Your Life for 2011.

TONIGHT: Not much at all. RPA on Nine at 9.30pm. City Homicide on Seven at 8.30pm, Modern Family on Ten at 7.30pm, The 7pm Project on Ten.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports