The Winners: The below figures tell us the story. The rest of the night was dreary on paper and dreary in the numbers. I got a life last night and went out.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.189 million
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.117 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.017 million

The Losers: Looking at the numbers, anyone watching TV after 7pm on the commercials, after 8pm on the ABC.

News & CA: A fairly old fashioned night. Seven News and TT won nationally, but both lost Melbourne and Brisbane to Nine News and ACA. Seven News and TT won Sydney. A draw. In the morning Sunrise won by 112,000, and won Sydney and Melbourne.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.189 million
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.117 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.017 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 992,000
  5. ABC News (7pm)– 958,000
  6. Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 780,000
  7. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 723,000
  8. The 7.30 Report (ABC) (7.30pm) — 659,000
  9. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.30pm) — 214,000
  10. SBS News (6.30pm) — 179,000
  11. SBS News (9.30pm) — 145,000
  12. ABC Late News Update (ABC) (10.30pm) — 136,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 424,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 312,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 31.6%, from Seven (3) with 31.4%, from Ten (2) way back on 15.5%, the same share as for the ABC with four channels. SBS finished with 5.9%. Seven still leads the week with 30.2% from Nine on 28.5% and Ten back on 18.3%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with a share of 21.9%, from Seven on 21.5%, Ten on 14.9%, ABC 1, 11.9% and SBS ONE, 4.6%. Seven leads the week with 21.2%, from Nine on 20.4% and Ten with 17.5%.
  • Digital: A big night for the digital channels with 25.2% of the FTA audience watching them in prime time, a very high share. 7TWO won with 5.2%, from GO on 5.9%, Gem with 3.8%, 7TWO on 3.7%, ABC 2, 2.1%, SBS TWO, 1.3%, News 24, 0.8% and ABC 3 and ONE on 0.7% each. The FTA shares for the digitals ranged from the usual low of 23.0% in Sydney (which was very, very high for that market), to 27.8% in Adelaide and more than 26% in Melbourne. GO and 7TWO out rated SBS ONE last night. 7TWO leads the week with a share of 5.6%, from GO on 4.5% and Gem with 3.7%.
  • Pay TV: Nine squeezed home narrowly with 25.2% for its three channels, from Seven (3) on 25.1%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) on 17.5%, Ten (2) with 12.4%, the ABC (4), 12.4% also and SBS (2) on 4.7%. that left the 14 FTA channels to share a low 82.5%, which was made up of 20.1% for the nine digital channels and a low 62.4% for the five main channels. The nine FTA digitals had a higher total share than Foxtel did last night. But Foxtel was strong in Sydney where it was third in market with 21.3%. Its shares dipped to 12.7% in Adelaide (as it always does) and were above 16% elsewhere.

Major Markets: A big night for Foxtel and the digital channels. Between them they accounted for 37.5% of prime time viewing last night. Nine won overall and in the main channels in Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven won overall and in the main channels in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, where the ABC again pushed Ten out of third. 7TWO won the digitals everywhere bar Melbourne, where Go got Up. GO, Gem and 7Mate battled for the minors. Nine leads Seven and Ten in Melbourne, Seven leads everywhere else and the ABC is still third in Perth.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: I tried hard, but I have to confess I couldn’t go the distance and went out, and enjoyed myself.

TONIGHT: Does it matter if you start missing a night’s viewing, here and there. No it doesn’t. In fact going without television in summer can be beneficial for you.

SBS, if you have to at 7.30pm, for Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam. Rake at 8.30pm on the ABC for those still awake. Rush even appeals on Ten over Warnie. Oh, by the way, there’s Test cricket on from Perth. And in a triumph of stupidity, guess who is one of Warnie’s guests tonight? Ricky Ponting! After the first day of the third Test. Silly mid on for the Nine Network on this one.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports