The Winners: Seven’s kitchen programs did the trick last night. Nine and Ten weren’t in the hunt.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.416 million
  2. My Kitchen Rules (Seven, 7.30 – 8.30 pm) — 1.373 million
  3. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30 – 7 pm) — 1.190 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.168 million
  5. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.153 million
  6. ABC News (7pm) — 1.096 million
  7. Conviction Kitchen (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.033 million
  8. Glee (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.031 million

The Losers: Frost On Parkinson on Nine at 9.30 pm, 514,000. Old fashioned TV. This Is Your Life on Nine at 8.30 pm, 796,000. My Dad says on Nine at 8 pm, 790,000.

News & CA: Seven News beat Nine in all five metro markets. ACA won in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The margin in Sydney was over 100,000. That pushed ACA in front nationally and probably feels chuffed for running gazumping TT‘s Hey Dad exclusive on Sunday.

But the interesting thing from last night was that with the Japan crisis we saw a real turn on for the news that wasn’t much in evidence over the weekend.

Viewers turned to Seven, Ten, the ABC and SBS, but not Nine. Seven News’ national audience of more than 1.4 was the biggest for a news broadcast so far this year. Nine News failed to reach 1.2 million, which would have been one of its better performances this year. ACA actually had more viewers than did Nine News. But TT shed over 250,000 viewers from Seven News, a nasty fall.

The 7 pm ABC News audience rose as well over a million. Ten News had its highest audience for the year so far and that in turn helped 6PM With George Negus and Ten’s 6.30 pm Evening News have their best figures since the first week of being on air in January. That lifted the average audience for the hour to 430,000, which is where Ten had hoped it would settle. It will no doubt fall back tonight and the rest of the week, but it has been slowly improving in the past 10 days.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.416 million
  2. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30 – 7 pm) — 1.190 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.168 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.153 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 1.096 million
  6. Ten News (5pm) — 902,000
  7. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 798,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 781,000
  9. Q&A (ABC) (9.30pm) — 635,000
  10. Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 598,000
  11. Media Watch (ABC) (9.15pm) — 541,000
  12. 6PM With George Negus (Ten, 6 – 6.30 pm) — 449,000
  13. Ten Evening News (6.30pm) — 412,000
  14. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm ) –346,000
  15. 6PM With George Negus (10.40pm) (repeat) — 304,000
  16. SBS News (6.30pm) — 262,000
  17. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11.10pm) — 209,000
  18. SBS News (9.30pm) — 189,000
  19. Lateline Business (11.05pm) — 147,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 380,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 300,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 33.0%, from Nine (3) on 25.4%, Ten (3), was on 19.4%, the ABC (4) was on 16.7% and SBS (2) finished with 5.4%. Seven now leads the week with 30.7% from Nine on 27.0% and Ten on 20.2%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 24.3% from Nine on 19.0%, Ten was on 15.3%, ABC 1, 13.7% and SBS ONE, 4.6%. Seven leads the week on 22.6% from Nine on 20.1% and Ten with 15.6%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 4.9% from 7Mate on 3.8%, GO was on 3.7%, Eleven finished with 3.6%, Gem was on 2.7%, ABC 2 finished with 1.4%, News 24, 1.1%, SBS TWO was on 0.8%, ONE was on 0.6% and ABC 3, 0.5%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA prime time share last night of 23.1%. GO and 7TWO lead the week on 4.2% each, with 7Mate on 3.8% and Eleven on 3.7%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 27.2%, from Nine (3) on 20.9%, Ten 93) was on 16.0%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) finished with 14.8%, the ABC (4 channels), was on 13.8% and SBS (2), ended with 4.5%. The 15 FTA channels had a 85.2% share of prime time viewing last night. That was made up of 19.2% for the digitals and 66.0% for the main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.1%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 27.1%, the ABC (4), was third with 17.8%, SC Ten (3) was 4th with 16.1% and SBS (2), was on 5.8%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels from WIN/NBN with the ABC third. 7TWO won the digitals with 6.4%m with 7Mate and GO on 4.0% each. The 10 digital channels had a prime time share of viewing last night of 27.1%. Prime/7Qld lead the week on 31.3% from WIN/NBN on 28.7%.

Major Markets: Seven won overall and in every market. Nine was second everywhere but Perth where Ten pushed it into a weak third spot. 7TWO won everywhere bar Brisbane where GO got up. Seven leads Nine and Ten in every market.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The ABC’s reporters in Japan, especially Mark Willacy and Stephen McDonell showed their class on News 24, on the regular news reports, as well as on ABC radio yesterday. Hamish MacDonald did well on 6PM With George Negus, as the ratings showed.

This Is Your Life will be replaced next week by Million Dollar Drop with Eddie McGuire. The Monday 8.30pm slot seems to be reserved for Eddie. We have had Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, This Is Your Life and Now Million Dollar Drop. This is another Melbourne originated game show (Southern Star producing). Are we ready for another Eddie McGuire-hosted game show?

TONIGHT: The last Packed to the Rafters for a while, and another serving of My Kitchen Rules on Seven. The ABC’s 7.30 and Foreign Correspondent combine to report on Japan. Ten has Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation and NCIS. Nine has Top Gear. SBS has Insight.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports