The Winners

  1. My Kitchen Rules (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.424 million.
  2. Winners and Losers (Seven, 8.30pm) — 1.392 million.
  3. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.249 million.
  4. Seven News (6pm) — 1.216 million.
  5. NCIS (Ten, 8.40pm) — 1.151 million.
  6. Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation (Ten, 7.30pm) — 1.049 million.
  7. Nine News (6pm) — 1.017 million.

Seven’s night, easily. Another fall in the audience for Winners and Losers though. The Easter break can’t come quickly enough for Nine and Ten. Will the ratings bunny deliver the goodies for them after the break? Ten hopes Masterchef Australia will do it. It starts the Sunday night of the Logies, which will be on Nine. You can bet Seven will give up that night. Sunday May 1 if the first night of the new ratings period after Easter.

The Losers

Nine. Only the 6pm news got more than a million viewers. From 6.30pm it was downhill, Top Gear, Nine, 8.30pm, 643,000, a very distant third. Nine was in fact fourth at 7pm (the ABC News won) and then third from 8pm onwards.

News & CA

  1. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.249 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.216 million.
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.017 million.
  4. ABC News (7pm) – 987,000.
  5. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 978,000.
  6. The 7PM Project (Ten, 7pm) — 789,000.
  7. 7.30 (ABC, 7.30pm) — 705,000.
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 660,000.
  9. Foreign Correspondent (ABC, 8pm) — 594,000.
  10. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) — 389,000.
  11. 6.30 With George Negus Late (Ten, 10.40pm, repeat) — 262,000.
  12. Insight (SBS, 7.30pm) — 207,000.
  13. SBS News (6.30pm) — 198,000.
  14. Ten late News/Sports Tonight (Ten, 11.10pm) –188,000.
  15. Lateline (ABC, 10.35pm) — 158,000.
  16. SBS late News (9.30pm) — 135,000.
  17. Lateline Business (ABC, 11.10pm, replay) — 96,000.

Mornings:

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 418,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 346,000.

Seven News lost Melbourne and Brisbane to Nine, and won the rest. Today Tonight had a clean sweep over A Current Affair. The 7pm ABC News with 329,000 viewers in Melbourne, finished ahead of Nine (309,000) Seven News (306,000). TT had 310,000 viewers in Melbourne and ACA, 292,000. So a good win for the ABC over the better resourced commercial news broadcasts.

Ten’s 6.30 With George Negus, 380,000, was deserted by 70,000 viewers from Monday night. Still it didn’t help A Current Affair which had under a million viewers last night because its very, very weak in Perth and Adelaide where the Sydney-centric ACA doesn’t grab viewers like TT‘s localised versions do.

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) finished the night with a share of 31.9%, from Nine (3) on 24.3%, Ten (3) was on 23.7%, the ABC, 15.0% and SBS (2), was on 5.1%. Seven now leads the week with 31.3% from Nine on 25.1% and Ten with 21.5%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 24.8% from Ten in second with 19.2%, Nine was on 17.2%, ABC1, 11.9% and SBS ONE, 4.0%. Seven leads the week with 23.7% from Nine on 18.0% and Ten on 16.2%.
  • Digital: GO won with a share of 4.5% from 7TWO on 3.6%, 7Mate was next with 3.5%, Eleven was on 3.3%, Gem finished with 2.6%, ABC2, 1.9%, ONE was on 1.1%, as was SBS TWO, ABC3 finished with 0.6% and News 24 was on 0.5%. That’s a total FTA prime time share of 22.7% for the 10 channels. GO leads the week with 4.2% from 7TWO on 4.0% and Eleven on 3.8%. Neighbours on Eleven was the most watched program on the multi-channels with 373,000 people last night from 6.30 pm.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.5%, from Nine (3) on 20.2%, Ten (3) was on 19.6%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) ended with 14.2%, the ABC (4) finished with 12.4% and SBS (2), was on 4.2%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of prime time viewing last night of 85.8%, made up of 18.8% for the digital channels and 63.0% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 32.5%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 27.6%, SC Ten (3) was on 20.6%, the ABC (4) finished with 14.3% and SBS (2) ended with 5.0%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 24.3% from WIN/NBN on 20.7%. 7TWO won the digitals with 4.9%, from GO on 4.4% and Eleven with 3.5%. the digital channels had a total share of FTA viewing in prime time last night of 25.0%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 31.1% from WIN/NBN on 27.8%.
  • Major Markets: Seven won won everywhere both overall and the main channels in all five metro markets. In Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Nine was second overall and Ten was third. In Adelaide and Perth, Ten was second and Nine third. In the main channels, Ten was second in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine was second in Melbourne ahead of Ten. GO won Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Gem won Brisbane and 7Mate won Perth. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in every market.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Just a hint of viewer tiredness with Winners and Losers. It’s been on air for three weeks with four episodes shown (double episodes last week) and the audience last night of 1.392 million was well down on the opening episode’s 1.611 million. That was a fall of 219,000 viewers or 13.5%. Packed To The Rafters didn’t experience that in its first series. Despite that, Seven won easily and the week is over, again. Seven won the demos.

Programming Note. Two And A Half Men has been Nine’s go to program when a ratings hole needed to be filled in recent years. This year the program is, like its star, past its view by date for more and more viewers, so desperate Nine has had to find a new ratings filler. Step forward The Big Bang Theory (from the same stable as Two and a Half Men). Next week, according to the programming amendments issued yesterday Nine will be using 15 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, one new, 14 repeats. Nine episodes (including the one fresh episode) will be on Nine, six will be on the GO digital channel. A record. That change starts next Monday night.

TONIGHT: Hungry Beast at 9.30pm on the ABC, My Kitchen Rules and Criminal Minds on Seven, The Farmer Wants A Wife has a reunion in the final episode tonight on Nine at 8.30pm. The 7PM Project on Ten and for the second time this week the network tries to smuggle a flop back into an earlier timeslot. Tonight, Ten runs double episodes of Lie to Me from 8.30pm. Like Undercover Boss USA on Monday night, this one will go splat.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports