The Winners: Heston’s Mission Impossible on the British Airways jet on Seven last night from 7.30pm to 8.30pm had an audience of 776,000 and lost the network around 150,000 viewers from the previous week. Heston was boring.

  1. The Biggest Loser: Families (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.233 million
  2. Seven News (6pm)– 1.193 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.129 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1 million

The Losers: Desperate Housewives, 595,000. Yes it does well with females, but that’s the only thing keeping it on the main channel. It’s lost its oomph a long time ago. Whites on the ABC at 9.30pm, I like it, most of Australia ignores it because just 362,000 watched. Getaway on Nine at 8pm, 693,000. No longer informative, just cheap TV about travel with no redeeming features.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne, Seven won the rest. TT won everywhere bar Brisbane where ACA got up. 6.30 With George Negus lost the 40,000 extra viewers from Wednesday night and fell to 380,000, which is what the program got on Tuesday (450,000 on Monday). So unlike the quiet boast by Ten’s Lachlan Murdoch and Ten that it had added viewers, it now is in a losing position.

  1. Seven News (6pm)– 1.193 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.129 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 918,000
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 877,000
  6. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 719,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 645,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 586,000
  9. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 380,000
  10. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 204,000
  11. SBS News (6.30pm) — 186,000
  12. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 182,000
  13. SBS News (9.30pm) — 134,000
  14. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 115,000
  15. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 88,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 352,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 336,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 28.9%, from Seven (3 ) on 28.5%, with Ten (3) on 23.0%, the ABC (4) was on 14.7% and SBS (2) ended with 4.8%. Seven still leads the week with 31.3% from Nine on 26.1% and Ten on 21.4%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with 21.3%, from Seven on 20.7%, Ten was on 17.3%, ABC 1, 11.5% and SBS ONE, 4.2%. Seven leads the week with 23.4% from Nine in 19.3% and Ten with 15.8%.
  • Digital: GO won with a share of 4.5%, from Eleven on 4.4%, 7TWO and 7Mate were on 3.9% each, Gem was on 3.2%, ABC 2 was on 2.1%, ONE finished with 1.4%, ABS TWO was on 0.7%, ABC 3, 0.6% and News 24, 0.5%. That’s a total FTA share of prime time viewing of 24.2% last night. 7TWO leads the week with 4.2%, from GO on 4.1% and Eleven on 4.0%.
  • Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 23.9% from Seven 93 ) on 23.5%, Ten (3) was on 19.0%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) ended with 14.4%, the ABC, (4), 12.1% and SBS (2) was on 4.0%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of TV viewing in prime time last night of 85.6%, which was made up of 20.6% for the digital channels and 65.6% for the main channels.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 30.0%, from Prime/7Qld (3) on 29.5%, from SC Ten (3) on 20.2%, the ABC (4) on 14.8% and SBS (2) on 5.6%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 22.8% from prime/7Qld on 20.2%. 7Mate won the digitals with 5.1%, from Eleven on 4.7% and 7TWO on 4.2%. GO was on 4.0%. The 10 digitals had a total share of 27.6% of FTA prime time viewing last night. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 31.3% from WIN/NBN on 28.5%.

Major Markets: A truly mixed night. Nine won Melbourne and Adelaide overall and in the main channels, but Seven won both in Sydney, Brisbane (the NRL states) and Perth (AFL). GO won the digitals in Sydney and Brisbane, Eleven won Melbourne, 7Mate won Adelaide and Perth. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten. Tonight’s AFL game should give Seven a big win on the night in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and nationally.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Once again Nine made a change to Thursday night and put The Million Dollar Drop (741,000) into the 8.30pm slot instead of CSI. The Biggest Loser: Families clicked for the first time. Ten’s new management boasted yesterday that The Biggest Loser is up from last year, which it is, but it hasn’t improved much at all from 2009. But it is certainly a better looking and more interesting program than last year.

Nine’s AFL Footy Show averaged 375,000 in Melbourne and helped the Network win the night. The NRL version had 164,000 in Sydney, better than last week, but the 70,000 in Brisbane is still depressing. But the AFL program gave Nine wins in Melbourne and Adelaide and that was enough to offset Seven’s wins in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. Seven won the demos though.

TONIGHT: NRL and AFL on Nine and Seven in the North and Southern markets. Better Homes and Gardens is on Seven in the North. Ten has The 7PM Project and The Biggest Loser: Families. The ABC has New Tricks at 8.30pm and the final of Whitechapel.

SATURDAY: AFL and NRL on Foxtel. AFL on Ten in the arvo and the evening. Nine has four movie repeats from 7.30pm to 4am. Cheap TV! SBS has RocKwiz. The ABC has Spooks (getting too familiar).

SUNDAY: The morning chats. AFL on Seven, NRL on Nine. Seven has Sunday Night and then Bones. Nine has 60 Minutes and then The Mentalist (which is fading). Ten has The Biggest Loser: Families, a repeat of Modern Family (shouldn’t have used the new ones up so quickly), and a fresh Bondi Rescue. The ABC has the last of this lot of Midsomer Murders. SBS has Dateline and at 10.20pm the Paris Roubaix 2011 — the toughest bike race in the world.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports