The Winners: Seven’s night. The AFL Footy Show, 431,000 nationally and just 277,000 in Melbourne. A week ago it averaged 374,000 in Melbourne on the Wednesday night. Oops. East West 101 on SBS at 8.30pm, 243,000.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.289 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6pm) — 1.255 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.103 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.084 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 1.011 million
  6. Criminal Minds (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.008 million

The Losers: Nine. After the solid night on Tuesday, it was back to the 2011 “normal” for the network, no matter whether its official ratings or Easter and unofficial measurement. Detroit 1-8-7 on Seven at 9.30pm, 525,000, nearly half the audience of Criminal Minds which was the lead-in. That says it all.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney, Seven won the rest. Today Tonight won all five metro markets and beat ACA by more than 370,000 viewers.

6.30 with George Negus had more than half ACA’s audience again at 6.30pm and adding the audience for the repeat at 10.30pm. A total of 705,000 people watched it last night, against 882,000 for ACA. Getting closer.

Today was more fawning than Sunrise in the morning and snuck past its rival.

Strange isn’t it how Nine and Seven will spend more time broadcasting from London than they did for far bigger stories for Australia — Japan’s March 22 earthquake and tsunami (and Fukushima), or Christchurch after February 22? It appears both networks are bringing a New Idea (in the case of Seven) and Woman’s Day (in the case of Nine) approach to the 6pm to 7pm news and current affairs slot this week.

By the way, the Prime Minister has been in Japan, South Korea and China, and Tony Abbott has been in WA and South Australia. The reports of those visits have been perfunctory in comparison to the stream of gibberish on the wedding.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.289 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6pm) — 1.255 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.103 million
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 1.011 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 882,000
  6. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 804,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 776,000
  8. Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 652,000
  9. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 444,000
  10. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 261,000
  11. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 198,000
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 183,000
  13. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 171,000
  14. SBS News (9.30pm) — 130,000
  15. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 87,000

In the morning:

  1. Today (Nine, 7 – 9 am) — 373,000
  2. Sunrise (Seven, 7 – 9 am) — 369,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 30.0% from Ten (3) on 23.9%, Nine (3) was on 23.2%), the ABC (4) was on 17.7% and SBS (2), ended with 5.2%. Seven leads the week with 29.9% from Nine on 26.1% and Ten on 22.0%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 21.7% from Nine on 16.8%, Ten was on 16.4%, ABC 1 was on 13.5% and SBS ONE ended with 4.4%. Seven leads the week with 21.4% from Nine on 18.4% and Ten with 16.2%.
  • Digital: Eleven won with a share of 4.7% from 7TWO on 4.3%, 7mate on 4.0%, Gem with 3.6%, GO was on 2.8%, ABC 2 ended with 2.7%, as did ONE. ABC 3 was on 0.8% and News 24 and SBS TWO finished with 0.7% each. That’s a total share of FTA prime time viewing last night of 27.0%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.3%, just in front of 7mate with 4.2% and Eleven and GO each with 3.7%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 24.4% from Ten (3) on 19.4%, Nine (3) was on 18.9%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) ended with 15.8%, the ABC (4) ended with 14.4% and SBS (2) was on 4.2%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of prime time viewing last night of 84.2%, made up of a high 22.1% for the digital channels and 62.1% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 31.5% from WIN/NBN (3) on 25.8%, SC Ten (3) was on 21.3%, the ABC (4) was on 15.8% and SBS (2) was on 5.0%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 22.8% from WIN/NBN on 20.0%. Eleven won the digitals with 5.2% from 7TWO on 4.7% and 7mate on 3.9%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA prime time share last night of 27.6%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 30.6% from WIN/NBN on 28.6%.

Major Markets: A clean sweep overall and in the main channels for Seven last night. Ten and Nine fought out the battle for the minor placings. Ten was second in both in Sydney and Perth. Nine was second overall and in the main channels in Melbourne, thanks to the AFL Footy Show. Ten was second overall in Brisbane and Adelaide but Nine was second in the main channels, although the ABC pushed Ten from third in the main channels in Adelaide. 7TWO won Sydney and Perth and shared Adelaide with 7mate. Eleven won Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven leads the week everywhere from Nine and Ten except in Perth where Ten is second.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Ten’s telemovie William & Kate: A Modern-Day Fairytale was well-described last night. Ten’s royal telemovie averaged 633,000 at 8.30pm and while it did OK in the younger demos, it was terrible.

If it is true that the royals won’t allow pictures of the wedding tomorrow night to be used for the purposes of satire (per The Chaser and the ABC’s attempt) then what about poor taste, such as Ten’s telemovie? So what about the coverage planned by The 7pm Project and of course Dame Edna on Nine? Or is there satire and satire in the minds of Prince Charles and the royals?

TONIGHT: Royal warning alert: Q&A for 90 minutes on the ABC tonight from 8.30pm. That’s followed by Grumpy Old Women.

AFL on Ten in southern markets. The NRL Footy Show on Nine in northern markets. Before that Nine has 30 minutes of pap called William and Kate: The Royal Wedding Countdown at 7.30pm.

Seven has its usual female attracting line up and runs Better Homes and Gardens at 7.30pm because it was pre-empted by tomorrow night’s four and a half hours of wedding coverage in northern markets.

There is another episode of the royal documentary, The House of Windsor: A Royal Dynasty, on the ABC from 6pm which is actually a good bit of historical reporting, especially on Edward and Wallis Simpson and the Queen. It’s the sort of doco that could sit in any schedule at any time.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports