The Winners: Seven’s night, quite easily in the end. Australia’s Got Talent was OK, given that Kyle Sandilands is a judge. He was well behaved. The male pole dancer was a hoot!

  1. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.593 million
  2. Australia’s Got Talent (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.563 million
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.413 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.333 million
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.196 million
  6. ABC News (7pm) — 1.136 million
  7. NCIS (Ten) (8.30pm) — 1.085 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.052 million
  9. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.045 million

The Losers: Nine, squelched between Seven and Ten. Sea Patrol at 8.30 pm, 675,000. The episode was entitled “Damage Control”, just about sums up Nine’s dilemma at the moment. AFP: Australian Federal Police at 8pm was also battered under a million viewers to 856,000, down 400,000 from the debut a week ago, but expected with MasterChef on Ten and Seven’s returning of Australia’s Got Talent from 7.30pm.

News & CA: Nine News and ACA won Sydney and Brisbane, lost the rest: Perth and Adelaide by embarrassingly large margins. They are WIN Nine stations, so Nine Network in Sydney doesn’t really care. 6.30 with George Negus at 6.30pm on Ten had its second biggest audience last night since it started. With the late repeat, over 960,000 people watched George last night. Down from the 1.19 million of Monday night, but still solid.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.413 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.333 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.196 million
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 1.136 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.045 million
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 920,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 721,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 677,000
  9. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 601,000
  10. Foreign Correspondent (ABC) (8pm) — 477,000
  11. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 363,000
  12. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) –0 234,000
  13. SBS News (9.30pm) — 202,000
  14. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 195,000
  15. SBS News (6.30pm) — 191,000
  16. Insight (SBS) (7.30pm) — 171,000
  17. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 95,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 409,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 351,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 34.1% from Ten 93) on 24.7%, with Nine (3) on 22.9%, the ABC (4) was on 13.6% and SBS (2) ended with 4.8%, Seven now leads the week with 28.1% from Nine on 26.9% and Ten on 26.2%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won easily with a share of 26.6% from Ten on 20.8%, Nine was on 16.5%, ABC 1, 10.0% and SBS ONE ended with 4.1%. Ten leads the week with 22.2% from Seven on 21.2% and Nine on 20.8%.
  • Digital: 7mate won with a share of 4.0%, from GO on 3.8%, 7TWO was on 3.5%, Gem and Eleven ended with 2.5% each, ABC 2 was on 2.0%, ONE was on 1.4%, ABC 3 and News 24 ended with 0.8% each and SBS TWO ended with 0.7%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA share in prime time of 22.0%. 7TWO leads the week with 3.6% from 7mate and GO, each on 3.3%.
  • Pay TV: Seven won with 28.8% for its three channels, from Ten with 20.8% (3 channels), Nine (3) was on 19.3%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 12.8%; the ABC (4) ended with 11.4% and SBS (2) was on 4.0%. The 15 FTA channels had a total prime time viewing share last night of 87.2%, made up of 18.7% for the 10 digital channels and 68.5% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 34.3% from WIN/NBN (3) on 26.0%, SC Ten was on 22.5 (3 channels), the ABC (4) ended with 12.7% and SBS (2) was on 4.5%. The main channels were won by Prime/7Qld with 26.2% from WIN/NBN on 19.4%. 7mate won the digitals with 4.2% from GO on 4.1% and 7TWO on 4.0%. The 10 digital channels had a FTA prime time viewing share last night of 25.0%. Prime/7Qld now lead the week with 29.3% from WIN/NBN on 28.0%. Ten’s programs, especially MasterChef again, had nowhere near the popularity in regional areas as they did in metro markets.

Major Markets: Seven won everywhere, overall and in the main channels. Ten was second everywhere and Nine third except in Sydney where Nine snuck into second overall because of the better performance of its digital channels. GO won the digitals in Sydney, but 7mate won the rest. Nine still leads the week in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but Seven has opened up big leads in Adelaide and Perth. MasterChef was not quote as strongly supported in Adelaide and Perth as on the East Coast.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven got home surprisingly easy with Australia’s Got Talent returning for a 90 minute first episode. It ran a close second to MasterChef on Ten which was again a decent episode, much tougher than scones, it seems. Last night a tart and a sabayon?

Adding in the 672,000 who watched Australia’s Got Talent in regional areas, it was the most watched program nationally with 2.23 million (including the 1.56 million from metro markets). MasterChef also cracked the 2 million national audience with 2.08 million.

Nine’s Sea Patrol was holed and took on a lot of water last night. Nine has given it an impossible task up against Winners & Losers and NCIS.

TONIGHT: Spicks and Specks returns to the ABC at 8.30pm with an hour episode to start proceedings for 2011. Hungry Beast is in the 9.30pm slot. Seven has Australia’s Got Talent and a fresh Criminal Minds (must be ratings!).

Ten has MasterChef and a fresh Glee at 8.30pm. SBS has East West 101 at 8.3 pm.

Warning: Seven is running double episodes of the sloppy Detroit 1-8-7 from 9.30pm.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports