The Winners: MasterChef again stood out. A very melodramatic episode and perhaps a sign that the program, producers and judges are starting to take themselves too seriously? They should be forced to wear clown noses.

  1. MasterChef (Australia (Ten, 7.30 – 8.30 pm) — 1.564 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.330 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.285 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.129 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.042 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.035 million

The Losers: Just a bit of a sad night all over. 127,000 for the NRL Footy Show in Sydney (what Second State of Origin game? asked viewers) and 76,000 in Brisbane. The 371,000 in Melbourne was up on recent weeks and why Nine had a solid win in Melbourne.

News & CA: Seven News lost Brisbane to Nine, won the rest. Today Tonight lost Melbourne, won the rest. Two wins this week in four mornings for Today with yesterday’s the biggest at 49,000, the sort of margin Sunrise was winning by. Sunrise is now fading. The repeat of 6.30 with George Negus was pre-empted on Ten last night by the Netball Test between Australia and NZ.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.330 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.285 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.129 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.042 million
  5. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 923,000
  6. ABC News (7pm) — 857,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 687,000
  8. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 527,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) (not broadcast in Adelaide last night) — 463,000
  10. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.30pm) — 298,000
  11. Lateline (ABC) (10.25pm) — 214,000
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 188,000
  13. SBS News (9.30pm) — 140,000
  14. Lateline Business (ABC) (11pm) — 107,000
  15. ABC Budget Report (7.30pm) (Adelaide) — 69,000

In the morning:

  1. Today (Nine) (7am) — 370,000
  2. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 321,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 28.7% from Seven (3) on 28.0%, Ten (3) was on 25.6%, the ABC (4) ended with 12.9% and SBS (2) was on 4.9%. Seven leads the week with 32.2% from Nine on 25.4% and Ten on 24.4%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with a share of 21.0% from Seven on 20.8%, Ten on 20.0%, ABC 1, 8.8% and SBS ONE which was on 4.4%. Seven leads the week with 24.9% from Nine on 19.0% and Ten with 18.6%. That’s the closest SBS ONE has gotten to ABC 1 for some years.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with 4.7% from GO on 4.3%, Eleven with 3.8%, Gem on 3.4%, ABC 2 on 2.8%, 7mate on 2.5%, ONE on 1.7%, ABC 3 on 0.7%, News 24 on 0.6% and SBS TWO on 0.5%. That’s a total share of FTA viewing last night of 25.8%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.4% from Eleven on 3.7% and GO on 3.4%.
  • Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with 23.7%, from Seven (3) on 23.1%, Ten (3) was on 21.1%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) ended with 14.8%, the ABC (4) was on 10.6% and SBS (3) ended with 4.0%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of prime time TV viewing of 85.2%, made up of 20.7% for the 10 digitals and 64.5% for the five main channels. Around 35% of the TV audience was not watching the five FTA main channels last night.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN (3) won with a share of 32.4% from Prime/7Qld on 27.9%, SC Ten (3) was on 21.7%, the ABC (4) was on 13.1% and SBS (2) ended with 4.9%. WIN/NBN won the main channels from Prime/7Qld. GO won the digitals with 5.3%, from 7TWO on 4.4% and 7mate and Eleven with 4.3%. The 10 digital channels had a total share of 28.8%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 33.4% from WIN/NBN on 27.9%.

Major Markets: Nine won Melbourne overall and in the main channels, with Ten second and Seven third. In Brisbane, Seven beat Nine and Ten overall and in the main channels, it was Seven from Ten and Nine tied for second. In Adelaide, Nine beat Seven and Ten and in the main channels it was Seven from Ten and Nine. Seven beat Nine and Ten in Sydney overall and Ten and Nine in the main channels, In Perth it was Seven from Nine and Ten. 7TWO won four of the five metro markets outright and tied for first place in Melbourne with GO. Seven leads the week from Ten and Nine in Sydney and Perth. Elsewhere its Seven from Nine and Ten.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: On the face of the bald figures, a close night. But Seven did well with its second ranking female attractive programming.

Polar Bears: Spy on the Ice on Nine at 8.30pm averaged 828,000, around 300,000 more than Between The Lines.

Poor old Getaway, now it’s going to prop up Nine’s weak Saturday 6pm News by being run at 5.30pm full time. It has been run there as well as on Gem, one of Nine’s digital channels for the best part of the past month.

The program was chopped in half for this year to try and give it new life at 8pm Thursdays (up to last month), but that failed so it was switched to 7.30pm Fridays on Gem with back to back episodes making for an hour long broadcast (where it is tonight) and at 5.30pm on Saturdays. Now that’s permanent.

What is very interesting about the slow death of Getaway that it has come when there’s been a 25% rise in the number of Australians travelling overseas in the past year. Does that point to incompetence at Nine or Australian’s shaking off infotainment programs like Getaway and preferring to experience the real thing?

TONIGHT: AFL and NRL on Nine and Seven. The almost incomprehensible Taggart is on the ABC at 8.30pm. Ten has MasterChef.

Saturday: AFL on Ten and Foxtel, NRL on Foxtel. SBS has the final Dr Who of this series. Nine is really desperate, it is continuing its vintage Australian movie festival by shuffling The Castle into the projection room at 9.30pm. Hate to say it but the 20 year old Inspector Morse on 7TWO at 8.40pm is the night’s highlight.

Sunday: The morning chats. NRL on Nine, AFL on Seven, both on Foxtel. Seven has Downton Abbey (a big episode, must watch) and Dancing With The Stars. Nine has In Their Footsteps, its best program so far of 2011. Ten of course has MasterChef and the ABC wraps up The Kennedys.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports