The Winners: Home and Away‘s Hawaiian adventure failed to rouse any more viewers than normal.

Freed from last week’s qualifying series, The Block got down to the real business last night which is wrecking and renovating dud housing in Melbourne. It had 82,000 more viewers than the first episode a week ago last night. It out rated MasterChef in Melbourne, 556,000 to 527,000, (the two biggest audiences in the country last night). It worked very well for Nine last night for the hour from 7pm.

Nine’s fresh episode of The Big Bang Theory lost 300,000 viewers to average 997,000 last night. But Rescue Special Ops at 8.30pm was stronger with 839,000 people, or more than 150,000 extra viewers than a week earlier.

Seven’s The Amazing Race shed viewers from a week ago, but still dominated the 8.30pm slot with more than a million viewers.

  1. MasterChef (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.578 million
  2. The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.440 million
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.405 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.378 million
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.238 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.145 million
  7. The Amazing Race (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.075 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.018 million

The Losers: Another good night for viewers, even sports nut who had the Bernard Tomic match on 7TWO. Football nuts with Pay TV had a good NRL game on Fox Sports. The losers were those viewers who didn’t like renovations, sport and cooking. And of course, House, on Ten at 9.30pm, 436,000.

News & CA: Seven News and TT won Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. Nine News and ACA won Melbourne and Brisbane. In the morning, Sunrise had a bigger lead than it normally has over Today. (Correction: Sunrise has only lost one week, not two as reported last week).

ACA and TT had lovely in house promos last night: TT on naughty judges, including those on Dancing With The Stars; ACA‘s was a set up for The Block which followed at 7pm, with a nice promo right after the segment, so there was a doubling up of promos. A waste of time for both programs.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.405 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.378 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.238 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.145 million
  5. Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 912,000
  6. ABC News (7pm) — 909,000
  7. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 784,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 752,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 707,000
  10. Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 687,000
  11. Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 605,000
  12. Media Watch (ABC) (9.20pm) — 589,000
  13. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 481,000
  14. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 263,000
  15. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 198,000
  16. SBS News (6.30pm) — 173,000
  17. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 151,000.
  18. Ten Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 109,000
  19. SBS News (9.30pm) — 91,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 382,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 343,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 28.6%, from Nine (3) on 27.7%, with Ten (3) on 24.3%, the ABC (4) was on 15.5% and SBS (2) ended with 3.9%. Seven leads the week with 31.7% from Nine on 26.8% and Ten on 24.2%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with 21.7% from Seven on 18.4%, Ten on 17.6%, ABC 1, 12.6% and SBS ONE was on 3.4%. Seven leads the week with 22.9% from Nine on 19.9% and Ten on 17.1%.
  • Digital: The tennis saw 7TWO win with 6.5%, from Eleven on 4.1%, 7mate on 3.7%, GO on 2.1%, Gem, 2.9%, ONE, 2.6%, ABC 2, 1.5%, News 24, 0.7%, ABC 3, 0.6% and SBS TWO which was on 0.5%. That’s a total FTA viewing share of 26.2% last night. 7TWO leads the week with 4.7% from 7mate and GO on 4.1% each
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 23.5%, from Nine (3) on 22.7%, Ten (3) was on 19.9%, Pay TV, 15.3% for the 100 plus channels, the ABC (4) was on 12.7% and SBS (2) ended with 3.2%. The 15 FTA channels had a TV viewing share last night of 84.7%. The 10 digitals had a share of 21.6% and the five main channels were on 63.1%. Overall last night, 36.9% of the total audience wasn’t watching the five main channels in prime time.
  • Regional: Thanks to the tennis on 7TWO it was a win overall for Prime/7Qld (3 channels) with 29.8%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 28.1%, SC Ten (3) was on 21.0%, the ABC (4) ended up with 16.6% and SBS (2) finished with 4.6%, WIN/NBN won the main channels with 21.7% from Prime/7Qld on 19.5%. 7TWO won the digitals with 6.8%, from Eleven on 4.2% and GO on 3.8%. The 10 digitals had an FTA viewing share last night of a high 28%, thanks to the tennis on 7TWO. Prime/7Qld leads the week on 32.7% from WIN/NBN on 28.4%.

Major Markets: Overall it was Seven from Nine and Ten in Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Melbourne and Brisbane from Seven and Ten. In the main channels it was Nine from Seven and Ten in Sydney, and Ten and Seven in Melbourne and Brisbane. In Adelaide and Perth, it was Seven from Nine and Ten. 7TWO won the digitals easily with the Tomic game from 9pm.

Seven leads Nine and Ten in Sydney, Melbourne (close), Brisbane. In Adelaide and Perth, its Seven from Nine and Ten. It’s clear that Nine in Perth is on the nose. The Block had a moderate impact there, but it was a lot better than anything else Nine broadcast last night in that market. The very weak effort in Perth last night probably cost Nine a national win in All People.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven stayed in the hunt because of the tennis on 7TWO with Bernard Tomic’s match first up at 9pm which averaged 404,000. On the main channels, Ten was again weaker than it should be. Offspring averaged 938,000: the MasterChef audience just don’t want to stay with it.

MasterChef had a national audience of 2.120 million with 542,000 watching in the regions and 1.578 million in the metros.

The Block had a national audience of 1.894 million with 454,000 watching in the regions and 1.440 million in the metro markets.

TONIGHT: Australia’s Got Talent and Winners & Losers on Seven, MasterChef on Ten and Bondi Vet, The Block on Nine and Foreign Correspondent on the ABC. SBS has a studio discussion based on its program Go Back To Where You Came From.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports