The Winners: Seven’s night again. Merlin on Ten at 6.30pm, 855,000. Grand Designs on the ABC at 7.30pm, 789,000, not bad for a home building program which is different to The Block et al. Midsomer Murders repeat at 8.30pm on the ABC, 540,000, deservedly low.

  1. Downton Abbey (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.633 million
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.568 million
  3. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.561 million
  4. Seven News (6pm) — 1.553 million
  5. Dancing With The Stars (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.477 million
  6. 60 Minutes (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.026 million
  7. In Their Footsteps (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.024 million

The Losers: Ten: MasterChef stood out, nothing else registered. With more than 1.5 million people watching Ten for an hour, it’s still hard to believe the network has found it impossible to leverage off that at 8.30pm and 9.30pm on Sundays.

News & CA: Nine won Sydney and Adelaide, Seven won Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

The NRL game in Sydney with St George playing Newcastle was a bigger lead in for Nine. Nine News won by 199,000 in Sydney which gave it the national win.

For the first time since it started, Insiders’ ABC 1 broadcast and the News 24 simulcast with 239,000 beat The Bolt Report and its repeat in total audience numbers (238,000). Insiders had the Prime Minister yesterday morning, but Ten’s Meet The Press had her the Sunday before.

Ten’s problem is a temporary CEO, who agreed to broadcast The Bolt Report at a time when staff and cost cutting was happening. The Bolt Report, especially the 10am version, is fading.

  1. Nine News (6pm) — 1.568 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.553 million
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.026 million
  4. ABC News (6pm) — 664,000
  5. Ten News (5pm) — 396,000
  6. Ten Evening News (6pm) — 351,000
  7. SBS News (6.30pm) — 233,000
  8. The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 115,000
  9. Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 113,000

In the morning:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 343,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 311,000
  3. Landline (ABC) (noon) — 217,000
  4. Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 207,000
  5. Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 140,000
  6. Offsiders (ABC) (10.30pm) — 127,000
  7. The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 123,000
  8. Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30pm) — 93,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 35.2%, from Nine (3) on 25.8%, Ten (3) was on 21.8%, the ABC (4) ended with 11.0% and SBS (2) ended with 6.2%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 27.6% from Nine on 19.0%, Ten on 16.1%, ABC 1, 9/0% and SBS ONE, 5.3%.
  • Digital: GO won with 4.3%, from 7mate on 4.2%, 7TWO on 3.4%, Eleven on 3.3%, Gem was on 2.5%, ONE was on 2.4%, ABC 1 ended with 1.1%, SBS TWO ended with 0.9%, News 24 was on 0.6% and ABC 3 finished with 0.4%. That’s a total FTA viewing share of 23.1%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 29.0% from Nine (3) on 21.2%, Ten (3) ended with 17.9%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) ended with 15.1%, the ABC (4) was on 9.1% and SBS (2) ended with 5.1%. The 15 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of 84.9%. The 10 digital channels had 19.8% and the five main channels, 65.1%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 35.0%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 27.5%, SC Ten (3) was on 20.2%, the ABC was on 11.4% for its four channels and SBS (2) ended with 5.9%. Prime/7Qld won main channels with 25.8%, from WIN/NBN on 20.4%. 7Mate won the digitals on 5.4%, with GO on 5.1% and 7TWO on 3.8%.

Major Markets: Seven from Nine or Ten overall and in the main channels in all markets. In Perth, Ten was second and Nine third overall, but they reversed rankings in the main channels. GO won Sydney and Melbourne. 7mate won Brisbane and Adelaide. 7TWO won Perth.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven won, although the margin over Nine was a bit thinner with The Block the difference. Nine was second everywhere (drew the main channels in Brisbane for the best result). But was again a distant third in Perth which continues to hold the network back nationally. Seven won the digitals, with the tennis on 7TWO extending the usual weekly winning margin. Back to normal from tonight. In regional areas Prime/7Qld won the week overall and in the main channels and 7TWO won the digitals.

It is school holidays in some states, so some audience figures looked a touch light on. Seven’s two biggies, Dancing With The Stars and Downton Abbey dominated the night, again.

Nationally, we again had three programs with more than two million viewers across metro and regional markets. Advertiser heaven as the programs were strong in all relevant demos.

Nationally, Downton Abbey had 2.228 million viewers after 606,000 regional viewers and 1.622 million metro watchers.

Dancing With The Stars had a total audience of 2.063 million with 586,000 regional viewers and 1.477 million in the metro markets

MasterChef‘s national audience was 2.045 million, with 484,000 regional viewers and 1.561 million in the five metro markets.

TONIGHT: The ABC has its usual wall of news and current affairs. Seven The Amazing Race Australia. Ten has MasterChef. Nine has The Block. SBS has the Tour de France. The ending of the first stage early.

Ten starts a program called Can of Worms. Give it a week to two then decide if you like it.

Seven also premiers Teen Wolf at 9.30pm on a Monday. A bit late, and did Michael J Fox do it better in 1985? (I noticed one of the Nine digital channels carried that one last week).

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports