The Winners: The Block was the difference between Nine and the rest last night, especially from 7pm to 7.30pm. Can of Worms on Ten at 8.45pm averaged 980,000 last night and held its ground from a week ago.

  • MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.758 million
  • The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.544 million
  • Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.461 million
  • Seven News (6pm) — 1.451 million
  • Nine News (6pm) — 1.239 million
  • A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.199 million
  • The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (8pm) — 1.077 million
  • Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.046 million
  • The Amazing Race Australia (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.039 million

The Losers: No one really. The choice was OK last night.

News & CA: Nine News won Melbourne and Brisbane, Seven News won Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. And it was the same in the battle between ACA and TT at 6.30pm. For some strange reason, Today was stuck under 300,000 on another Monday morning and Sunrise was well over at 380,000. Go figure.

7.30 was very weak last night as it manfully moved through the carbon tax debate. Viewers tuned off. Q&A did better just over two hours later in the night with the Prime Minister. And that was with fewer viewers available to watch from the wider audience.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.461 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.451 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.239 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.199 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 905,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 896,000
  7. Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 761,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 724,000
  9. Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 662,000
  10. Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 634,000
  11. Media Watch (ABC) (9.20pm) — 608,000
  12. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 592,000
  13. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 484,000
  14. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 340,000
  15. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (10.45pm) — 201,000
  16. SBS News (6.30pm) — 190,000
  17. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11.15pm) — 165,000
  18. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 158,000
  19. SBS News (9.30pm) — 125,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 380,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 294,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels won with a share of 28.1%. from Nine (3 channels) on 27.9%, with Ten (3) on 24.6%, the ABC (4) was on 15.0% and SBS (2) ended with 4.4%. Seven leads the world with 29.0% from Ten on 26.3% and Nine with 25.5%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with 21.9% from ten on 19.8%, Seven was third with 19.3%, ABC 1 was on 12.3% and SBS ONE ended with 3.9%. Seven leads the week with 21.7% from Ten on 19.4% and Nine on 19.0%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 4.8% from 7mate on 3.9%, Eleven and GO were on 3.4% each, Gem was on 2.7%, ABC 2 ended with 1.5%, ONE ended on 1.4% and ABC 3, News 24 and SBS TWO each finished with 0.6%. That’s a FTA viewing share of 22.9%. GO leads the week on 3.9% from 7TWO on 3.8%, 7mate on 3.6% and ONE on 3.5%, with Eleven on 3.4%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won narrowly with 23.3% from Nine (3) on 23.2%, with Ten (3) on 20.4%, pay TV (100 plus channels) ended with 14.3%. The ABC (4) was on 12.5% and SBS (2) was on 3.7%. The 15 FTA channels had an 85.7% viewing share last night. the 10 digitals had a collective share of 18.9%, the five main channels had 65.6%.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 30.3% from Prime/7Qld (3 channels) on 28.8%, with SC Ten (3 channels) on 20.3%, the ABC (4) was on 16.0% and SBS (2) ended with 4.5%. The main channels were won by WIN/NBN on 23.0% from Prime/7Qld on 19.2%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.2%, from 7mate on 4.3% and GO and Eleven on 3.7% each. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 26.5%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 29.8% from WIN/NBN on 28.2%.

Major Markets: Nine’s night with wins overall and in the main channels in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven won overall in Adelaide, but Nine won the main channels. Perth saw a clean sweep to Seven. Eleven won Sydney, 7TWO won the rest. Seven leads Ten and Nine in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Seven leads Nine and Ten in Brisbane.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Lots of carbon wasted on the carbon tax, especially on the ABC. Four Corners‘ buy-in of a UK story on Italy’s refugee crisis earlier in the year (and a big hint about Europe’s problems) put our noisy and silly argument in some context. It should also have been a lesson to Four Corners how to compose and tell a long form story on a difficult subject.

MasterChef continued its absurd New York adventure which is a waste of money and self-indulgent.

Could Tracy Grimshaw have been any more gushing about Lady Gaga on ACA last night? Ms Gaga was fine, she is all about brand management. Ms Grimshaw and ACA were not good. Ms Grimshaw looked from another time. In terms of viewers, ACA got no boost whatsoever from last night’s exercise. In fact, Today Tonight had 262,000 more viewers across the country, especially in Perth. ACA won Melbourne and Brisbane, lost Sydney (where the interview was done).

Lady Gaga would have been better off appearing on Seven because Today Tonight is stronger across all five Australian metro TV markets whereas ACA is strong only in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

  • MasterChef Australia had 2.297 million viewers nationally last night with 539,000 regional viewers and 1.758 million in the metros.
  • The Block also did very well, with a national audience of 2.061 million, made up of 517,000 people in the regions and 1.544 million in the metros.

TONIGHT: Winners & Losers and Australia’s Got Talent on Seven. The Block on Nine. Sea Patrol is the final ever episode tonight at 8.30pm. MasterChef on Ten, Foreign Correspondent on the ABC which is on the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, which worsened significantly overnight. The Tour de France on SBS.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports