The Winners: A weak line-up for the night. Seven didn’t have a million viewer program after 7pm.

The Footy Show on Nine at 9.30pm: 673,000 nationally: 306,000 in Melbourne and a paltry 146,000 in Sydney and 77,000 in Brisbane for the NRL version. That’s an act of TV charity from Nine, but it has to keep it on air because of the NRL broadcast contract.

The Tour de France audience on SBS jumped to average 456,000 from 10pm.

  1. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.605 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.312 million
  3. The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.265 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.216 million
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.066 million

The Losers: Law & Order: Los Angeles: How do you spell floperoo? 514,000 for Seven about 8.40pm (for two hours). The Vicar of Dibley repeat at 7.30pm averaged 617,000. Enough said.

Crownies on the ABC at 8.30pm: 586,000. That’s down 120,000 from the first episodes 706,000 (for a longer episode) last week. That’s not good.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney, Seven won the rest. ACA and TT tied Sydney, TT won the rest.

Today surged after around three weak weeks and got to within 7000 of Sunrise yesterday morning.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.312 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.216 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.066 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 987,000
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 853,000
  6. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 807,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 641,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 525,000
  9. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.20pm) — 245,000
  10. SBS News (6.30pm) — 203,000
  11. Lateline (ABC) (10.20pm) — 180,000
  12. SBS News (9.30pm) — 169,000
  13. Lateline Business (ABC) (10.55pm) — 109,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 370,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 363,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 29.0% from Ten (3) on 25.0% with Seven (3) on 23.2%, the ABC (4) was on 13.9% and SBS (2) was on 9.0%. Seven leads the week with 28.8% from Nine on 26.2% and Ten on 24.6%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with 21.0% from Ten with 19.3%, Seven was on 16.0%, ABC 1 was on 10.0% and SBS TWO finished with 8.3% (and thanks to the TDF, very close to beating ABC 1 and did so from 10 pm onwards). Seven leads the week with 22.0% from Nine on 19.9% and Ten on 19.2%.
  • Digital: GO won with 5.2% from Eleven on 4.0%, with 7mate on 3.8%, 7TWO on 3.4%, Gem was on 2.7%, ABC 2 was on 2.5%, ONE was on 1.7%, ABC 3 was on 0.8%, SBS TWO was on 0.7%, News 24 was on 0.6%. That’s a total FTA viewing share of 25.4%. Collectively more people watched the digital channels than watched any of the main channels on FTA TV last night. GO and Eleven lead the week on 3.6%, with 7TWO on 3.4%.
  • Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 24.0% from Ten (3) on 20.8%, Seven (3) was on 19.2%, the ABC (4) was on 11.5%, and SBS (2) ended with 7.4%. The 15 FTA channels had an 86% share of TV viewing last night. The 10 digital channels had a total share of 20.2% and the five main channels share was 65.8%.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 30.0% from Prime/7Qld on 25.8%, SC Ten (3) was on 22.5%, the ABC (4) was on 13.1% and SBS (2) averaged 8.5%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 21.9% from Prime/7Qld on 16.9% and SC Ten on 16.8%. 7mate won the digitals with 6.0% from GO on 5.3% and Eleven on 4.1%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA viewing share last night of 27.3%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 30.8% from WIN/NBN on 27.6%. Interestingly, even though MasterChef was the most watched program in regional markets last night, it wasn’t enough to push SC Ten past Prime/7Qld, despite the weak line up on the Seven Network.

Major Markets: Nine’s night, sort of, Nine won Sydney overall from Ten and Seven, but Ten won the main channel from Nine and Seven. Nine won Melbourne overall and in the main channels, and it also won Adelaide, but with Seven second and Ten third. Seven won Perth overall and the main channels with Nine second overall and Ten third.

In the main channels Ten was second and Nine was a distant third. In Brisbane, it was Ten from Nine and Seven overall and in the main channels. GO won everywhere bar Perth where 7mate got home. Seven leads Nine and Ten in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. in Melbourne Seven and Nine share the lead, in Perth it’s Seven from Ten and Nine.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Probably Seven’s worst night of the year so far. Law & Order: Los Angeles was a flop, outrated by the repeat of the Vicar of Dibley. (Which was probably a repeat of a repeat after the ABC had finished with it and 7TWO and Seven on Saturday nights!).

Law & Order: Los Angeles joins NCIS Los Angeles, CSI New York and CSI Miami, Hawaii Five-O, Burn Notice and White Collar in the failure stakes for US cop/crime shows. And, after initial success, you can add the dying list The Mentalist on Nine.

The original CSI is a weak shadow of its former self. Burn Notice and White Collar are other flops from the US crime departments (both Ten) as is Detroit 1-8-7 which came and went on Seven earlier in the year. Only the likes of Criminal Minds, Bones and Castle (All Seven) remain as successes.

The original Law and Order has gone, while the two successful spin offs, SVU and Criminal Intent die a slow death filling holes in Ten’s schedule on Friday nights or on Eleven, the digital channel. A repeat of SVU averaged 692,000 for Ten at 8.30 last night.

  • MasterChef Australia had a national audience of 2.188 million viewers with 583,000 in regional markets and 1.605 million in the five metro markets. For a Thursday that’s pretty good.
  • The Block‘s national audience was 1.732 million with 467,000 in the regions and 1.265 million in the metro markets. Solid.

TONIGHT: AFL and NRL on Nine and Seven in various markets. The Tour de France on SBS. Better Homes and Gardens on Seven in some markets. Silent Witness on the ABC. MasterChef master class on Ten.

Saturday: NRL/AFL on Foxtel. AFL on Ten. The Tour de France on SBS (the time trial at Grenoble). Kingdom on the ABC. Nine has the Tri-Nations Rugby Test from Sydney in Sydney and Brisbane.

Sunday: The morning chats. NRL/AFL on Seven, Nine and Foxtel. The final stage and finish of the Tour de France. Sunday Night and Great Migrations on Seven. The Block on Nine. MasterChef on Ten, followed by the debut of The Renovators. Midsomer Murders on the ABC.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports