The Winners: Nine’s night, but it could have been stronger if it had had a decent program at 8.30pm. Ten will be very worried after last night. A bad night with The Renovators having a weak start to life. Seven will be looking and wondering why they didn’t lose by more.

  1. The Block (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.828 million
  2. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.734 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.668 million
  4. Seven News (6pm) — 1.528 million
  5. Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.284 million
  6. 60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.261 million
  7. Midsomer Murders (ABC) (8.30pm) — 1.154 million
  8. Australia’s Got Talent (sneak peak) (Seven) (7.25pm) — 1.096 million
  9. Bones (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.071 million
  10. Grand Designs (ABC) (7.30pm) — 1.040 million

The Losers: The Renovators on Ten: 858,000. Not good enough. The movie on Nine — Panic at Rock Island: 596,000 — very weak. The repeat of NCIS on Ten at 8.30pm,309,000. Viewers were bailing out of The Renovators before the NCIS repeat started at 9.40pm.

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

Landline at noon on ABC1 needs a special commendation for yesterday’s episode: good reports on the Charles Darwin University cattle deaths scandal and a very good report on the developing story on farmers vs. gas companies and miners, with an interview with the sleeper story from a week or so ago, the new head of the NSW Farmers group, Fiona Simson, who rolled National Party connected heavy, Charles Armstrong.

  1. Nine News (6pm) — 1.668 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.528 million
  3. Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.284 million
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.261 million
  5. ABC News (7pm)  — 801,000
  6. Ten News (5pm) — 486,000
  7. Ten News (6pm) — 444,000
  8. SBS News (6.30pm) — 285,000
  9. The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 141,000
  10. Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 139,000

In the morning:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 406,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 336,000
  3. Landline (ABC) (noon) — 202,000
  4. Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 190,000
  5. The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 160,000
  6. Offsiders (ABC) (10.30pm) — 129,000
  7. Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 110,000
  8. Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 101,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 26.2% from Seven (3) on 24.4%, Ten (3) was on 23.8%, the ABC (4) was on 15.4% and SBS (2) ended with 10.3%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with a share of 20.1%, from Seven on 19.6%, Ten was on 16.7%, ABC 1 was on 13.2% and SBS ONE ended with 9.5% with the final night of the TDF.
  • Digital: ONE and GO tied with 3.8% each, from Eleven with 3.2%, 7TWO and 7mate on 2.4% each, Gem was on 2.3%, ABC 1 was on 1.3%, SBS TWO was on 0.7%, News 24 ended with 0.5% and ABC 3 was on 0.3%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA viewing share of 20.7% last night.
  • Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 22.2%, Seven (2) was on 20.8%, with Ten (3) on 29.2%, the ABC (4) was on 13.1%, Pat TV (200 plus channels) ended with 12.6% and SBS (2) ended with 8.7%. The 15 FTA channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 87.4%, the 10 digital channels had a combined share of 17.8% and the five main channels, 69.6%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 27.5%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 25.9%, SC Ten (3) was on 22.1%, the ABC (4) ended with 15.8% and SBS (2) was on 8.7%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 21.5% from WIN/NBN on 19.3%. ONE won the digitals with 4.1% with Eleven and GO were tied on 3.7% each. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA viewing share last night of 24.3%.

Major Markets: Nine won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane: In Sydney, Seven was second and Ten third. In Melbourne, it was Ten before Seven. In Brisbane, Ten was second overall, Seven was second in the main channels in Brisbane. In Adelaide, Seven and Nine toed overall and Seven won the main channels from Nine and Ten. In Perth, it was Seven from Ten and Nine. The TDF was in prime time in Perth, so SBS ONE pushed Nine to third and finished second to Seven’s main channel. GO won Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. ONE won Sydney and Adelaide with the Grand Prix. Nine’s main channel actually finished 5th in Perth, behind the ABC in 4th.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Last week, Seven might have won overall and the main channels, but it was the closest week of the year so far. Seven won the AFL markets, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won the NRL states, Sydney and Brisbane. 7TWO beat GO narrowly (0.1%) in the digitals. Interestingly, the under-resourced ABC 2 beat Ten’s ONE digital channel with a share of 2.2% to 2.0%. So much for the revamp. ONE’s audience has faded, despite boost like last night when it has broadcast the F1 Grand Prix races with Australia’s Mark Webber.

One other very odd point: why did ONE broadcast pap sport like snowboarding, the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy racing and power boat racing yesterday from around noon when it could have been showing the World Swimming Championships first morning session from Shanghai? The only answer is cost cutting and that all sport on ONE will eventually be flicked in favour of more young-male-skewing programs.

Meanwhile, Ten is facing real concerns. The Renovators is an expensive flop: 858,000 viewers just isn’t good enough after more than 1.7 million people watched MasterChef: that’s the year’s biggest floperoo! The Block comprehensively won the battle of the reno shows last night. Nearly 900,000 viewers didn’t stay around: they chose correctly.

The Renovators has episodes Monday through Thursday to try and build audience off the back of the concluding episodes of MasterChef. It will be a big test. Ten has millions of dollars at stake in this big budget-contrived reality program which is designed as the big audience draw card after MasterChef finishes.

The Renovators can be excused last night on one ground only: it was the establishing program for the series, but people didn’t stick around to watch. The first new Midsomer Murders with 1.154 million on the ABC and the returning Bones on Seven with 1.071 million, had more viewers.

Based on what I saw last night and the audience’s reaction, Ten is going to have a battle for the next couple of months, if The Renovators lasts that long. It has to start averaging a million plus viewers a night.

Seven will struggle this week, but so will Ten.

  • The Block had 2.419 million national viewers last night with 591,000 in the regionals and 1.828 million in the metro markets
  • MasterChef had 2.266 million national viewers last night with 532,000 viewers in the regions and 1.734 million in the five metro markets.
  • Seven’s Sunday Night had 1.918 million viewers nationally, with 634,000 in the regions (beating The Block) and 1.284 million in the metro markets.
  • 60 Minutes had 1.7 million viewers (540,000 in the regions and 1.261 million in the metro markets).

On Friday night, an average 604,000 viewers watched the SBS coverage of the Tour de France from 10pm to 2am.

On Saturday it jumped to 690,000 from 10pm to 1.30am. But the finish of Cadel Evans’ Time Trial saw the audience hit 990,000 from 1am to 1.15am, Sydney time (earlier in Adelaide and Perth). That was almost 100% of the TV audience at that time.

Last night the final stage into Paris averaged 704,000 viewers on SBS from 10pm to after midnight. There was a peak audience of 961,000 from around 10.45pm to 11pm Sydney time.

Tonight: The Block on Nine. MasterChef on Ten. The Amazing Race Australia on Seven. The usual news and current affairs hours on the ABC from 7pm.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports