More than 2.2 million tune in to Two and a Half Men

The Winners: Nine’s night with the Ashton Kutcher first-up effort in Two and a Half Men attracting the prize. Will the 2.2 million-plus viewers return next week? More than half didn’t hang around at 9pm when the Joy of Sets debuted on Nine. That is not a promising sign for the latter program.

Two and a Half Men (Nine) (8.30pm) — 2.293 million
Two and a Half Men (Nine) (8pm) — 1.732 million
Packed to the Rafters (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.638 million
Two and a Half Men (Nine) (7.30pm) (repeat) — 1.438 million
The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.429 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.305 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.279 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.170 million
The Joy Of Sets (Nine) (9pm) — 1.165 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.036 million

The Losers: The Renovators, of course, on Ten with 650,000.

The Charlie Sheen Roast on Nine at 9.30pm, the 850,000 viewers was OK, but down over 300,000 on The Joy Of Sets. It did beat Dinner Date UK on Seven at 9.30pm with 556,000, but it was a race to the bottom by the two below average programs.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney by a big 85,000 over Seven News, but lost the rest, including Melbourne by a bigger margin of 107,000 viewers. Deal or No Deal beat Hot Seat nationally by 2000 viewers, but lost Sydney by 36,000, which was only part of the larger margin at 6pm. In Melbourne, Deal or No Deal won by just over 20,000, which was only a part of that much bigger winning margin for the news at 6pm.

Today Tonight won in all five metro markets, with a 15,000 margin in Sydney, which was in effect a 51,000 turnaround. ACA had yet another night under the million viewer mark.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.305 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.279 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.036 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 969,000
ABC News (7pm) — 948,000
The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 755,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 575,000 (+ 28,000 on News 24 simulcast)
Ten News (5pm) — 570,000
Foreign Correspondent (ABC) (8pm) –526,000
6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 380,000
Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.30pm) — 275,000
Insight (SBS) (7.30pm) — 190,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.35pm) — 177,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 171,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 135,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.10pm) — 101,000 (+ 8,000 on News 24 at 8.30pm)

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 384,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 322,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) ended with a share of 31.6%, all but tying Nine (3) on 31.5%. Ten (3) was on 18.6%, the ABC (4) was on 13.4% and SBS (2) ended on 4.8%. Seven leads the week on 33.4% from, Nine on 28.8% and Ten on 18.2%.
Main Channel: The result was clearer here with Nine the winner with 27.3% from Seven on 25.7%, Ten was on 13.9%, ABC 1, 9.6% and SBS ONE, 3.8%. Seven leads the week with 26.4% from Nine on 23.0% and Ten on 12.7%. ABC 1 is on 11.6%.
Digital: 7TWO won with 3.3%, from Eleven on 3.0%, 7mate was on 2.6%, ABC 2 was on 2.5%, Gem was on 2.3%, GO was on 1.9%, ONE was on 1.6%, SBS TWO ended on 1.1%, ABC 3, 0.7% and News 24 was on 0.6%. That’s a total FTA viewing share last night of 19.6%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.0% from Eleven on 3.7% and 7mate and GO on 3.0% each.
Regional: By contrast to the metro markets, Nine lost last night in regional areas: Two And A Half Men just wasn’t popular enough. Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.9% from WIN/NBN (3) on 28.8%, SC Ten (3) was on 19.5%, the ABC (4) was on 13.1% and SBS (2) ended on 4.6%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels clearly with 26.5% from WIN/NBN on 23.5%. 7TWO won the digitals with 3.9%, from 7mate on 3.5% and Gem and Eleven on 3.2% each. The 120 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 22.8%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 34.2% from WIN/NBN on 29.9%. The top five programs in regional areas last night were: 1. Packed to the Rafters — 670,000; 2. Two and a Half Men (8.30 pm) — 667,000; 3. The X Factor — 557,000; 4 Two and a Half Men — (8 pm), 539,000; 5. ACA — 514,000.

Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) and Seven (3) tied with a share of 36.7%, from Ten (3) on 15.7%, pay TV (200-plus channels) was on 13.0%, the ABC (4) was on 11.3% and SBS (2) was on 4.1%. The 15 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of 87.0%, one of the highest for some weeks. The 10 digital channels had a share of 16.7%, low by recent standards. The 70.3% share of the five main channels was the highest for some time (and the Pay TV share of 13.0% was also the lowest for a while).

The five most watched pay TV channels were:

Fox Sports 2 (3.32%)
Fox 8 (3.16%)
Lifestyle (2.09%)
TV1 (2.03%)
111 Hits (1.58%)

The five most watched pay TV programs were:

Cricket: Australia versus Sri Lanka (Fox Sports 2) — 105,200
Family Guy (Fox 8) — 81,000
AFL: AFL Insider (Fox Sports 1) — 75,300
Futurama (Fox 8) — 69,600
The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 64,400

Major Markets: Nine’s night. Nine won Sydney overall and in the main channels from Nine and Ten. In Melbourne and Brisbane, Seven won overall, but Nine won the main channels. In Adelaide and Brisbane, Two and a Half Men didn’t grab viewers as strongly and Seven won overall and in the main channels. 7TWO won Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. Eleven won Melbourne and 7mate won Brisbane. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in all markets, but it will end up closer than it seems with the NRL and AFL finals on Friday and Saturday nights.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The return of Two and a Half Men did better than some expected, including me.

The top five programs nationally were:

Two and a Half Men (8.30pm) — 3.002 million
Packed to the Rafters — 2.413 million
Two and a Half Men (8 pm) — 2.293 million
The X Factor — 2.071 million
Two and a Half Men (7.30pm) — 1.963 million

Nine used the fresh Two and a Half Men less than 24 hours after it went to air in the US on CBS. The episode was the start of the ninth season of this series. It drew 27.8 million viewers when it aired at 9pm eastern time in the US. The Charlie Sheen Roast on Comedy Central averaged 6.4 million viewers, the highest ever for the pay TV channel.

Tonight: Seven has another World’s Strictest Parents and then Criminal Minds: Suspect Behaviour. Nine has another weak night with Ocean Giants, plus RPA for 90 minutes from 8.30.

The ABC has Poh’s Kitchen at 8, Spicks and Specks at 8.30. The final Gruen Transfer of the year at 9 o’clock and then that episode (the nude flag one) of At Home With Julia.

Ten has a fresh Glee at 8.30 after 30 minutes (too long) of The Renovators.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports