And the winner is ... Seven's Brownlow Medal

The Brownlow Medal coverage did it for Seven, just as it did it for Ten a year ago.

The Winners: Seven’s night, as the host network of the Brownlow Medal ceremony was the real winner from the night. Well, Collingwood’s Dane Swan was the winner. Seven can crow this morning at the solid figures such as an audience of 743,000 viewers in Melbourne on Seven.

The 7.30-8.15pm ” Blue Carpet Special” averaged 715,000 in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. The special coverage of the blue carpet in Sydney and Brisbane averaged 115,000 on 7mate. The Brownlow Medal count averaged 71,000 in Sydney and Brisbane on 7mate.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.304 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.210 million
2011 Brownlow Medal (Seven) (8.15pm) — 1.130 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.052 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.024 million

The Losers: Hard to judge with the Brownlow Medal on in southern markets. Nine did run dead, apart for The Farmer Wants a Wife which was watched by 864,000. Not a real loser, but it continues to lose ground each week.

News & CA: Seven News in Sydney had its first and best weekday win for weeks, 322,000 to 294,000. Seven also won the other markets, so a clean sweep.

A Current Affair started yet another week with fewer than a million viewers nationally — but won in Sydney. It had big losses elsewhere. That’s now 15 straight broadcast days with a national nightly metro audience less than a million. It is still popular in regional areas.

Sunrise and Today fell yesterday morning because of the spring school holidays in many states.

Four Corners had a powerful episode last night that reflected badly on the Catholic Church and the police and government of South Australia.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.304 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.210 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.024 million
ABC News (7pm) — 993,000
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 979,000
The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 778,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 671,000 (+ 31,000 on News 24 simulcast)
Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 656,000
Media Watch (ABC) (9.15pm) — 628,000
Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 616,000
Ten News (5pm) — 592,000
Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 533,000 (+57,000 on News 24 simulcast)
6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 429,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 218,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 160,000
Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11.30pm) — 150,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 113,000 (+23,000 on News 24 at 8.30pm)
SBS News (9.30pm) — 106,000

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 345,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 290,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 37.6% from Nine (3) on 22.5%, Ten (3) was on 20.2%, the ABC (4) was on 15.4% and SBS (2) ended on 4.2%. Seven now leads the week with 32.3% from Nine on 26.1% and Ten on 21.7%.
Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 30.3%, from Nine on 15.8%, Ten on 14.7%, ABC 1 was on 12.2% and SBS ONE was on 3.7%. Seven leads the week with 25.6% from Nine on 19.3% and Ten with 14.9%.
Digital: GO won with 4.5% from 7TWO on 4.3%, Eleven was on 3.6%, 7mate was on 3.0%, Gem was on 2.3%, ABC 2 was on 2.1%, ONE was on 1.9%, News 24 was on 0.7%, SBS TWO was on 0.6% and ABC 3 was on 0.5%. that’s an FTA viewing share last night of 23.5%. GO leads the week with 3.9%, from 7TWO on 3.8% and ONE on 3.5%.
Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.6%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 28.8%, SC Ten (3) was on 17.8%, the ABC (4) was on 15.3% and SBS (2) ended on 4.7%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 24.6% from WIN/NBN on 20.4%. GO won the digitals with 5.1%, from 7mate on 4.6% and 7TWO on 4.1%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 26.8%. Prime/7Qld leads the week on 32.1% with WIN/NBN on 28.8%. Prime/7Qld won without much help from the Brownlow Medal which failed to make the top 10 in regional markets, but helped Prime win regional Victoria. The five most watched programs last night were: 1. Seven News — 497,000; 2. ACA — 473,000; 3. Nine News — 472,000; 4. Home and Away — 433,000; 5.WIN News — 417,000.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 31.5%, from Nine (3) on 18.9%, Ten (3) was on 16.9%, pay TV (200-plus channels) was on 13.6%, the ABC, (4) was on 12.9% and SBS (2) ended on 3.6%. The 15 FTA channels had an 86.4% share of TV viewing last night. The 10 digital channels had 19.8% and the five main channels, 66.6%.

The five most-watched pay TV channels last night were:

Fox 8 (4.27%)
TV1 (1.88%)
UKTV (1.79%)
Disney (1.71%)
Fox Sports 2 (1.59%)

The five most-watched pay TV programs were:

Australia’s Net Top Model (Fox 8) — 137,000
The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 89,000
Family Guy (Fox 8) — 82,000
Eastenders (UKTV) — 81,000
QI (UKTV) — 78,000

Major Markets: In Sydney it was Seven from Ten and Nine, overall and the main channels. In Brisbane it was Seven from Nine and Ten . In the AFL markets of Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, it was Seven from Nine and Ten. HO won the digitals in Sydney and shares Perth with 7TWO. 7TWO was Melbourne and Adelaide and Eleven won in Brisbane. Nine leads the week from Seven and Ten in Sydney. Elsewhere it’s Seven from Nine and Ten.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The Brownlow Medal coverage did it for Seven, just as it did it for Ten a year ago. Faux Melbourne glamour proved too watchable in the AFL states.

In fact, the Brownlow Medal is handier for a TV network because it’s very popular in AFL markets and it’s a prime time program. As we will see on Saturday, the kudos for covering the grand final is great and the TV revenues are not to be sneezed at, but the ratings impact is not what it is cracked up to be. Ten will do well in the afternoon and early evening. But the rest of Saturday night is a write-off these days for the networks. It’s the lowest night of the week.

Next Sunday, Nine will get a very strong boost with the NRL premiership spill over into the first hour and a half of prime time from 6pm (it starts at 5 pm), meaning Nine will get a substantial ratings boost. The timing of the NRL GF is always better for television networks than the AFL.

The five most watched programs nationally last night were:

Seven News — 1.868 million
Home and Away — 1.557 million
Nine News — 1.535 million
ACA — 1.48 million
Today Tonight — 1.452 million

The Brownlow Medal ceremony at 8.15pm was 6th with 1.419 million. So like last weekend’s finals, the AFL was popular in southern markets, but not so hot elsewhere where NRL is popular. There is only one regional AFL market and that’s in Victoria. Regional South Australia and WA are too small to have a big impact on ratings, as is Tasmania.

Tonight: Seven has The X Factor and Packed to the Rafters. Nine has another fresh Two and a Half Men, and starts the new version of Charlie’s Angels, whose stars include Australia’s Rachel Taylor. It also have The Joy of Sets. Ten has The Renovators and a fresh starting episode for the new series of NCIS at 8.30 and a fresh episode of NCIS Los Angeles at 9.30. The ABC has Foreign Correspondent at 8 o’clock and SBS has the high quality Insight at 7.30.

Foreign ratings update: Charlie’s Angels averaged 8.7 million viewers when it made its debut last Thursday night in the US on ABC. That is considered barely OK and a fall below that this week will raise a question mark over the program’s future. The second episode of the US version of The X Factor on Fox Thursday night averaged 12.5 million viewers, steady on Wednesday night’s figures. But unlike the UK, it wasn’t enough to win either night for Fox overall. Wednesday night’s debut was beaten by ABC’s Modern Family with 14.3 million and Criminal Minds on CBS with 14.1 million.

On Thursday night, the second episode of The X Factor was beaten by an hour episode of The Big Bang Theory (14.2 million on CBS) and the debut episode of Person of Interest with 13.2 million on CBS (good for Nine which screened that first episode on Sunday night).

Tomorrow night’s debut from Nine of Prime Suspect, the US remake of the UK hit (which starred Helen Mirren) is already in trouble. It debuted on NBC last week and averaged 6 million viewers, which isn’t very good and surprised TV analysts. In fact, it was reported that Prime Suspect was NBC’s worst Thursday night premiere ever for the autumn (which is when most major new programs are launched in the US).

In Britain, the second episode of Seven’s Downton Abbey on Sunday night averaged 9.08 million (9.27 million the week before when the second channel figures were included). It beat the BBC’s Spooks for a second week with 4.15 million. The British version of The X Factor won Sunday night with 10.63 million, a bigger audience proportionally, than in the US or Australia.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports