The Winners: Seven’s night, overall, and in the main demos.

In good news, the first episode of The Slap on ABC 1 at 8.30pm won the timeslot, beating all the commercial efforts and averaged a solid 946,000 viewers. Quality wins out.

Four Weddings on Seven at 7.30pm 903,000. Beauty and The Geek Australia on Seven at 8.30pm, 863,000.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.101 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.101 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.037 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.035 million

The Losers: Rush at 8.30pm for Ten, 660,000. Fourth in the timeslot not good enough. It was beaten by the first episode of Unforgettable, 732,000 for Nine. Unforgettable‘s second hour episode averaged 693,000, so the audience stated with the program. The second episode won the 9.30pm timeslot.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne, easily, Seven won the rest, easily.

ACA won Sydney, TT won the rest.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.101 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.101 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.037 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 942,000
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 925,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 732,000 (+ 25,000 on News 24 simulcast)
  7. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 717,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 510,000
  9. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 386,000
  10. Lateline (ABC) (10.25pm) — 282,000
  11. SBS News (6.30pm) — 152,000
  12. SBS News (9.30pm) — 135,000
  13. Lateline Business (ABC) (11pm) — 132,000 (+ 17,000 on News 24 at 8.30pm)

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 337,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 296,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 29.7% from Nine (3) on 25.5%, Ten (3) was on 21.7%, the ABC (4) was on 18.5% and SBS (2) ended on 4.6%. Seven leads the week with 30.3% from Nine on 27.6% and Ten on 21.7%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 21.7% from Nine on 18.3%, Ten was on 15.0%, ABC 1, 14.6% and SBS ONE was on 3.9%. Seven leads the week with 22.4% from Nine on 20.5% and Ten with 16.2%.
  • Digital: GO won with 4.5%, from 7TWO on 4.3%, Eleven was on 3.9%, 7mate was on 3.7%, ONE was on 2.8%, ABC 2 and Gem finished with 2.7% each, SBS TWO was on 0.7%, News 24, 0.6% and ABC 3, 0.5%. That’s an FTA viewing share last night of 26.4%. 7TWO still leads the week with 4.4% from GO on 4.2% and Eleven on 3.6%.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 24.4% from Nine (3) on 21.0%, Ten (3) was on 17.9%, pay TV (200-plus channels), 15.3%, the ABC (4) was on 15.2% and SBS (2) ended with 3.8%. The 15 FTA channels had an 84.7% share of prime time TV viewing last night. The 10 digital channels had a share of 21.8% and the five main channels, 62.9%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Fox 8 (2.8%)
  2. Lifestyle (2.62%)
  3. TV1 (2.15%)
  4. Showtime Premiere (2.07%)
  5. Disney (2.05%)

The top five pay TV programs were:

  1. Coronation Street (UKTV) — 77,000
  2. Glee (Fox 8) — 77,000
  3. America’s Got Talent (Fox 8) — 69,000
  4. Eastenders (UKTV) — 66,000
  5. The Suite Life On Deck (Disney) — 63,000

Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 28.9% from Prime/7Qld on 27.1%, with SC Ten (3) on 21.1%, the ABC (4) was on 17.4% and SBS (2) ended with 5.6%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 20.4% from Prime/7Qld on 19.2%. GO won the digitals with 4.9% from Eleven on 4.2% and 7TWO on 4.0%. the 10 digital channels had an FTA share of 28.6% in prime time last night. Prime/7Qld still leads the week on 30.2% from WIN/NBN on 29.6: it will be a tight finish.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets last night were:

  1. Seven News — 480,000
  2. Nine News — 422,000
  3. A Current Affair — 412,000
  4. Home and Away — 405,000
  5. WIN News — 360,000 (excludes Tasmania, not available).

Major Markets: Seven won everywhere again, overall and the main channels. In Sydney, Nine was second and the ABC was third. In Melbourne and Brisbane, Nine and Ten filled the minor placings. In Adelaide and Perth it was Nine and Ten overall, while in the main channels the ABC was third in Perth and shared third in Adelaide with Nine. In the digitals, Go won Sydney and Adelaide, 7TWO won Melbourne, Eleven won Brisbane and 7Mate won Perth. Nine leads Seven and Ten in Sydney. Seven leads Nine and Ten in the four other metro markets.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: While it was Seven’s night, The Slap on the ABC stood out as a beacon. A good debut, but will viewers last? I could have watched more. It skewed strongly towards women (around 60% of viewers last night). It also got another 340,000 viewers in the major regional markets. Nearly 1.3 million people nationally. Very good figures. In fact, it was the ABC’s best Thursday night this year.

The Slap was produced by Matchbox Pictures and like so many other productions, underline the importance of the ABC and what it can and has to continue doing with its limited resources. Without the ABC, The Slap would not have been converted from a fine book into what looks like an equally fine series.

The five most-watched programs nationally last night were not available.

Tonight: Quiet. Better Homes and Gardens on Seven. Scott and Bailey on the ABC. Nine has a Harry Potter movie, which has been around the main channel and the digital channels a few times. Ten has back-to-back episodes of The Renovators.

Tomorrow: Nothing really, some Rugby World Cup on Fox Sports and on Nine. The ABC has final episodes of Dr Who and Monroe. (There goes the night!)

Sunday: Australia plays South Africa in the Rugby World Cup on Nine and Fox Sports (3.30pm). The NZ-Argentina game is on Gem in the evening. Nine also has 60 Minutes and Underbelly. Seven has a certain car race from Bathurst all day. It also has Sunday Night and the sliding Wild Boys. Ten has The Renovators, Junior MasterChef and Terra Nova. The ABC has the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. SBS has Dateline.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports