Howzat! bowls over audiences, Ten stumped by Everybody Dance Now

The contrast between Everybody Dance Now, the disjointed Kath & Kim: The Souvenir Editions on Seven and the first part of Howzat! Kerry Packer's War on Nine was illuminating.

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Nine’s night easily as Seven missed out and Ten slumped for a second Sunday in a row with Everybody Dance Now an even bigger failure than last week. The contrast between it, the disjointed Kath & Kim: The Souvenir Editions on Seven and the first part of Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War on Nine was illuminating. One was TV of the highest quality, another was seemingly a chopped up best of with a few bits of new stuff thrown into it. The third was a repeat of last week’s failure. Everybody Dance Now last night confirmed itself as the worst program on TV this year and for several years.

Nine’s Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War simply creamed the opposition averaging 2.09 million metro and 2.894 million national viewers and Nine won by a huge margin in metro and regional markets.

Ten was at least third (on an overall basis) in metro markets, but it was fourth in the main channels. In regional markets Ten fell to fourth in both measures as viewers turned right off its programs. The winner announcement of MasterChef All Stars averaged 1.050 million metro and 1.403 million national viewers. The finale (cooking part) of the program averaged 802,000 metro and 1.112 million national viewers. Not brilliant, but far better than the miserably weak 385,000 metro and 506,000 national viewers for Everybody Dance Now at 8pm. Flop, failure, turkey, you name it, it was it.

Big Brother held on, averaging 1.365 million metro and 1.816 million national viewers, down on the 1.6 million (and 2.25 million national) plus of the launch last Monday night. Despite that performance, it’s mindless. The comparison with Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War was telling: one class, the other pap.

Tonight: The hours of news and current affairs on the ABC. The X Factor on Seven (after Home and Away). GCB at 9pm on Seven is worth a look. Big Brother and Underbelly: Badness on Nine. SBS has the final of Man v Wild for this series. Ten has Can of Worms after Don’t Tell The Bride (moved up from Tuesdays). The Shire has been tucked away at 9.45pm where the grown-ups might miss it. The much-hyped Newsroom starts on Foxtel’s SoHo channel tonight.

After last night, Seven will be a bit nervy wondering about how The X Factor will go. The failure of Australia’s Got Talent and the success of Nine’s The Voice, will also add to the concerns. There is a lot riding on The X Factor tonight for the new management of Seven and Seven West Media.

Last Week: Nine won nationally and the regions, but Seven won Adelaide and Perth. Big Brother just doesn’t rate in Adelaide and Perth as it does in Sydney and Melbourne (but the audience dropped to 833,000 on Friday night in the metro markets). The ABC and ABC 1 finished third and in front of Ten after one of its worst weeks for some time. In fact, Ten’s top program for the week was Puberty Blues which was the 27th most watched program in metro markets. Nationally, it fell to Number 35. Even the ABC had three programs above it on the metro most watched list and a total of six in the national figures. Ten finished 4th on four nights. GO won the digitals after big nights on Friday and Saturday. Pay TV won Saturday night with the NRL, AFL and Rugby Union dominating.

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War (Nine) — 2.894 million
60 Minutes (Nine) — 2.180 million
Seven News — 2.151 million
Nine News — 2.022 million
Sunday Night (Nine) — 1.943 million
Big Brother (Nine) — 1.816 million
MasterChef All Stars (Ten) — 1.403 million
Kath & Kim: The Souvenir Editions (Seven) — 1.351 million
Grand Designs Revisited (ABC 1) — 1.230 million
ABC News — 1.198 million

The Metro Winners:

Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War (Nine) (8.30pm) — 2.097 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.513 million
60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.512 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.402 million
Big Brother (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.365 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.289 million
MasterChef All Stars (7.45pm) — 1.050 million

The Losers: Ten, from 8pm onwards.

Metro News & CA: Seven News lost Sydney and Melbourne, won the rest.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.513 million
60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.512 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.402 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.289 million
ABC News (7pm) — 822,000
Ten News (5pm) — 477,000
The Project (Ten) (6pm) — 334,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 229,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 143,000

In the morning: A quiet morning, but Offsiders was solid given the Olympics ended a week ago.

Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 333,000
Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 293,000
Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 189,000
Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 173,000 (+70,000)*
Insiders (ABC) (10.30pm) — 156,000
Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 150,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 142,000
Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 99,000

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 38.0% from Seven (3) on 25.5%, Ten was third with 15.9%, the ABC (4) was on 15.0% and SBS (2) ended on 5.6%. Main Channels. Nine won easily with 32.9% from Seven on 18.9%, ABC 1 was third with 12.1%, Ten was on 10.9% and SBS ONE was on 4.85.

Metro Digital: 7mate won with 3.8% from GO on 3.2%, 7TWO on 2.8%, Eleven and ONE ended with 2.5% each. Gem ended with 1.9%, ABC 2 was on 1.4%, News 24 and SBS TWO ended with 0.8% each and ABC 3 was on 0.7%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 20.4%.

Metro including Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 32.3% from Seven (3) on 21.7%, Ten was third with 13.5%, the ABC (4) was on 12.7% and SBS (2) ended on 4.7%. The 15 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of a high 87.2%. The five main channels share was 69.8%, the 10 digital channels share totalled 17.4%. Pay TV’s 200 plus channels on Foxtel had a low 12.8% share last night.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox Sports 2 (4.0%)
Fox Footy (3.4%)
TV1, Fox 8 (2.7%)
Fox Sports 1 (2.1%)
LifeStyle (1.7%)

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

NRL: Gold Coast v Parramatta (FS2) — 211,000
AFL: Footscray v Sydney (FF) — 136,000
NRL: Auckland v Gold Coast (FS2) — 134,000
AFL: Hawthorn v Gold Coast (FF) — 126,000
AFL: Port Adelaide v West Coast (FF) — 117,000

Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won easily with a share of 35.5% from Prime/7Qld (3) on 26.8%, with the ABC (4) on 17.6%, SC Ten (3) was 4th with 14.3% and SBS (2) ended with 5.8%. The main channels saw WIN/NBN win with 29.5%, from Prime/7Qld on 18.7%, ABC 1 was third with 14.0% and SC Ten was back in 4th on 9.1%. The digitals were won by 7mate with 4.1% from 7TWO on 3.9% and GO on 3.3%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 24.8%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War — 799,000
60 Minutes — 668,000
Sunday Night — 655,000
Seven News — 638,000
Nine News — 619,000

Major Metro Markets: Nine won everywhere and ABC 1 was third everybody, pushing Ten into 4th. Seven was second everywhere. Ten was third overall because of the solid performance of its digital channels, ONE and Eleven. GO won Sydney in the digitals, 7mate won Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Eleven won Brisbane, as it usually does.

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

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports