The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven’s night, easily, thanks to the Brownlow Medal broadcast, which was dreadful. Like bingo on a slow night at the bowlo or the RSL! No wonder there’s a concentration on what the girls are wearing down the red carpet, which is really a rip-off from the red carpet at the Oscars.

The Brownlow had 1.022 million metro viewers on Seven’s main channel and 7mate. Nationally it had 1.211 million main channel viewers and 121,000 on 7mate. That gave a final national FTA total of 1.332 million, while 232,000 watched Fox Footy on pay TV. That made the all up audience 1.564 million people.

Interestingly, Seven won big in regional areas with the Brownlow only dominating the smaller Victorian regional market. Seven’s second string offering in NRL markets won regional Queensland and ran a close second in northern and Southern NSW to WIN.

ABC 1 was very strong with Australian Story and Four Corners standing out. The Four Corners story on deprived kids and families in Sydney’s west was heartbreaking and made a mockery of what passed for discussion or debate on Q&A, with some audience members and Liberal MHR Kelly O’Dwyer standing out for being drongos. Banker Mark Carnegie made the most sense. Did host Tony Jones see the Four Corners ep as it went to air? It didn’t look like it. That would have been an ideal way to start the discussion. That was a bad example of silo thinking in ABC TV. Four Corners‘ ep last night was as strong as the story on youth suicide a few weeks ago. Brilliant TV.

Tonight: The X Factor and Winners & Losers on Seven. Big Brother on Nine (Anger Management thankfully ends, but will be back). Ten has I Will Survive. ABC 1 has Poh’s Kitchen helping out and Rock Stein in Spain. SBS ONE has Insight and Dateline.

Ratings update: Fade factor emerges in UK hits. The second episode of the third series of Downton Abbey, which averaged 8.4 million viewers on ITV1 on Sunday night. Not bad, but that was down on the equivalent episode from 2011, which averaged 9.6 million viewers. And on Saturday night, The X Factor averaged 8.2 million viewers over 90 minutes on ITV1. Last year, at the same stage, The X Factor averaged 10.3 million viewers, so the drop was a nasty 1.7 million viewers, which was the same for the Sunday night boot camp ep, which fell million from 2011’s 9.4 million people.

New show update: And we will have a new Kevin McCloud home show to watch (think Grand Designs). McCloud’s Man-Made Home, in which he builds a cabin using material found in the Somerset wood where it is to be situated, had a debut audience of 2.9 million viewers on Sunday night in the UK.

The top 10 national programs (metro and regional combined): Home and Away was pre-empted in Adelaide and Perth by the Brownlow coverage. ACA had its usual Monday night spotty coverage in regional areas.

  1. Seven News — 1.854 million.
  2. Nine News — 1.652 million.
  3. 7pm ABC 1 News — 1.498 million.
  4. Australian Story (ABC 1) — 1.357 million.
  5. Four Corners (ABC 1) — 1.230 million.
  6. Big Brother (Nine) — 1.244 million.
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.222 million.
  8. Brownlow Medal (Seven) — 1.211 million.
  9. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.204 million.
  10. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.192 million.

The metro winners:

  1. Seven 6pm News — 1.296 million.
  2. Nine 6pm News — 1.143 million.
  3. 7pm ABC 1 News — 1.033 million.
  4. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.022 million.

The losers: Ten, again.

Metro news and current affairs: Seven News won Sydney, lost Melbourne, won the rest. TT was pre-empted in Perth by the Brownlow Medal awards night from Melbourne.

  1. Seven 6pm News — 1.296 million.
  2. Nine 6pm News — 1.143 million.
  3. 7pm ABC 1 News — 1.033 million.
  4. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.022 million.
  5. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 955,000.
  6. Australian Story (ABC 1, 8pm) — 932,000.
  7. Four Corners (ABC 1, 8.30pm) — 847,000.
  8. 7.30 (ABC 1, 7.30pm) — 724,000.
  9. Media Watch (ABC 1, 9.20pm) — 722,000.
  10. Ten News At Five (Ten, 5pm) — 687,000.
  11. The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 624,000.
  12. Q&A (ABC 1, 9.35pm) — 591,000 + on News 24*.
  13. The Project (Ten, 6pm) — 414,000.
  14. Lateline (ABC 1, 10.35pm) — 265,000.
  15. World News Australia (SBS ONE, 6.30pm) — 173,000.
  16. Ten Late News (Ten, 10.30pm) — 136,000.
  17. The Business (ABC 1, 11.10pm, rpt) — 120,000.
  18. World News Australia (SBS ONE, 10.30pm) — 38,000.
  19. The Drum (News 24, 6pm) — 22,000.

*On News 24 simulcast

In the morning: Morning audiences were down because of school holidays in some states.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 327,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 301,000.
  3. The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 160,000.
  4. Mornings (Nine, 9am) — 125,000.
  5. News Breakfast (ABC 1, 7am) — 43,000 + 12,000 On News 24*.
  6. Breakfast (Ten, 7am) — 30,000.

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 35.0% from Nine (three) on 24.7%, the ABC (four) was third with 19.2%, Ten (three) was on 17.3% and SBS (two) ended on 3.7%. Seven leads the week with 33.3% from Nine on 26.2%, the ABC is on 18.8% and Ten is on 17.3%.

Main channels: Seven won with a share of 26.9% from Nine on 18.0%, ABC 1 was on 15.0%, Ten ended on 10.9% and SBS ONE was on 3.1%. Seven leads the week with 25.7% from Nine on 20.5%, ABC 1 with 15.2% and Ten with 11.1%.

Metro digital: 7TWO won with 5.4% from Eleven on 4.6%, GO on 4.0%, Gem and 7mate on 2.7% each, ABC 2 on 2.3%, ONE on 1.8%, ABC 3, 1.1%, News 24, 0.8% and SBS ONE, 0.6%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA share of 26.0% last night. 7TWO leads the week with 4.2%, from GO on 3.5% and 7mate on 3.4% and Eleven on 3.3%.

Metro including pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 28.8% from Nine (three) on 20.3%, the ABC (four) was third with 14.3%, Ten (three) was on 14.3% and SBS (two) ended on 3.1%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of 84.5% last night, with the five main channels share 63.0% and the 10 digital channels totalling 21.5%. Pay TV had a share of 15.5% in prime time last night for the 200-plus channels on Foxtel that was dominated by the long coverage of the Brownlow on Fox Footy.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Fox Footy — 4.5%.
  2. Fox 8 — 2.7%.
  3. TV 1 — 2.4%.
  4. Nickelodeon — 2.1%
  5. Cartoon Network, LifeStyle — 1.8%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. AFL: Brownlow (FF) — 232,000.
  2. AFL: 360 (FF) — 140,000.
  3. AFL: Footy Fashion Police (FF) — 98,000.
  4. Eastenders (UKTV) — 91,000.
  5. New Tricks (UKTV) — 79,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 35.2% from WIN/NBN (three) on 25.2%, the ABC (four) was third with 19.4%, SC Ten (three) was on 16.3% and SBS (two) ended on 3.9%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 24.6%, from 17.5%, ABC 1 was on 14.8%. The digitals were won by 7TWO with 7.0%, from Eleven with 4.8% and GO on 4.1%, The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 29.4%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 35.7% from WIN/NBN on 24.8%, ABC 1, 19.4% and SC Ten on 15.8%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. Seven News — 563,000.
  2. Nine News — 509,000.
  3. Home and Away — 471,000.
  4. 7pm ABC 1 News — 465,000.
  5. Australian Story — 424,000.

Major metro markets: A mixed night, dominated by the AFL Brownlow Medal award, which meant Seven won Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth easily and Nine won Sydney and Brisbane. Ten was third overall in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth where it shared the spot with the ABC. Ten was third in the main channels in Adelaide. The ABC and ABC 1 were third elsewhere including a shared second in the main channels with Seven in Sydney. In the digitals, 7TWO won Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. GO won Sydney, Eleven won Brisbane. Apart from Sydney where Nine leads the week, Seven is in front everywhere else.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data.