The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven won the first night of 2013 official ratings, thanks to consistently solid figures from 6.30pm to 10pm.

Sunday Night averaged 1.346 million metro and 1.938 million national viewers, Border Security won 1.395 million metro and 1.987 million million nationally (and was the most-watched program on TV last night). The Force at 8pm had 1.339 million metro and 1.972 million national viewers and Downton Abbey averaged 1.331 million from 8.30 to 10pm in metro markets and more than 1.9 million nationally. Very solid figures metro figures, very strong nationally where Seven had the top five programs on the night across the country. But Nine got up in the regions thanks to the news and the night session of the one day international. They still love their cricket.

Sunday Night kicked off Seven’s procession last night with its soft as soap interview with James Packer by Mike Willesee. Both are former media proprietors, but James Packer has the real money and clout, and it showed on Seven last night.

In the 16 to 54 age groups, Nine can claim a win (Seven’s programs appealed more to over 55s). Nine News and the cricket appealed strongly to men 16 to 54s and older. So it comes down to a question of who do you want watching your programs: women who control a lot of spending, especially in relationships, or men, who are not really big spenders across the board except for the likes of cars, beer, etc?

That’s why Nine’s fifth one day international cricket still managed more than a million metro and 1.686 million national viewers from 6.30pm to around 10pm. Ten’s MasterChef: The Professionals saw its ratings pick up from the lows of last week without My Kitchen Rules around to eat its viewers. It averaged 1.028 million metro viewers and 1.4 million national watchers. Ten’s Modern Family had 922,000 metro watchers (and 1.287 million nationally) and Elementary at 8.30pm averaged 944,000 in the metro markets (down 300,000 from the previous Sunday) and 1.288 million nationally, which was also down. However, the competition was tougher last night than a week earlier.

MasterChef: The Professionals and Elementary were first and second in Ten’s core demos of 16 to 39s and 18 to 49s and second and third in the key 25 to 54 age group. That was probably Ten’s best performance on a competitive night for more than seven months.

ABC1’s Midsomer Murders was squeezed in its first episode of the new series and it averaged 723,000 metro and 1.091 million national viewers for what was a silly 90 minutes of TV.

The discussion on Offsiders (160,000 metro and 238,000 nationally) was the most intelligent yet about the banned substances in sport story. Insiders averaged 129,000 metro ABC1 viewers and 66,000 on News 24 (and 224,000 on ABC1 and 120,000 on News 24 combined). Inside Business had 134,000 and 217,000 national viewers.

Seven announced today that Kate Ritchie is turning to Home and Away after several years free of the soap where she spent 20 years as Sally Fletcher. She will be spending eight weeks on the program (40 episodes) as part of the program’s 25th anniversary. Home and Away isn’t in trouble and needing a ratings jolt from a “golden oldie”.

Tonight: More ratings moves tonight. My Kitchen Rules on Seven, with Revenge to follow. Nine has dropped back to back fresh episodes of The Big Bang Theory into the schedule after the weak The Block All Stars. The ABC has its usual four hours or so of news and current affairs: 7.30 and Four Corners, plus Australian Story look like the hilts tonight. Ten has MasterChef: The Professionals and then returns Can of Worms at 8.30pm with a live episode instead of the pre-record. Will host Chrissie Swan ask a question about smoking in public while pregnant and how to handle media pics of that act?

The big interest tonight is whether My Kitchen Rules‘s figures maintain last week’s surge, or whether they start easing off.

As expected Seven won the last week of ratings thanks to the breakout figures for My Kitchen Rules. Seven won metro and regional markets.

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

  1. Border Security (Seven) — 1.987 million.
  2. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.938 million.
  3. Downton Abbey (Seven) — 1.936 million.
  4. The Force (Seven) — 1.864 million.
  5. Seven News — 1.864 million.
  6. One day international cricket: session two (Nine) — 1.686 million.
  7. Nine News — 1.488 million.
  8. MasterChef: The Professionals  (Ten) — 1.399 million.
  9. One day international cricket: session one (Nine) — 1.376 million.
  10. Elementary (Ten) — 1.288 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. Nine News (6pm) — 1.401 million.
  2. Border Security (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.395 million.
  3. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.346 million.
  4. The Force (Seven, 8pm) — 1.339 million.
  5. Downton Abbey (Seven. 8.30pm) — 1.331 million.
  6. Seven News (6pm) — 1.306 million.
  7. One day international cricket: session two (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.078 million.
  8. MasterChef: The Professionals (Ten, 7.30pm) — 1.028 million.

The Losers: No one really, a fairly even night. Metro News & CA: The cricket as a lead-in made comparisons unfair. Tonight will be different.

  1. Nine News (6pm) — 1.401 million.
  2. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.346 million.
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.306 million.
  4. ABC1 News (7pm) — 741,000.
  5. Ten News (Ten, 5pm) — 497,000.
  6. SBSONE News (6.30pm) — 120,000.

In the morning: Landline at noon confirmed why it is still one of the most interesting current affairs programs on TV. The story on beef producers and retailing was an eye opener, just like the story on the Yass Tribune and its bushfire coverage was the previous Sunday.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 8am) — 342,000.
  2. Today (Seven, 8am) — 268,000.
  3. Landline (ABC1, 1 pm) —  217,000.
  4. Offsiders (ABC1, 10.30am) — 160,000.
  5. Inside Business (ABC1, 10am) — 134,000.
  6. Insiders (ABC1, 9am) — 129,000 + 66,000 on News 24.

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 34.0%, from Nine (three) on 28.9%, Ten (three) on 19.2%, the ABC (four) on 14.4% and SBS (three) on on 3.5%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 26.8% from Nine on 23.1%, Ten was on 15.2%, ABC1 was on 11.6% and SBS ONE was on 2.9%.

Metro Digital: Another low viewing night, 7TWO and 7mate tied the night with 3.6%, from Gem on 3.2%, GO was on 2.6%, ONE was on 2.2%, Eleven was on 1.8%, ABC2 was on 1.4%, ABC3, 0.8%, News 24, 0.7%, SBS TWO was on 0.4% and NITV ended on 0.3%. The 11 digital channels had an FTA share of a low 20.6% last night.

Metro including pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 28.6%, from Nine (three) on 24.3%, Ten (three) on 16.1%, the ABC (four) on 12.1% and SBS (three) on on 3.0%. The 16 FTA channels had a total viewing share of 86.4%, made up of a low 17.2% for the 11 digital channels and 69.2% for the five main channels. Pay TV’s show was a low 13.6% for the 200 plus channels on Foxtel.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Foxtel Movie Premiere — 3.1%.
  2. TV1 — 2.1%.
  3. Fox8 — 2.8%.
  4. 111 Hits — 1.8%.
  5. LifeStyle — 1.7%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. Battleship (Foxtel Movie Premiere) — 142,000.
  2. Last Man Standing (Fox8) — 10.8,000.
  3. Modern Family (Fox8) — 94,000.
  4. A League: Sydney v/ Brisbane (Fox Sports 1) — 90,000.
  5. The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Arena) — 84,000.

Regional: WIN/NBN (three channels) won with a share of 34.7%, from Prime/7Qld (three) on 32.4%, SCTen (three) on 15.8%, the ABC (four) on 13.7% and SBS (three) on on 3.4%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 26.5% from Prime/7Qld on 24.9%, SC Ten on 11.5% and ABC1 on 11.1%. Gem won the digitals with 4.4% from 7mate on 4.3% and GO on 3.8%. the 11 channels had an FTA share last night of a low 23.2%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. Nine News —  634,000.
  2. One day international cricket: session two — 609,000.
  3. Downton Abbey — 605,000.
  4. Sunday Night — 592,000.
  5. Border Security — 590,000.

Major Metro Markets: A clean sweep for Seven overall, but not in the main channels, where Nine won narrowly, thanks to the better figures for the 6pm news. Nine and Ten filled the minor placings in all five metro markets with the latter making a solid start to the week. In the digitals 7TWO won Sydney and Melbourne. Meanwhile, 7mate won Brisbane and Adelaide and Gem won Perth.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data