A mixed night, with Nine depending on the cricket on GEM, Seven having more viewers on the main channels and Ten scooping up the “young at heart” viewers with the first episode of Wonderland and in doing so, beating the ABC’s hour or so of political chattery and cattery in Gruen Nation and The Hamster Decides.

That three programs could only manage a million or more viewers in the five metro markets (one of which was Gruen) tells us it was an average night — just too much politics, and the Australian cricket revival occurred too late in the night. But they have done this before, promised much and folded in an hour.

With a central character not unlike Offspring’s Nina in her early days, Ten’s Wonderland was solid. Slow because the story has to be developed, but not a bad first up effort with 1.296 million national/948,000 metro/ 358,000 regional viewers. Now it has develop and tantalise and move away from a one trick storyline.

Gruen Nation was boring, like the election, but the audience edged higher with 1.531 million national/ 1.054 million metro/ 477,000 regional viewers.

The Hamster Decides eased to 1.081 million/ 774,000 metro/ 307,000 regional viewers from last week. They were at their best, nasty little creatures they are!  Seven’s Slideshow has stabilised  and last night averaged 1.441 million national/932,000 metro/ 509,000 regional viewers. Strong support from regional viewers.

I must also apologise for the leaders’ debate also being on 7TWO under something called Seven News Special (See, Seven was too scared to actually put “Leaders Debate” into the schedule), while SBS TWO changed horses and there it was. Ten and Nine made the wise choices and stayed away. The debate had 744,000 national viewers on News 24, (310,000) 7TWO (289,000), SBS TWO (57,000) and Sky News (88,000). And, for all the Sky News branding and the support of The Courier-Mail, it pulled just 88,000 viewers. It was a PR effort from Sky to improve its look as a credible news channel and boost David Speers.

US update: Fox has what is known as a “put pilot” agreement to produce a trial episode of A Moody Christmas, the hit ABC comedy from 2012.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (28.8%)
  2. Seven (26.6%)
  3. Ten (19.6%)
  4. ABC (14.4%)
  5. SBS (3.7%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (18.4%)
  2. Nine (16.6%)
  3. Ten (14.6%)
  4. ABC1 (14.4%)
  5. SBS ONE (3,7%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. GEM (8.3%)
  2. 7mate (4.7%)
  3. GO (3.9%)
  4. 7TWO (3.7%)
  5. ABC2 (3.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.757  million
  2. Nine News — 1.718 million
  3. Gruen Nation (ABC1) — 1.531 million
  4. SlideShow (Seven) — 1.441 million
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.392 million
  6. Wonderland (Ten) — 1.296 million
  7. ABC1 News — 1.226 million
  8. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.162 million
  9. QI repeat (ABC1) — 1.146 million
  10. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.141 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.209 million
  2. Seven News — 1.182 million
  3. Gruen Nation (ABC 1) — 1.054 million

Losers: No one really, oh, sorry, there’s The Mole, still troubling Seven viewers — 279,000 national/ 210,000 metro/ 69,000 regional viewers. Almost gone. 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.209 million
  2. Seven News — 1.182 million
  3. A Current Affair (Nine) — 926,000
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) — 933,000
  5. 7.30 (ABC1, 732,000, 151, News 24) — 883,000
  6. ABC1 News – 806,000
  7. Ten News At Five — 635,000
  8. The Project (Ten) — 593,000
  9. SBS ONE News – 190,000
  10. Lateline (ABC1) –0 181,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 395,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 315,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC1, 61,000 + 33,000 on News 24) — 94,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Sports 2  (4.5%)
  2. Fox 8  (3.0%)
  3. TV1 (2.7%)
  4. Sky news — (2.2%)
  5. LifeStyle – 2.0%

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Cricket: Ashes 5th Test, day 1, session 1 (Fox Sports 2) – 224,000
  2. Cricket: Ashes 5th Test, day 1, session 2 (Fox Sports 2)  – 153,000
  3. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 112,000
  4. NCIS (TV1) – 91,000
  5. People’s Forum  (Sky News ) – 88,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2013. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) Plus network reports.