Seven’s night and the week with another big audience for The X Factor and solid viewer numbers for The Blacklist, which James Spader continues to play off a break. He makes acting the part of the big bad baddie so effortless. Seven’s win in metro and regional markets wasn’t quite as dominant as on Sunday night, but the week has been won. The X Factor had 2.560 million national/ 1.673 million metro/ 887,000 regional viewers and The Blacklist had 2.227 million national/ 1.468 million metro/ 779,000 regional viewers. Nine’s Big Brother was out-watched (1.318 million national/ 914,000 metro/ 404,000 regional viewers) by the fresh episode of The Big Bang Theory  (1.488 million national/ 1.012 million metro/ 476,000 regional viewers).

And the hottest game in TV continued last night — it’s called spot the Ten viewer. They were there, somewhere, alone in Australian living rooms, or in front of computers, tablets or smartphones. ABC1 almost doubled Ten’s main channel share in metro markets — 16.1% v 8.6%. In regional markets ABC1 with 16.4% had nearly three times the share of Ten’s main channel share of a record low of 5.8%. This week’s meeting of Southern Cross Austereo, Ten’s regional affiliate, should be entertaining if anyone asks a question about Ten’s appalling ratings — all self-inflicted.

A League of Their Own at 7.30pm was hopeless, with 363,000 national/ 253,000 metro/ 110,000 regional viewers. That hurt an already underwhelming Homeland (537,000 national/ 404,000 metro/133,000 regional viewers) and  Blue Bloods still at 9.30pm (289,000 national/223,000 metro/ 66,000 regional viewers). Just why A League Of Their Own and Blue Bloods remain in the schedule is amazing. After all, the supposedly ratings shy ABC  booted the weak Serangoon Road from the Sunday night schedule yesterday for the final two episodes after the rotten audience figures for last Sunday night. If the ‘genteel’ ABC can show a bit of tough-minded realism in its programming, why not the supposedly commercially-minded Ten? Or is it that Ten has nothing left to fill the time slots?

News ratings were again impacted by Seven and Nine’s coverage of the bushfires with both networks going for an hour news from 6pm. Nine easily won Sydney and Melbourne from 6pm with a 169,000 winning margin in Sydney and 174,000 in Melbourne. Seven won Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. For the hour from 6-7pm in Sydney, Nine’s hour of news had 737,000 viewers in total, Seven had 569,000. Averaging the two half-hour blocks and Nine had 368,000 viewers and Seven had 285,000. In the breakfast battle, viewers clearly turned to Seven’s Sunrise for their bushfire updates yesterday ahead of Nine’s Today. Viewers also tuned into News 24 for ABC News Breakfast from 7am. The combined News 24/ABC1 audience jumped sharply to 131,000 yesterday in metro markets and nationally it had a combined 201,000 viewers  — almost double what it was getting before the fires erupted last Thursday.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (33.9%)
  2. Nine (27.9%)
  3. ABC (20.9%)
  4. Ten (14.1%)
  5. SBS (3.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (27.3%)
  2. Nine (21.5%)
  3. ABC 1 (16.1%)
  4. Ten (8.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (2.6%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (3.9%)
  2. GO (2.6%)
  3. Eleven (3.5%)
  4. 7mate, Gem (2.7%)
  5. ABC2 (2.5%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. The X Factor  (Seven) – 2.560 million
  2. The Blacklist (Seven) — 2.227 million
  3. Nine News — 1.922 million
  4. Seven News  – 1.801 million
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.494 million
  6. Australian Story (ABC1) — 1.464 million
  7. The Big Bang Theory (Nine) — 1.448 million
  8. ABC News — 1.423 million
  9. 7.30 (ABC1) — 1.380 million
  10. Four Corners (ABC1) — 1.325 million

Top metro programs:

  1. The X Factor (Seven) – 1.673 million
  2. The Blacklist (Seven) — 1.468 million
  3. Nine News — 1.314 million*
  4. Seven News — 1.187 million*
  5. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.045 million
  6. The Big Bang Theory repeat (Nine)  — 1.018 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.017 million
  8. The Big Bang Theory (Nine) — 1.012 million

* Hour News in Sydney only

Losers: Ten. Just plain weak. Deserted its viewers. Management needs rebooting if this is going to continue happening.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.314 million*
  2. Seven News — 1.187 million*
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.045 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.017 million
  5. 7.30 (ABC1) — 902,000
  6. Four Corners (ABC1) — 828,000
  7. Media Watch (ABC1) — 735,000
  8. Ten News — 718,000
  9. Q&A (ABC1, 614,000, 92,000 on News24) — 706,000
  10. The Project (Ten) — 559,000

* Hour news in Sydney only

Metro morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 409,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 3549000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC1, 69,000 + 62,000 on News 24) — 131,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (2.6%)
  2. TV1  (2.5%)
  3. LifeStyle  (2.4%)
  4. Sky News (1.7%)
  5. A&E, Disney  (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Futurama (Fox 8 ) – 60,000
  2. Phil Spencer Down Under (LifeStyle) – 159,000
  3. The Simpsons (Fox 8 ) – 58,000
  4. The Walking Dead (FX), New Tricks (UKTV), The Walking Dead (FX) — 57,000
  5. Family Guy (Fox 8 ) — 56,000

*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.) and network reports.