Seven’s night because viewers liked Dancing With The Stars (1.821 million national/ 1.222 million metro/ 599,000 regional viewers), making it the most-watched program in metro, regional and national markets. Nine was weak, Ten and the ABC fought it out for third and all but split the position in metro markets. In regional markets Seven was a bigger winner and the ABC scored a larger victory over Ten for third spot.

It was an average night — barely — but lifted by the second part of the Keating interview on ABC1, which had 1.149 million national/ 781,000 metro/ 368,000 regional viewers. You would not have had the same result if any of the klutzes from The Australian had been allowed near Paul Keating to do the interview. It also shows the huge difference between the pretensions of newspaper journalists as interviewers and skilled TV journalists such as Kerry O’Brien (and others at the ABC such as Tony Jones and Leigh Sales) and why they’re are paid a lot of money. So far the two parts have had over two million viewers — a number newspapers can only dream of these days.

With the 30th anniversary of the floating of the dollar next month (and a big speech tomorrow night by RBA Governor, Glenn Stevens in Sydney on the topic), Keating’s musings on the float and the argy bargy surrounding the decision was wonderful historical television. ‘Red’ Kerry O’Brien’s swan song is turning out to be his all-time triumph. The interview and subjects covered (and Keating’s performance) shows us what a sterile, conservative political culture and policy debate we have now and have had for years. And if you think about the situation dispassionately, Tony Abbott (freed of his self-imposed straitjacket) is the politician closest these days to the Keating model, a bit rogue, a bit dangerous, very clever, with a lot of rat cunning.

The Australian win over Costa Rica in a friendly soccer game last night in Sydney was watched by 226,000 people on Fox Sports 3 on Foxtel. If it had been on SBS, the audience would have been much, much larger. A lurch upwards for Ten’s Wake Up — 55,000 national/ 41,000 metro/ 14,000 regional viewers, and for Studio 10 with 57,000 national/ 38,000 metro viewers/ 19,000 regional viewers. Seven’s Sunrise had almost 10 times Wake Up’s audience at 401,000 metro viewers and 661,000 national viewers. And changes on Wake Up’s on air line up from tomorrow, with Natasha Exelby boned as of this morning.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (33.7%)
  2. Nine (23.4%)
  3. Ten (18.7%)
  4. ABC (18.5%)
  5. SBS (5.8%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (25.2%)
  2. Nine (17.6%)
  3. ABC1 (13.3%)
  4. Ten (13.1%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.9%)
  2. 7mate (3.9%)
  3. ABC2 (3.3%)
  4. Eleven (3.2%)
  5. GO (3.0%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Dancing With The Stars (Seven) – 1.821 million
  2. Seven News — 1.704 million
  3. Nine News — 1.578 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) –  1.560 million
  5. ABC  News — 1.302 million
  6. The Big Bang Theory repeat (Nine) — 1.187 million
  7. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.181 million
  8. 7.30 (ABC1) — 1.161 million
  9. Keating (ABC1) — 1.149 million
  10. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.100 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Dancing With The Stars (Seven) – 1.222 million
  2. Seven News — 1.118 million
  3. Nine News — 1.103 million

Losers: People who missed the second part of the Keating interview. Valuable history by a history maker.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.118 million
  2. Nine News — 1.103 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) – 933,000
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) – 904,000
  5. ABC News – 878,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC1) — 755,000
  7. Foreign Correspondent (ABC1) — 533,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 531,000
  9. The Project (Ten) — 491,000
  10. Insight (SBS ONE) — 207,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 401,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 341,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 194,000
  4. Mornings (Nine) — 109,000
  5. News Breakfast (ABC had 71,000 + 42,000 on News 24) — 113,000
  6. Wake Up (Ten) — 41,000
  7. Studio 10 (Ten) — 38,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Sports 3  – (3.1%)
  2. TV1 – (2.9%)
  3. LifeStyle – (2.6%)
  4. Fox 8 – (2.5%)
  5. LifeStyle You – (1.7%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Soccer:Australia v Costa Rica (Fox Sports 3) — 226,000
  2. Soccer:Australia v Costa Rica (Fox Sports 3) — 119,000
  3. America’s Next Top Model (Fox 8) — 66,000
  4. Storage Wars (A&E), The Simpsons (Fox 8) –- 61,000
  5. Coronation Street (UKTV) – 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.