Summer sport madness continues.  Another win by the Australian cricket team in the third One Day International (and a win in the five match series against England) made a winning night for Nine.  The second session had the highest audience of the day and night with 2.307 million national viewers. The first session was the most third-most-watched program with 1.755 million national/ 1.178 million metro/ 577,000 regional viewers. The national and metro figures for the night sessions include audiences in Brisbane and Adelaide on Gem which showed the ODI while the 6pm news was being broadcast. The two ODIs last week pushed Nine to an easy win and the one in Perth on Friday night,will have a similar impact for Nine this week.

Ten launched the 2014 version of The Biggest Loser at 6.30pm with 1.096 million national/ 753,000 metro/ 343,000 regional watchers, and it beat Seven’s Australian Open coverage (starting at 6.30pm as well) with 1.073 million national/ 733,000 metro/ 340,000 regional viewers, as did the Foyle’s War finale on ABC1 (at 8.30pm) with 1.266 million national/ 886,000 metro/38,000 regional viewers. Ten of course crowed that The Biggest Loser  had beaten Seven’s tennis, but failed to point out that so had Foyle’s War, which also easily beat The Biggest Loser. The test for The Biggest Loser starts tonight. Will viewers tune out, as they have done in past year, and dribble back to watch the concluding week?

Ten announced today that its former head of factual Dafydd Williams is returning to the network from next month in the new role of Head of Development, reporting to Chief Programming Officer Beverley McGarvey. And Seven confirmed that it had hired Nine reporter Denham Hitchcock to work on Sunday Night. Reports late last year said Hitchcock had wanted to work on 60 Minutes, but Nine had said no, so Seven swooped

Good news for OZ: NBC has given the OK for a US version of The Slap, the ABC program that stood out at the end of the 2011 TV season here. NBC has commission an eight part mini-series of the program which will be made by Universal Television (which is part of NBC) and Australia’s Matchbox Pictures (which produced the original). Playwright/screenwriter Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz wrote the adaptation. The ABC version of The Slap was an adaptation of the 2008 best-selling novel by Australian author Christos Tsiolkas. It joins the Fox version of Rake which debuted in the US last night, after a great lead in – the NFC Championship game which would have been watched by more than 40 million people. Rake then moves to Thursday nights from this week.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (33.3%)
  2. Seven (24.9%)
  3. Ten (20.8%)
  4. ABC (16.0%)
  5. SBS (5.1%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (25.8%)
  2. Seven (17.6%)
  3. Ten (14.8%)
  4. ABC1 (11.8%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.3%)
  2. GO (4.1%)
  3. Gem (3.4%)
  4. 7mate (2.9%)
  5. ONE (2.7%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. ODI Cricket, Game 3,  Session 2 (Nine & Gem) — 2.307 million
  2. Nine News — 2.094 million
  3. ODI Cricket, Game 3, Session 1 (Nine) — 1.755 million
  4. Seven News — 1.407 million
  5. Foyle’s War (ABC1) — 1.266 million
  6. The Biggest Loser (Ten) — 1.096 million
  7. Australian Open  (Seven)– 1.073 million
  8. ABC News — 1.033 million
  9. Modern Family (Ten) — 858,000
  10. Mission Impossible (Ten) — 808,000

Top metro programs:

  1. ODI Cricket, Game 3, Session 2 (Nine) – 1.521 million on Nine and Gem
  2. Nine News — 1.457 million
  3. ODI Cricket, Game 3, Session 1 (Nine) — 1.178 million

Losers: No one really – The Biggest Loser doesn’t look any different to 2013’s indifferent performer, no matter the hype.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News –– 1.457 million
  2. Seven News — 992,000
  3. ABC News — 692,000
  4. Ten Eyewitness News — 400,000
  5. SBS World News — 152,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 370,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) – 279,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8 – (2.5%)
  2. TVHits – (2.4%)
  3. A&E – (1.9%)
  4. LifeStyle – (1.8%)
  5. Disney – (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. The Simpsons (Fox 8) – 59,000
  2. Storage Wars (A&E) – 57,000
  3. Angry Bird Toons (Fox 8) — 55,000
  4. Storage Wars (A&E) – 55,000
  5. 24 Hours in Emergency (LifeStyle) – 52,000

*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.