The closest night so far this week, except for the sheer domination of My Kitchen Rules which had over 700,000 more viewers across the country than any other program. Apart from Melbourne, Seven won the metro markets and won the regions.

A solid performance by The Big Bang Theory, the news and A Current Affair in Sydney and Melbourne helped Nine lift its game, as did a drop in viewers for Seven’s Winners and Losers which is down from its opening a couple of weeks ago. In fact Nine managed to snatch a win in Melbourne. Seven won the rest. And even though Seven won, it was a weaker result than what it looked on paper. Winners and Losers looks like the lead in impact of near record audiences for My Kitchen Rules faded last night. But it usually picks up in the seven day record and watch figures.

In the morning, Nine’s Today was again well beaten bySeven’s Sunrise nationally, and especially in the metros where its audience again dipped under 300,000 to 284,000. Sunrise had 349,000 metro viewers and close to 600,000 nationally. Today had 447,000 nationally. Ten’s Wake Up and Studio Ten both had 45,000 viewers — hold the champagne though.

Sochi did the job for Ten — both for the main channel and ONE’s HD broadcasts. But Ten, you can’t add up the peaks for all the telecasts and claim huge viewing audiences — peaks are only for a short period of time. TV ratings are all about averages. The Sochi audiences are respectable, certainly better than The Biggest Loser and So You Think You Can Dance Australia. It’s a pity though the Australian team isn’t doing it for Ten. Commentators can only say “missed it by that much” so many times (to quote the great sportscaster, Maxwell Smart) to describe the Australian performance, before it starts sounding overly familiar and then an excuse.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (30.3%)
  2. Nine (26.9%)
  3. Ten (21.7%)
  4. ABC (17.8%)
  5. SBS (3.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (24.3%)
  2. Nine (21.2%)
  3. Ten (14.6%)
  4. ABC1 (12.9%)
  5. SBS ONE (2.5%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. ONE (5.0%)
  2. Gem (3.7%)
  3. 7TWO (3.2%)
  4. 7mate (2.8%)
  5. ABC2 (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. My Kitchen Rules (Seven) – 2.636 million
  2. Seven News — 1.611 million
  3. The Block (Nine) — 1.598 million
  4. Nine News — 1.578 million
  5. The Big Bang Theory (Nine) — 1.576 million
  6. The Big Bang Theory repeat (Nine) — 1.571 million
  7. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.524 million
  8. Winners and Losers (Seven) — 1.437 million
  9. ABC News — 1.268 million
  10. New Tricks repeat (ABC1) — 1.098 million

Top metro programs:

  1. My Kitchen Rules (Seven) – 1.792 million
  2. The Big Bang Theory (Nine) — 1.104 million
  3. Nine News — 1.100 million
  4. Seven News — 1.055 million
  5. The Big Bang Theory repeat (Nine) — 1.o55 million
  6. Seven News / Today Tonight — 1.015 million

Losers: No one really — reasonable choice last night. Sochi is very one dimensional — it’s all about competing on water in its different forms.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.100 million
  2. Seven News — 1.055 million
  3. Seven News / Today Tonight — 1.015 million
  4. Nine News  — 999,000
  5. A Current Affair  (Nine) — 888,000
  6. ABC News  – 836,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC1) — 635,000
  8. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 495,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) – 356,000
  10. Lateline (ABC1) — 201,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 349,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 284,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 167,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC1, 70,000 + 49,000 on News24) — 119,000
  5. Mornings (Nine) — 91,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 45,000
  7. Wake Up (Ten) — 45,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8 (2.9%)
  2. TVHITS!  (2.3%)
  3. Fox Classics (2.0%)
  4. LifeStyle , UK TV (1.7%)
  5. A&E, Sky News (1.5%)

Top pay TV programs:

  1. Family Guy, The Simpsons  (Fox 8) – 75,000
  2. Futurama (Fox 8) – 67000
  3. America’s Next Top Mode, The Simpsons (Fox 8) – 61,000
  4. Coronation Street (UKTV) – 50,000
  5. Seinfeld (TVHITS!), Coronation Street (UKTV) (Fox) – 46,000

*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