Thankfully the Swans thrashed the Cats last night on Seven/7mate to provide the only colour and movement on TV — well, apart from the return of The Checkout with a complete restocking of new product on ABC1. Wonderful it was. The piece on price competition, especially by Bunnings, was an eyeopener. Perhaps our friends at the egg cartel busters (The ACCC) should pop along to Bunnings (and its mate Officeworks for that matter) for a little chat about making price comparison/beating claims where they control the product’s retail appearance in Australia.  The Checkout had 1.134 million national/ 754,000 metro/ 380,000 regional viewers. It was the sixth most-watched program nationally. Call The Midwife was fourth most watched nationally with 1.211 million national/ 835,000 metro/ 376,000 regional viewers.

MasterChef also stood out last night, but with no competition on Seven and Nine it should have really grabbed more than a million metro viewers. Yes it won the 25-to-54 age group, and was the third most-watched program nationally last night.  But the 882,000 metro viewers wasn’t anything to really boast about. Ten actually lost the main channel battle with ABC1, and lost Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and regional markets. It was a night when Ten should have been a clear winner if MasterChef Australia had been up to snuff. Ten actually beat Nine’s main channel and overall in Melbourne where the Swans-Cats game did it for Seven. The game had 783,000 national viewers on Seven and 7mate, plus another 232,000 on Fox Footy — 1.013 million all up.

Seven’s Million Dollar Minute slipped past Nine’s Hot Seat into top spot with another interesting female winner. It had 988,000 national viewers (and 10th spot) while Hot Seat had 876,000 and was 11th. In the morning, Ten’s Studio 10 had 36,000 metro viewers. It was its second sub-40,000 metro audience in a row. That’s a worry. More audiences of this size or less will put this one in jeopardy, no matter what Ten management said. Remember they said the unlamented Wake Up was “safe” for a couple of years.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (27.5%)
  2. Nine (26.3%)
  3. Ten (21.9%)
  4. ABC (18.8%)
  5. SBS (5.5%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (20.8%)
  2. Nine (17.6%)
  3. Ten (14.2%)
  4. ABC1  (4.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (5.6%)
  2. Eleven (4.4%)
  3. 7mate (3.9%)
  4. ONE (3.4%)
  5. 7TWO (2.9%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.633 million
  2. Seven News — 1.441 million
  3. MasterChef Australia (Ten) — 1.219 million
  4. Call The Midwife (ABC1) – 1.211 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.160 million
  6. The Checkout (ABC1) — 1.134 million
  7. ABC News — 1.130 million
  8. Nine News 6.30 — 1.077 million
  9. 7.30 (ABC1) — 1.066 million
  10. Million Dollar Minute (Seven) — 988,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.143 million
  2. Seven News — 1.112 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 1.077 million

Losers: Not the best of nights for TV.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.143 million
  2. Seven News — 1.112 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 1.077 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) — 985,000
  5. Seven News/ Today Tonight – 864,000
  6. ABC News — 745,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC1) — 700,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News  – 591,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 567,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 374,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 342,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 326,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 147,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC1,  67,000 + 49,000 on News 24) — 116,000
  5. Mornings (Nine) — 106,000
  6. Studio 1o (Ten) — 36,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: Sydney v Geelong (Fox Footy)  – 232,000
  2. River Cottage Australia (LifeStyle) – 106,000
  3. AFL: Thursday Night Footy on Fox (Fox Footy) — 83,000
  4. Gold Rush (Discovery) – 70,000
  5. The Big Bang Theory (Comedy) – 65,000

*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.