Seven’s night in metro and regional markets, easily, with the final of Dancing With The Stars. It’s a good thing there was no lip syncing on the program last night, wasn’t it? (Ha, Daniel McPherson what were you singing?). At least some ‘reality’ series such as Dancing With The Stars, like The Block, House Rules and Masterchef Australia, don’t leave you with a sense of “what is this doing on TV?” like The Big Adventure did, like Big Brother and Beauty and The Geek do and The Bachelor does. They are insults to good taste, while Dancing With The Stars, The Block and Masterchef Australia are ephemera, they don’t really matter or hurt anyone, and they are at least entertaining. Only two of the worst offenders to go — the finals of Big Brother tonight and Beauty and The Geek Australia tomorrow night.

Dancing With The Stars had 1.615 million viewers nationally and more than a million in metro markets, which should be enough to see it return in 2015.

The first part of ABC’s special on the history of the National (Country) Party was as good as promised. Plenty of print journalists have tried something like this, and books have been written, but only a well crafted long form TV documentary can give the words life, especially when they come from people as colourful as Doug Anthony, Peter Nixon and Ian Sinclair. The program, and others on the ABC in the same genre (political history) are indictments of the chronic gutting of news and current affairs at the commercial TV networks and the complete lack of confidence among the dead tree print companies to venture into these areas, when they have had, and continue to employ writers capable of being produced. It was watched by 718,000 people nationally and had more viewers than Big Brother on Nine (714,000) and Recipe to Riches on Ten an hour earlier (646,000).

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (32.0%)
  2. Nine (27.7%)
  3. Ten (19.4%)
  4. ABC (16.3%)
  5. SBS (4.7%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (24.5%)
  2. Nine (17.6%)
  3. Ten (13.7%)
  4. ABC (11.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.0%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. GO (5.5%)
  2. 7TWO, Gem (4.6%)
  3. Eleven (3.3%)
  4. 7mate (2.9%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Dancing With The Stars Final (Seven) — 1.615 million
  2. Nine News — 1.499 million
  3. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.295 million
  4. Seven News  – 1.249 million
  5. ABC News — 1.174 million
  6. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.126 million
  7. NCIS (Ten) — 1.055 million
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.022 million
  9. David Attenborough’s Life (Nine) — 1 million
  10. Nine News 6.30 — 980,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Dancing With The Stars Final (Seven) — 1.063 million
  2. Nine News — 1.044 million

Losers: Big Brother viewers, again.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.044 million
  2. Nine News 6.30 — 980,000
  3. Seven News – 964,000
  4. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 926,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 848,000
  6. ABC News – 797,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 766,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 635,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 500,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 401,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 368,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 295,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 149,000
  4. Mornings (Nine) — 136,000
  5. News Breakfast (ABC  89,000 + 39,000 on News 24) — 128,000
  6. Studio 1o (Ten) — 45,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox8 (3.2%)
  2. LifeStyle (2.3%)
  3. Disney Jr (2.1%)
  4. TVHITS (2.1%)
  5. Sky News (1.8%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Family Guy (Fox8) — 61,000
  2. Modern Family (Fox8) — 61,000
  3. The Big Bang Theory (Comedy Channel) — 60,000
  4. Family Guy (Fox8) – 53,000
  5. Coronation Street (UKTV) — 48,000

*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.