Seven rested The Beast last night, so instead of My Kitchen Rules eating its rivals last night, it was the second World Cup cricket semi final that devoured the opposition, setting up a big final on Sunday.  Nothing else mattered last night — Nine’s domination was complete. The coverage though from Star of India (part of the Murdoch clan’s 21st Century Fox empire) wasn’t up to the high standards of Nine’s coverage. The graphics and camera shots seem more attuned to the IPL in India (that’s the tip and run competition) than the war serious TV networks such as Nine cover cricket. But the aerial drone shots used in Tuesday’s coverage from Auckland were ground breaking and missed last night. That was the big improvement on Nine’s coverage.

The cricket had a national audience of 2.302 million on Nine for the second session (India batting), while the Australian innings had 1.184 million. On pay TV, 393,000 people watched the Indian innings, while 240,000 watched Australia hit their way to 7/327. That made just on 2.7 million for session two and 1.424 million for session one. Nine said the cricket’s peak audience in session two was 3.196 million people. Interestingly the game was more watched in Melbourne than in Sydney — an average of 100,000 more people in Melbourne watched the second session last night than in Sydney and Sydney’s peak in the final quarter hour, from 9.45pm was 559,000, well short of Melbourne’s 746,000. Melbourne viewers do support sport with greater interest than in Sydney. In the morning Seven’s Sunrise extended its gap on Nine’s Today with the program dipping yesterday morning and rediscovering its now usual struggle to top the 300,000 metro audience level, after seemingly finding its way back over that level a couple of weeks ago.

And looking forward to Monday night, Nine is advertising The Block at a “special time” of  7.30 … hang on, that’s always been the time the program has started Monday to Thursday. That’s the hard sell of commercial TV for you. Monday night’s special time offering is really the Sunday night episode of The Block that has been pre-empted by the World Cup final.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (43.2%)
  2. Seven (24.4%)
  3. Ten (14.3%)
  4. ABC (12.6%)
  5. SBS (5.1%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (36.6%)
  2. Nine (17.7%)
  3. Ten (9.1%)
  4. ABC (8.8%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.2%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.7%)
  2. GO (3.8%)
  3. Gem, ONE(2.9%)
  4. 7mate (2.5%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, session 2 (Nine) — 2.302 million
  2. Nine News — 1.708 million
  3. Seven News — 1.354 million
  4. The Footy Show (Nine) – 1.2401 million
  5. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, session 1 (Nine) — 1.184 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.121 million
  7. ABC News — 1.018 million
  8. Million Dollar Minute (Seven) — 963,000
  9. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 944,000
  10. 7.30 (ABC) — 796,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi final, Australia v India, session 2 (Nine) — 1.607 million
  2. Nine News — 1.185 million
  3. Seven News — 1.083 million

Losers: No one because the cricket was a one off, except for India, unfortunately for them .Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.185 million
  2. Seven News — 1.083 million
  3. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 944,000
  4. ABC  News — 698,000
  5. 7.30 (ABC) – 542,000
  6. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 523,000
  7. Ten Eyewitness News — 428,000
  8. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 403,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 354,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 261,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 156,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC 1,  92,000 + 47,000 on News 24) — 137,000
  5. Mornings (Nine) — 89,000
  6. Studio 1o (Ten) — 56,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Sports 3 (11.7%)
  2. LifeStyle  (2.4%)
  3. Fox8  (2.0%)
  4. TVHITS, Disney Jr (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, Session 2 (Fox Sports 3) – 393,000
  2. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, Innings Break (Fox Sports 3) – 261,000
  3. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, Session 1 (Fox Sports 3) – 240,000
  4. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, Post Game (Fox Sports 3) – 156,000
  5. Cricket World Cup: 2nd semi-final, Australia v India, Pre-Game (Fox Sports 3) – 86,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2015. 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.