First Monday of summer and the only event worth noticing last night was Seven’s 6pm news winning Sydney and Melbourne for the first time on the same night for quite a while. Seven News won Sydney by just 4,000 viewers (258,000 to 254,000 for Nine News), and Melbourne by just 3,000 (335,000 to 332,000). It doesn’t sound much, but when you’ve been in the trenches for as long as Seven has trying to fight their way back to the top, any win is a big win.

Summer ratings are supposedly not important, but when a program’s revival and jobs and ad revenues are at stake, as they are with Seven’s hour of news from 6 to 7pm, then it is a deadly serious battle all summer. It is equally as deadly over at Nine.

Back Roads, the new program hosted by Heather Ewart (who did the great three parter on the history of the Country/National Party) was a worthy addition to the Monday line up with a sort of easy watching mix of Australian Story and Landline and some insight. It was third nationally and seventh in the metros with 1.255 million national viewers (844,000 metro and 411,000 regional viewers where it was number 2 on the night).

Seven won the metros in a fairly close night from Nine, but in the regions it was Seven in front by quite a distance. Seven had a Total People margin of 11.5 points and a main channel share of 7.5 points. In the metros the winning margin was 1.1 points for Total People and 0.8 of a point for the main channels. Last night saw another solid outing by the new channels: SBS Food had a 1.5% metro share and 9Life, 2.6%.

Sunrise won the metro battle with Today, 361,000 to 332,000 – that’s another battle to the end of the year and into January that won’t let up.

On pay TV it was a weak night. And how do we know? Well, Foxtel (rather Fox8)’s hardy standby, The Simpsons was the top two most watched programs last night with 95,000 and 85,000 viewers respectively.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (2.8%)
  2. Nine (25.7%)
  3. ABC 20.5%)
  4. Ten (18.9%)
  5. SBS (8.1%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (18.1%)
  2. Nine (17.3%)
  3. ABC (15.1%)
  4.  Ten (12.3%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.2%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (6.2%)
  2. ONE (3.6%)
  3. GO (3.5%)
  4. Eleven (2.9%)
  5. 9Life (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.355 million
  2. Nine News — 1.325 million
  3. Back Roads (ABC) — 1.255 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.252 million
  5. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.209 million
  6. ABC News — 1.079 million
  7. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1.148 million
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.077 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.031 million
  10. Foreign Correspondent (ABC) — 1.009 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.065 million
  2. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1.044 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 1.007 million

Losers: It’s summer and therefore hard to find a loser, although the UK quiz show Pointless on the ABC at 6.15pm is just that — well-named and a waste of TV time. Repeats of Mock The Week would have been funnier, even if dated. That’s if a British quiz show was needed (Seeing Would I Lie to You has been exhausted).Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.065 million
  2. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1.044 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 1.007 million
  4. Nine News — 975,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 919,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC) — 861,000
  7. ABC News — 839,000
  8. Foreign Correspondent (ABC) — 702,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 624,000
  10. Ten Eyewitness News — 493,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 361,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 332,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 147,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC 1,  90,000 + 54,000 on News 24) — 145,000
  5. Mornings – Summer (Nine) — 105,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 61,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (2.8%)
  2. LifeStyle  (2.6%)
  3. Foxtel Movies (2.1%)
  4. UKTV, TVHITS, A&E  (2.0%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. The Simpsons (Fox8) — 95,000
  2. The Simpsons (Fox8) – 85,000
  3. The Walking Dead (Fx) — 72,000
  4. Selling Houses Australia (LifeStyle) — 56,000
  5. Family Guy (Fox8) — 52,000

*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.