Thankfully the ABC and Sky News gave us a night far more memorable than what we saw from Rio so far as Australians are concerned last night (but not Usain Bolt’s performance in the Men’s 100 metres nor the Men’s 400 metres win by South African Wayde Van Niekerk).

Q&A gave us something non-games and entertaining with One National Senator Malcolm Roberts (a former coal mine manager), confirming once again that he has no clue when it comes to arguing his climate denialist corner. In fact he provided some grim fascination last night. Professor Brian Cox showed Roberts what high level science and argument is all about: facts, coherence and an open mind, unlike the One Nation Senator (and the rest of his denialist ilk). Roberts’ stupid claim that NASA (the US space organisation) had “corrupted” a graph on global warming Professor Cox showed to the panel and audience, was stupidity of the highest level – and something we have come to except from One Nation and others on the absurdist right of politics and Australian life.

A question though: why have a lightweight like Malcolm Roberts on Q&A? He had an outing on Insiders a week ago last Sunday. No more please ABC. It was Science Week (apart from the publicity value), so where was the benefit of having Roberts on Q&A? He had nothing to contribute except to sound like the papacy back in Galileo’s day denying gravity and insisting that the earth was the centre of the solar system and universe. The Bolter would have made a better class of denialist.

The clown who led the invasion of an Anglican church on the NSW Central Coast, showed up on The Project. But over on Sky News, Andrew Bolt, to his credit showed how to deal with the likes of Nick Folkes(the leader of the misnamed Party for Freedom). Bolt gave him a right whacking. Four Corners also did well on the looting of innocent Victorian dairy farmers by clowns at Murray Goulburn, the faltering dairy company that was led into danger by former CEO, Gary Helou who must be the most detested person in the dairy sector. Four Corners, like Q&A, The Project and Bolt deserves praise for their efforts last night. And so did Media Watch with its take down of silly attempts to blame Chinese hackers for the Census fail last week by ABC News, and why mainstream media mostly avoided reporting the Guardian’s reports on abuse on Nauru.

Media Watch had 907,000 viewers, Four Corners, 1.043 million,The Project 7pm, 882,000 and Q&A, 863,000.

Naturally it was Seven’s night in metro and regionals. The ABC did well and ran second in the metros both overall and the main channels. Seven says over 17 million people have watched the games, while the streams have topped 26.2 million. The Men’s 100 metres won by Usain Bolt ran at around 11.25 am yesterday. Seven says 1.3 million people turned in (for the minute, it was over in 9.81 seconds) and there were 213,000 streams.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (35.1%)
  2. Nine (21.0%)
  3. ABC (19.4%)
  4. Ten (18.5%)
  5. SBS (6.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (25.3%)
  2. Nine, ABC (14.9%)
  3. Ten (12.7%)
  4. SBS ONE (4.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.6%)
  2. 7mate (3.9%)
  3. ONE (3.5%)
  4. ABC 2 (2.9%)
  5. GO (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.951 million
  2. Olympics: Day 9  In Rio Today — 1.513 million
  3. Nine News — 1.374 million
  4. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.264 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.229 million
  6. ABC News — 1.130 million
  7. Olympics: Day 10 – Evening (Seven) — 1.106
  8. Australian Story (ABC) — 1.079 million
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.078 million
  10. Four Corners (ABC) — 1.043 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.307 million
  2. Olympics: Day 9  In Rio Today — 1.051 million
  3. Nine News — 1.043 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.003 million

Losers: No one really because of the games coverage, which will now shrink day by day because of the lack of Australian

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.307 million
  2. Nine News — 1.043 million
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.003 million
  4. Seven News 6.30 — 961,000*
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 891,000
  6. ABC News – 759,000
  7. Australian Story (ABC) — 757,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 731,000
  9. Four Corners (ABC) — 706,000
  10. Q&A (ABC) — 631,000

* Pre-empted in Adelaide and Perth by Games coverage

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 390,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 323,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  81,000 + 39,000 on News 24) — 130,000
  4. Today Extra (Nine) — 110,000
  5. Studio 10 (Ten) — 59,000

 

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Canberra v Melbourne (Fox Sports 1) — 327,000
  2. Monday Night With Matty Johns (Fox Sports 1) — 176,000
  3. The Kettering Incident (showcase) — 151,000
  4. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 107,000
  5. AFL: On The Couch (Fox Footy) — 72,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2016. 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.