There would have been a lot of people holding their breaths at Seven’s HQ this morning. After the collapse on Monday night, how would House Rules go on Tuesday — would there be a repeat of 2016’s sudden and very damaging slide? The answer — there may be life in House Rules yet. 

There was also signs of life in the 6.30pm start to The Project, which topped 400,000 for the first time in quite a while in the five metro markets. But Masterchef drifted back a bit, losing more than 210,000 viewers nationally from the 1.42 million who tuned in for its Monday night debut. Seven ran two hours of House Rules and coded them as separate episodes — nationally they averaged 1.25 million for the two hours, up 20% from Monday night.  A real relief for Seven.

The Voice did well for Nine — 1.57 million nationally and topped the metros with 1.10 million. In Breakfast Sunrise won the metros narrowly over Today — 294,000 to 293,000 — and more comfortably nationally, 521,000 to  457,000. The ABC was weak — 7.30 managed just 753,000 nationally (that used to be a decent night in the metros).

The top 5 regional programs last night were: Seven News with 699,000, Seven News/Today Tonight with 541,000, Home and Away was 3rd with 528,000, The first ep of House Rules was 4th with 483,000 and the second ep was 5th with 471,000. 

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (29.0%)
  2. Seven (27.7%)
  3. Ten (21.5%)
  4. ABC (14.5%)
  5. SBS (7.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (22.1%)
  2. Seven (19.5%)
  3. Ten (15.8%)
  4. ABC (9.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.5%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. ONE (3.3%)
  2. ABC 2, 7TWO (3.2%)
  3. Gem (3.0%)
  4. 7mate (2.8%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.756 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.599 million
  3. The Voice (Nine) — 1.574 million
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.345 million
  5. Nine News — 1.283 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.282 million
  7. House Rules ep 2 (Seven) — 1.260 million
  8. House Rules (Seven) — 1.251 million
  9. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.239 million
  10. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.207 million

Top metro programs:

  1. The Voice (Nine) — 1.108 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.058 million
  3. Seven News — 1.058 million

Losers: ABC.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.058 million
  2. Seven News — 1.058 million
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 994,000
  4. Nine News — 975,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 873,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 781,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 635,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 509,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 504,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 401,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 521,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 457,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  173,000 + 64,000 on News 24) — 237,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 209000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 182,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 137,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. TVHITS  (2.2%)
  2. Fox 8  (1.8%)
  3. UKTV, Fox Classics (1.7%)
  4. Nick Jr, Sky News (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) — 84,000
  2. Wentworth (showcase) — 79,000
  3. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 48,000
  4. The Big Bang Theory (Comedy Channel) — 46,000
  5. Mrs Brown’s Boys (UKTV) — 45,000