The big news from last night was that Offspring is losing it. The program had 832,000 national viewers — down from 993,000 a week ago for the returning ep — a drop of 11.6%. But the real concern should be the 18% slide in the metro audience to 594,000 last night from 724,000 a week earlier. Metro viewers are the core audience for Offspring and the faffing Nina. If they don’t come back it will be a very dry winter for Ten. Masterchef had delivered 1.14 million viewers as a lead-in, so more than 27% of that lead in audience didn’t stick around for Nina.

An early morning finish for the Tour de France’s fifth and nastiest stage so far, an impossibly steep mountain top finish. Chris Froome, the defending champ, grabbed his first Yellow. That, plus Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell (872,000) on the ABC and Masterchef on Ten were the highlights last night on what was a pretty weak night of TV. Seven was especially weak and had a miserable night in the metros especially, with its hour of news from 6pm easily beaten by Nine News.

So, Nine’s night in the metros, but Seven’s in the regions with Seven News on top again with 644,000 viewers, followed by Seven News/Today Tonight with 544,000, Home and Away in third with 484,000, Border Security was fourth with 428,000 and The 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia was 5th with 426,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (28.5%)
  2. Seven (26.2%)
  3. Ten (20.1%)
  4. ABC (16.2%)
  5. SBS (9.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (18.8%)
  2. Seven (18.3%)
  3. Ten (14.7%)
  4. ABC (11.0%)
  5. SBS ONE (7.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. Gem (3.9%)
  2. GO (3.7%)
  3. ABC 2 (3.2%)
  4. 7mate (3.0%)
  5. Eleven (2.7%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.699 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.584 million
  3. Nine/NBN News — 1.406 million
  4. Nine/NBN News (6.30pm) — 1.389 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.258 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.190 million
  7. Border Security (Seven) — 1.155 million
  8. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.144 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.106million
  10. The Force (Seven) — 1.091 million

Top metro programs:

    1. Nine News — 1.122 million
    2. Nine News 6.30 — 1.093 million
    3. Seven News — 1.055 million
    4. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.040 million

Losers: Seven and Offspring

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.122 million
  2. Nine News 6.30 — 1.093 million
  3. Seven News — 1.055 million
  4. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.040 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 925,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 747,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 558,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 528,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 514,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 372,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 494,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 405,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  157,000 + 92,000 on News 24) — 229,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 210,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 205,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 137,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. TVHITS  (2.4%)
  2. Fox8  (1.9%)
  3. Sky News (1.8%)
  4. LifeStyle/UKTV  (1.7%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) — 88,000
  2. Commonsense (LifeStyle) — 56,000
  3. Paul Murray Live (Sky) — 55,000
  4. NCIS (TVHITS) — 50,000
  5. Deadliest Catch (Fox8) —44,000