Dr Blake ended on the ABC and he will now join Seven on their long list medical programs — All Saints, A Country Practice, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice from the US. And now there’s The Good Doctor from the US, the biggest foreign hit of the year. Blake ended on a high with 1.33 million viewers and ended up third nationally, with Doc Martin an hour earlier at 7.49pm, the most watched program across the country last night with 1.45 million viewers. By the way there have been four doctor programs featuring heavily in recent months — Doc Martin, Dr Blake, Doctor Doctor on Nine and now The Good Doctor on Seven. Who would have thunk a year ago that  doctors and medicine do so well with viewers who have been so dismissive of so many old and new programs this year? 

With the ABC News doing well at 7pm (1.28 million national viewers) it’s no wonder the ABC finished tops in the main channels for the first time for ages. In fact from 7pm on the ABC was on top. Seven’s The Wall had 1.08 million national viewers which seems to be its core audience — that’s not very encouraging. Nine and Ten were missing in action.

In regional areas Seven News was tops with 481,000, then Doc Martin, on 477,000, Dr Blake was third with 448,000, the ABC News was fourth with 425,000 and The Wall was fifth with 419,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (30.8%)
  2. Nine (25.6%)
  3. ABC (25.3%)
  4. Ten  (12.1%)
  5. SBS (6.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Ten (20.6%)
  2. Seven (19.5%)
  3. Nine (17.9%)
  4. Ten (7.4%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.5%)
  2. 7flix (3.5%)
  3. 7TWO (3.4%)
  4. GO (3.2%)
  5. ABC 2 (3.0%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Doc Martin (ABC) — 1.455 million
  2. Seven News  — 1.382 million
  3. Dr Blake’s Mysteries Telemovie (ABC) — 1.339 million
  4. 7pm ABC News — 1.283 million
  5. Nine News — 1.181 million
  6. The Wall (Seven) — 1.088 million
  7. Sunday Night (Seven) — 960,000
  8. 60 Minutes (Nine) —942,000
  9. Family Food Fight (Nine) — 770,000
  10. Star Wars Movie  (Seven) — 626,000

Top metro programs: None has a million or more viewers.

Losers: Ten, Nine

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News —901,000
  2. Nine News — 862,000
  3. 7pm ABC News – 858,000
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 667,000
  5. Sunday Night (Seven) — 589,000
  6. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 345,000
  7. Ten Eyewitness News — 266,000
  8. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 216,000
  9. SBS World News — 145,000

Morning TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC, 377,000, 167,000 on ABC News) — 544,000
  2. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 435,000
  3. Landline (ABC) — 427,000
  4. Weekend Today (Nine) — 323,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC)  — 232,000
  6. Sports Sunday (Nine) — 225,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. A Place To Call Home (showcase) — 110,000
  2. A League: Melbourne City v Western Sydney (Fox Sports) — 87,000
  3. A League: Sunday Shootout (Fox Sports) — 56,000
  4. Split (Foxtel Movies) — 55,000
  5. NCIS (TVHITS) — 594,000