Australian Ninja Warrior fail? Well, what else do you call the halving of the audience from series one a year ago? It is certainly not a success. Nine won the night, but it has lost the war on this one. Viewers have seen it all before and know what happens. 

Sunday night saw the audience for the first episodes of series two of Ninja Warrior fall to a national figure of 1.31 million from the 2.23 million debut a year ago. The fall for the metros was startling — from last year’s 1.68 million to 929,000 on Sunday night, with the regional audience dropping to 390,000 from 558,000. A year ago it was topping the national and metro most-watched lists and was close to the top in the regions. Now it is number seven or lower. Last year it made a meal of the opposition, last night Seven’s House Rules had more viewers nationally — 1.29 million against 1.17 million for the ninjas.

In the regionals Seven’s 6pm News was tops with a large 698,000, followed by Seven News/Today Tonight with 532,000, then House Rules on 526,000, with Home and Away on 451,000 and the 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia with 442,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (29.1%)
  2. Seven (27.7%)
  3. Ten (20.2%)
  4. ABC (16.7%)
  5. SBS (6.2%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (20.2%)
  2. Seven (18.8%)
  3. Ten (14.6%)
  4. ABC (12.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.7%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.3%)
  2. Gem, GO (3.6%)
  3. ONE (3.5%)
  4. 7TWO (2.9%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.816 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.583 million
  3. Nine/NBN News — 1.408 million
  4. Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.364 million
  5. House Rules (Seven) — 1.294 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.190 million
  7. Australian Ninja Warrior (Nine) , Home and Away (Seven) — 1.174 million
  8. 7pm ABC News — 1.165 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.133 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.118 million
  2. Nine News — 1.072 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.051 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.024 million

Losers: Australian Ninja Warrior.

Metro news and current affair

  1. Seven News — 1.118 million
  2. Nine News — 1.072 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.051 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.024 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 855,000
  6. 7pm ABC News — 795,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 647,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 559,000
  9. Four Corners (ABC) — 530,000
  10. Ten Eyewitness News — 447,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) —479,000
  2. Today (Nine) —363,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) — 287,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 282,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 189,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 81,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 112,000
  2. AFL: On The Couch (Fox Footy) — 74,000
  3. Paul Murray Live; The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 63,000
  4. Outsiders (Sky News) — 51,000