Forget about the results last night (Seven, Nine and Ten can all claim something from the night) — the big story was the drubbing Seven’s The Front Bar handed out to the Nine Network’s AFL Footy Show hosted by Eddie McGuire. In footy parlance it was “a shame, not a game” as Seven’s modest Front Bar doubled Eddie’s show’s viewer numbers in Melbourne and recorded its highest ever figure. 

The Front Bar averaged 281,000 viewers, Eddie’s AFL Show 137,000. Three weeks ago The Front Bar almost doubled The AFL Show’s average (274,000 to 139,000.) Last night, it did it again and was also the third most watched show in Melbourne to boot. And it was a similar story in the other AFL metro markets, Adelaide and Perth, where The Front Bar easily out-rated Nine’s effort with 105,000 viewers between the two to 60,000 for the Nine show. Why is The Front Bar’s success important? It has put a big dent in Eddie McGuire’s media dominance of Melbourne. And in Sydney the NRL Footy Show continues its improvement with a total of 184,000 viewers in Sydney (85,000) and Brisbane (99,000). While that was down from 234,000 a week ago, it was still the one of the highest of the year. 

The Bachelor last night was the most watched non-news program nationally (1.08 million) and in the metros (822,000). In the regions,Seven’s 6pm News was on top with 519,000, then Seven News/TT with 457,000, followed by Home and Away with 374,000, The Chase Australia from 5.30pm was next with 332,000 and the 7pm ABC News was fifth with 329,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (28.3%)
  2. Nine (27.4%)
  3. Ten (20.2%)
  4. ABC (14.8%)
  5. SBS (9.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (19.8%)
  2. Seven (18.6%)
  3. Ten (15.1%)
  4. ABC (9.9%)
  5. SBS ONE (7.5%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (4.3%)
  2. 7TWO (4.2%)
  3. ONE (2.7%)
  4. ABC Kids/Comedy (2.6%)
  5. 7mate (2.5%)

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.019 million

Losers: The AFL Footy Show.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1.  Seven News — 1.01 million
  2.  Seven News/Today Tonight — 994,000
  3. Nine News — 886,000
  4.  Nine News 6.30 — 878,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 732,000
  6. 7pm ABC News —726,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 480,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 477,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 354,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 258,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 475,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 325,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) — 259,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 204,000
  5. Mornings (Nine) — 156,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 79,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL:Brisbane v Souths (Fox League) — 272,000
  2. NRL: The Late Show With Matty Johns (Fox League) — 139,000
  3. NRL: Thursday Night League (Fox League) — 86,000
  4. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 78,000
  5. Aussie Gold Hunters (Discovery) — 67,000