Craig McLachlan in a promo for his TV interview (Source: Channel 7/Twitter)

The Craig McLachlan interview on Seven (in the 7NEWS Spotlight) averaged 1.08 million nationally — 720,000 in the metros and 362,000 in the regions. The interview had 296,000 more viewers than Big Brother did the previous Sunday (785,000 nationally) but Nine still won with Lego Masters’ penultimate program. The interview meant Seven got closer than it would have had BB stayed in the slot last night.

LM saw an interesting point at the end: how much time people invest in an idea or challenge such as Lego building. I could not understand how people could get so emotional about plastic building blocks until one of the losing duo last night said it got her away from kids and into her own space doing something for herself. LM’s grand final is tonight. (Quick! What else can Nine get Hamish Blake to do? He’d be a snappier host of The Block, wouldn’t he?)

LM and a solid outing by the 6 to 7pm News saw Nine win the night easily and it will win tonight with the finale of LM. But I will be glancing at Have You Been Paying Attention? on Ten for some brainwashing — getting rid of all the budget detritus from the past week.

David Speers on Insiders subjected Teflon Josh to the toughest grilling so far in the budget round — a total of 585,000 watched nationally. That will be the biggest daytime audience for any program up to 5 to 6pm this week. Wakefield, 301,000. Does anyone really care that much?

Pay TV saw the NRL magic round in Brisbane dominate. On Sunday the top five spots on Foxtel’s most watched list were all NRL games or related programs — 290,000 for the Melbourne/St George game almost doubled the 160,000 for the most-watched AFL game between Essendon and Fremantle. In contrast, the AFL game on Seven (mixed) averaged 645,000 and the NRL game on Nine — Melbourne v St George — only managed 454,000.

Breakfast: Insiders, 551,000; Weekend Sunrise, 405,000; Landline, 378,000; Weekend Today, 283,000.

Regional top five: Seven News, 520,000; Seven News Spotlight, 362,000; Lego Masters, 349,000; Nine News, 342,000; 7pm ABC News, 308,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (31.7%)
  2. Seven (28.0%)
  3. Ten (20.1)
  4. ABC (12.9%)
  5. SBS (7.3%)


Network main channels:

  1. Nine (23.4%)
  2. Seven (19.5%)
  3. Ten (13.6%)
  4. ABC (9.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.1%)


Top five digital channels:

  1. 7mate (4.2%)
  2. 10 Bold (3.6%)
  3. 7TWO, Gem (2.7%)
  4. GO (2.6%)


Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.596 million
  2. Nine News — 1.277 million
  3. Lego Masters (Nine) — 1.250 million
  4. Seven News Spotlight: Craig McLachlan — 1.081 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 912,000
  6. MasterChef Australia (Ten) — 753,000
  7. Spicks and Specks (ABC) — 719,000
  8. Sunday AFL (Seven) — 645,000
  9. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 644,000
  10. The Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 568,000

Losers: MasterChef, Wakefield; the Craig McLachlan interview.


Top metro programs:

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.077 million
  2. Nine News — 934,000
  3. Seven News Spotlight: Craig McLachlan — 720,000
  4. 7pm ABC News — 604,000
  5. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 454,000
  6. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 447,000
  7. Ten News First — 302,000
  8. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 315,000
  9. SBS World News — 222,000


Morning (National) TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC, ABC TV) — 551,000
  2. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 405,000
  3. Landline (ABC) — 378,000
  4. Weekend Today (Nine) — 283,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) — 201,000
  6. Sports Sunday (Nine) —183,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Melbourne vs St George (Fox League) — 290,000
  2. NRL: Gold Coast vs Penrith (Fox League) — 237,000
  3. NRL: Sunday Ticket (Fox League) — 235,000
  4. NRL: Sunday Ticket (Fox League) — 231,000
  5. NRL: Parramatta vs NZ Warriors (Fox League) — 200,000