The Winners: Nine News topped the most watched list with 1.418 million. Seven News was second with 1.392 million and Airways was 3rd with 1.351 million at 8pm for Seven. Border Security averaged 1.330 million on Seven at 7.30pm. Bones averaged 1.269 million at 8.30pm on Seven. Ten’s The Good Wife was second in the 8.30pm slot for Ten with 1.207 million. The night session of the cricket averaged 1.087 million for Nine, Sunday Night averaged 1.083 million for Seven at 6.30pm. The afternoon session of the cricket averaged 1.076 million in 9th spot and 10th was Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation on Ten with 1.066 million. Castle averaged 978,000 for Seven at 9.30pm and House did 946,000 for Ten at 9.30pm.

The Losers: No one last night. Sports lovers had some fare, sports haters had some decent alternatives. Sunday Night was a bit flat. The story choice for the first program of the year was weak. The Ark of the Covenant and Jamie Durie: spare me days and call me Harrison Ford! Junk.

News & CA: Nine News won in Sydney, Melbourne, lost Brisbane Adelaide and Perth to Seven. The 7pm ABC News averaged 868,000. Ten News, 632,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 151,000. Weekend Sunrise, 398,000. Insiders, 163,000 on the ABC at 9pm, Landline, 250,000 at Noon on the ABC, Inside Business, 131,000 and Offsiders, 130,000.

The Stats:

FTA: Nine won 6pm to midnight All People with a combined overnight share of 30.6%, from Seven with 29.0%; Ten was on 22.0%, the ABC with 13.2% and SBS with 5.2%. Nine won everywhere bar Perth where Seven won from Ten and Nine third. The Games didn’t rate at night. Ten says it won the 16 to 39, 18 to 49 and 25 to 54 groups in prime time.

Digitally: Nine’s GO won with 4.7% (Nine’s main channel was on 25.9%). 7TWO was second with 1.8% (Seven’s main channel was on 27.2% and won the night). ABC 2 with 0.6% tied (ABC 3, 0.3%, ABC 1, 12.3%), with Ten’s ONE (Ten was on 21.4%). SBS TWO was on 0.3% and SBS ONE, 4.9%. Apart from GO, the digitals were weak last night.

Pay TV included: Nine won with a combined overnight share of 25.0%, from Seven with 23.7%, Ten on 18.0%, Pay TV with 15.3%, the ABC with 10.8% and SBS, 4.2%. The 11 FTA channels averaged 84.7% (83.56% a week earlier), Pay TV’s 15.3% share was down on the 16.4% last Sunday night despite having a thrilling soccer game on Fox Sports and the games on four HD channels.

Regional: Nine through WIN/NBN won with a solid 6 pm to midnight All People combined overnight share of 33.9% from Prime/7Qld with 28.4%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 19.1%, the ABC with 12.6% and SBS, 6.0%. Nine’s cricket coverage did the trick, and its main channel beat Seven’s in the bush.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven won last week in the combined overnight and main channel battles. Nine’s GO won the digital battle. Free To Air TV ended up with a combined overnight share of 82.9 for the 11 analogue and digital channels. Pay TV and its 100 plus channels finished with a combined overnight share of 17.1%. Nine won Sydney, Seven won the four other metro markets. WIN/NBN won the week in regional areas for Nine with Prime/7Qld next.

Winter games: a trial. It’s either snow or ice. Nothing else. At least with the summer games there’s different sports in different locations and no snow or ice. Yesterday the games did nothing for Nine except give it a good audience in the morning and a not so good audience at night. The cricket averaged just over a million viewers, afternoon and evening, but Seven’s main channel easily accounted for Nine’s. Ten did very well as well up to 10.30 pm.

Nine won the overnight combined (sounds like a ski event) because its digital channel GO, had a strong night. The morning games coverage was strong, 636,000 from 6am. 910,000 for the highlights from 10pm, after the cricket, 539,000 for the late part of the telecast. Nine sensibly didn’t go head to head with Seven and Ten because of the time difference.

Foxtel is busy denying it, but it’s a case of follow the money. The Pay TV group started offering free access to the games to long standing customers and refunds to those from this group who had already coughed up. According to some industry reports, just 18,000 people had subscribed, out of the 2.5 million Pay TV subscribers at the end of December. That’s Foxtel and Austar.

Foxtel says it always intended making the offer. If 40,000 people had subscribed, would the offer had been made? No mention of this intention in any of the blurb on the Foxtel website, but then there wouldn’t be, otherwise not even the 18,000 people would have subscribed. Saturday’s broadcasts of the games didn’t make it into the top 100 Pay TV programs last week. The cut at No. 100 was 20,000 viewers.

TONIGHT: The Mentalist on Nine at 8.30pm, plus Winter Olympics. The ABC has Australian Story at 8.30pm and Q&A after Media Watch. Barnaby Joyce is on Q&A. Is it cruel to watch this? Ten has The 7pm Project and Good News Week. The Biggest Loser is a bit sad now. Seven has My Kitchen Rules, perhaps Desperate Housewives. The Allan Border Meal cricket awards is on Nine at 12.30am, well after it has been shown on Foxtel. It got shunted for the Games coverage.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports