The Winners: Seven’s The Pacific won with 1.593 million viewers, from the returning Hey Hey Its Saturday on Nine with 1.521 million and Today Tonight in third with 1.430 million people. Seven News was 4th with 1.366 million, ahead of Nine News with 1.215 million. A Current Affair was 6th with 1.111 million and the 7pm ABC News was 7th with 1.094 million. Home and Away was next with 1.073 million and Seven’s special on the Hudson River plane crash, Brace for Impact: Inside the Hudson Plane Crash, last year averaged 1.064 million at 7.30 pm. Nine’s 7 pm repeat of Two and a Half Men averaged 1.055 million people.

The Losers: Another squeeze play on Ten by Nine and Seven. It’s been the story of every night this week, even on Tuesday evening which has been Ten’s best of the week so far this year. Ten are counting off the number of sleeps to MasterChef next Tuesday. Good luck, Nine has programmed two episodes of Top Gear from 7.30pm until after MasterChef ends.

News & CA: Seven News won everywhere bar Melbourne where Nine got up. ACA won Sydney, TT won the rest and won nationally. ACA was weaker last night than on Monday or Tuesday nights. The 7.30 Report averaged 706,000 with Kerry O’Brien’s efforts from Washington and Kim Beazley. Lateline averaged 240,000, Lateline Business, 130,000. Nine’s Nightline, 251,000. Ten News averaged 839,000, the late News/Sports Tonight, 290,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 190,000, 147,000 for the late edition. 7am Sunrise, 389,000, 7am Today, 340,000.

The Stats:

FTA: Seven won with a share of 33.7%, from Nine with 30.7%, Ten on 17.3%, the ABC with 14.4% and SBS with 3.9%. Nine won Melbourne. Seven won the rest. Nine leads the week, 32.7% to 30.2% for Seven.

Main Channel: Seven won this with a share of 31.5% from Nine with 28.4%, Ten with 16.6%, ABC 1 with 12.5% and SBS ONE with 3.6%. Seven won everywhere bar Melbourne where Nine won. Nine leads the week, 29.7% to 27.6% for Seven.

Digital: GO won with a 2.3% share from 7TWO with 2.2%, ABC 2 with 1.7%, ONE with 0.7% and ABC 3 and SBS TWO on 0.3% each. That’s a total share for the six FTA digital channels of 7.5%. GO leads the week with 3.0% from 7TWO with 2.6%.

Pay TV: Seven won with 28.3%, from Nine with 25.9%, Ten was on 14.5%, Pay TV, 13.4%, the ABC, 12.1% and SBS, 3.3%. The 11 FTA channels had a total share of 86.6%, Pay’s 100 plus channels had the reported share of 13.4%.

Regional: Prime/7Qld won with a share of 32.7%, from WIN/NBN with 31.0%, SC Ten was next with 16.5%, the ABC was on 15.2% and SBS on 4.5%. Seven won the main channels with 31.6%, from WIN/NBN with 29.1%. GO won the digital channels with 2.0%, from ABC 2 with 1.4% and 7TWO with 1.1%. WIN/NBN still lead the week from Prime/7Qld, 32.7% to 28.9%.

(All shares on a combined overnight All People 6pm to midnight basis)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: A good win for Seven last night, up against Hey Hey It’s Saturday on Nine. Nine will say its happy with the 1.5 million who watched Hey Hey, but that is 800,000 less that the number that watched last year’s reunion. Hey Hey was very popular in Melbourne (naturally), which was the only market where it won.

And looking at the first hour last night, there was nothing offered to attract a lot of viewers back. Nine has “committed” to 20 episodes of Hey Hey in two blocks of 10. After last night, it will be lucky to get the second lot of 10.

The Pacific did well for Seven: on separate nights, both it and Hey Hey would have attracted more people, but Seven slotted into Wednesdays simply to take the edge off Hey Hey and it worked. Both programs topped the demos. The question for both programs is; how many viewers will return next week? More people also watched The Pacific, 573,000 in regional areas than Hey Hey, 531,000.

TONIGHT: Football shows on Nine at 9.30pm and on Seven at 7.30pm. Nine’s NRL program is terminal, Seven’s AFL program might need a heart starter if tonight’s audience is again low. Nine also has Getaway and returns Sea Patrol at 8.30pm. If it can’t crack 1.1 million to 1.2 million tonight given the money invested in it, then it’s going to be cold autumn and winter. Nine is hoping it does well and drags viewers into the Footy Shows, especially the tired NRL effort in Sydney and Brisbane.

Seven has the very unfortunate Cougar Town up against Sea Patrol and Ten has Law & Order SVU, so that will make the task for Sea Patrol easier.

SBS has Italian Food Safari at 7.30pm and Costa’s Garden Odyssey at 8pm. The ABC  has Secrets of Shangri-La: Quest for Sacred Caves at 8.30pm.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports