The Winners: MasterChef topped the night with 1.948 million viewers for Ten. Seven News was second with 1.660 million. Nine News was third with 1.617 million. Underbelly averaged 1.493 million for Nine at 8.30pm. Seven’s Sunday Night was 5th with 1.344 million for the final episode of this season. Customs was 6th for Nine with 1.290 million and 60 Minutes averaged 1.284 million people. Send in the Dogs averaged 1.250 million for Nine at 7pm and 8th spot. The Force was next for Seven at 8pm with 1.132 million and Border Security was 10th with 1.081 million at 7.30pm for Seven (both are finished on Sundays for now). Hercule Poirot‘s last episode averaged 1.003 million at 8.35pm for the ABC and Merlin had the same figure for Ten at 6.30pm and 12th overall.

The Losers: Seven, after Sunday Night‘s last episode for a while.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally, but Nine won Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, so it was really on top on the night. Ten News averaged 681,000. The 7 pm ABC News averaged 875,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 231,000. The morning chats saw Weekend Sunrise on Seven average 393,000, Landline on the ABC at Noon, 265,000, Weekend Today on Nine, 247,000, Inside Business, 169,000, Insiders at 10.30am on the ABC, 162,000. Meet The Press on Ten, 62,000.

The Stats:

FTA: Nine won (boosted by a strong night for GO), with a share of 29.4%, from Ten with 24.2%, Seven with 23.7%, the ABC with 15.0% and SBS with 7.2%. Nine won all five metro markets. Ten won the demos again, as Seven was squeezed.

Main Channel: Nine won a much closer main channel battle with a share of 24.8%, from Ten with 23.0% and Seven on 22.3%. ABC 1 was on 13/8% and SBS ONE, 7.3%. Nine won everywhere bar Perth where Ten got up.

Digital: GO won with a share of 4.6%, from &TWO with 1.3%, ONE with 1.2%, ABC 2 with 0.8% and SBS TWO and ABC 3 with 0.4% each. The six FTA digital channels had a total share of 8.7% last night.

Pay TV: Nine won with a share of 24.8%, from Ten with 20.5%, Seven on 20.0%, Pay TV with 12.8%, the ABC with 12.7% and SBS with 6.5%. The 11 FTA channels had an average of 87.2%, the 100 plus channels of Pay TV shared the 12.8%.

Regional: A solid win to WIN/NBN with a share of 30.7%, from Prime/7Qld with 26.1%, SC Ten on 23.1%, the ABC, 15.0% and SBS on 5.0%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with a share of 27.2%, from Prime/7Qld on 24.5%. The digital channels battle was won by GO with 3.6%, from 7TWO with 1.6% and ONE on 1.3%.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine won last week thanks to the second State Of Origin game on Wednesday night, with Seven and Ten in a close battle for second. Ten won the demos.

Nearly 1.4 million people (1.392 million actually) watched Australia’s draw with Ghana on SBS on Saturday night. That was the biggest sporting audience of the weekend.

There I was last night watching Sunday Night on Seven, the very solid report on the new wave of asbestos related cancers from Ross Coulthart had just ended, and the lights went out. Totally. Crisis time. I panicked — no TV to watch — loose ends all around me and no way of seeing to tie them up. An unexplained outage that only affected a few homes in an inner Sydney street, and not the street lights.

Energy Australia had no idea, a truck had been dispatched, so after a half an hour of wandering around in the dark with only the light from my mobile phone to guide me (very hard to make a bed with just a dim mobile light), it was off to bed. The lights came back on sometime. Did I miss anything? Only MasterChef, it would seem and perhaps Hercule Poirot‘s last visit to the ABC of this short series.

Ten says it had its best Sunday night of the year last night. Looking at the figures, Underbelly picked up a bit from the dip on the holiday Sunday night of the previous week. But it should be finishing with a rush (the last episode is next weekend). MasterChef is slowly building. Seven was weak because it is marking time. Dancing with the Stars starts next Sunday on Seven and a movie follows. Not much to fight with. Two and a half hours of Dancing with the Stars won’t make a dent in MasterChef or in the final Underbelly. Seven’s movie at 8.30pm last night, National Treasure, averaged 832.000, which isn’t good enough to make a difference.

TONIGHT: The talk fest from Nine with Australian Story, Four Corners, Media Watch, Q&A, Lateline and Lateline Business. Seven has Desperate Housewives. Nine has the last Mentalist of this run, Ten has MasterChef and Good News Week, plus The 7pm Project. SBS has the World Cup. Seven has a new program called Hung starting at 9.30pm. Watch it with an open mind but remember Cougar Town for a quality check.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports