An agonising Please Marry My Boy wins for Seven

Why would anyone put themselves through a program like that for the public agony and pain we saw last night?

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Please Marry My Boy ended last night in tears, and a fair amount of emotional pain, raising the question: why would anyone put themselves through a program like that for the public agony and pain we saw last night?

The quandary for Seven is that although the final of Please Marry My Boy helped Seven to another win, it was not quite as dominant as it would have been had there been My Kitchen Rules in front. In fact, the 1.089 million viewers for the final in the metro markets is hardly a ringing endorsement of the program. It’s only 100,000 more than the week before. It won the timeslot quite well. But seeing it was the final for a moderately popular program, it should have done better and topped the night.

That Seven News won the night tells us the audience didn’t find anything else compelling enough to watch in large numbers. I wonder if Please Marry My Boy will return?

It is worthy of mentioning here that Seven’s 6pm News had a rare clean sweep last night, beating Nine News in all five metro markets. Today Tonight could only manage to win four of the five metro markets, losing Melbourne to A Current Affair. But the 7pm ABC News had more viewers in Sydney, 293,000, than Seven News, 292,000. The ABC News finished second in Melbourne with 345,000 to Seven’s 353,000.

Tonight: AFL on Seven’s main channel in southern markets and on 7mate in Sydney and Brisbane. Its also on Pay TV nationally.

In northern markets, Seven has Home and Away and then not much on its main channel. Nine has The NRL Footy Show (The AFL Footy Show was on Nine last night in southern markets because of the game tonight). There is another AFL game on Friday and Saturday on Seven, with the rest on Pay TV as well.

Ten has The Biggest Loser. Nine also has Earthflight, which is well worth a look, and CSI, because it is now a TV curiosity.

The ABC has The Straits, which is the final episode.

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

Seven News — 1.777 million
Please Marry My Boy (Seven) — 1.525 million
Nine News (Seven) — 1.469 million
Home and Away (Seven) — 1.400 million
Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.396 million
ABC News (7pm) — 1.390 million.
A Current Affair (Seven) — 1.384 million
The Biggest Loser (Ten) — 1.289 million
Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation (Ten) — 1.183 million
The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.183 million

The Metro Winners:

Seven News (6pm) — 1.266 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.115 million
Please Marry My Boy (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.089 million
ABC News (7pm) — 1.013 million

The Losers: The Mentalist on Nine at 8.30pm, 623,000. Woodley on ABC 1 at 8pm, 349,000. Mike & Molly on Nine at 8pm, 545,000. The Good Wife on Ten at 9.10pm, 543,000.

Metro News & CA: Seven News had a good night, TT had a reasonable night. Tonight is another story.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.266 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.115 million
ABC News (7pm) — 1.013 million
Nine News (6pm) — 998,000
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 877,000
Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 684,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 615,000
The Project (Ten) (6pm) — 412,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 208,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 200,000
The Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 128,000
SBS News (10.30pm) — 77,000
The Drum (News 24) (6pm) — 32,000

In the morning: Ten’s Breakfast perked up from 6am (28,000) and 7am (46,000), to give a high three hour average of just on 25,000 people:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 388,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 349,000
The Morning Show (Seven) (9am) — 188,000
Mornings (Nine) (9am) — 99,000
The Circle (Ten) (9am) — 58,000
Breakfast (Ten) (7am) — 46,000
News Breakfast (ABC) (6am) — 34,000 (+20,000)*

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 32.3% from Nine (3) on 24.2%, Ten (3) was on 21.8%, the ABC (4) ended on 15.3% and SBS (2) ended on 6.4%. Main Channels: Seven won with 23.0% from Nine on 18.2%, Ten on 15.7%, ABC 1 on 10.8% and SBS ONE on 5.1%. Seven leads the week with 28.9% from Nine on 16.4% and Ten on 15.4%.

Metro Digital: 7Mate won with 4.8% from 7TWO on 4.5%, Eleven on 4.4%, GO and ABC 2 on 3.1%, Gem with 2.9%, ONE on 1.6%, SBS TWO with 1.3%, News 24 on 0.8% and ABC 3 on 0.6%. The 10 digitals had an FTA share last night of a high 29.1%. 7TWO leads the week with 3.4%, from ONE and 7Mate on 3.3%.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.6% from Nine (3) on 19.9%, Ten (3) was on 17.9%, Pay TV (200 plus channels) finished with 15.5%, the ABC (4) ended on 12.9% and SBS (2) ended on 5.2%. The 15 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of 85.5%, with the 10 digitals on 22.5% and the five main channels on 62.0%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Lifestyle (2.8%)
Fox 8 (2.8%)
Fox Classic (1.9%)
Nick Jr (1.8%)
TV 1 (1.7%)

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

Selling Houses Australia (Lifestyle) — 169,800
Storage Wars (A&E) — 90,900
Coronation Street (UKTV) — 63,300
Eastenders (UKTV) (7.04pm) — 60,300
Eastenders (UKTV) (6.31pm) — 57,500

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 33.0% from WIN/NBN (3) on 26.4%, SC Ten (3) on 21.0%, the ABC (4) on 13.5% and SBS (2) on 6.2%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 21.5% from WIN/NBN on 19.7%. The digitals were won by 7mate with 6.5% from 7TWO with 5.3% and GO on 4.2%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of a high 29.4%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 34.3% from WIN/NBN on 24.4%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

Seven News — 510,000
A Current Affair — 508,000
Nine News — 472,000
Please Marry My Boy — 438,000
Home and Away — 436,000

Major Metro Markets: Another win for Seven, but not quite a clean sweep. Seven won everywhere bar the main channels in Melbourne where the solid audience for the AFL Footy Show helped None score a narrow victory. In Brisbane a different story overall with Ten pushing Nine to third. And in Perth, another bad night for Nine and its owners, WIN Corporation with Ten elbowing its way into second and reducing Nine to third. In the digitals, 7mate won Sydney and Perth. 7TWO won Melbourne and Adelaide and Eleven won Brisbane. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten except in Perth where its Ten second and Nine third.

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

*Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports