The Winners: Only one program outside the news with more than a million viewers, Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure. The rest of the night was very weak. Seven’s Tennis audience fell from more than 980,000 on Tuesday night to 759,000. Seven can thank Oprah for that. Apart from Oprah, Ten had nothing else, although The 7pm Project did very well at 7pm with Sarah Murdoch in the panel and replacing Carrie Bickmore. Ms Murdoch has so far not repeated her Australia’s Top Model stuff up and has looked very solid and professional.

  1. Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.811 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.197 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.106 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.042 million

The Losers: TV viewers who didn’t like tennis or Oprah.

News & CA: Seven News won Sydney and Melbourne, Nine won Brisbane, Seven won Adelaide and Perth. ACA won Sydney and Melbourne, TT won the rest. Sunrise won all five metro markets, including Brisbane (and won it on Tuesday as well, not lost it as I reported).

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.197 million
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.106 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.042 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 961,000
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 933,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 897,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 776,000
  8. The 7.30 Report (ABC) (7.30pm) — 625,000
  9. Late News (Ten) (10.30pm) — 198,000
  10. SBS News (6.30pm) — 164,000
  11. ABC News Update (10.30pm) — 90,000
  12. SBS News (9.30pm) — 87,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 436,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) 298,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Preliminary figures show that Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 31.6% from Nine (3) with 26.0%, Ten with 24.8% (3 channels), the ABC (4) with 13.5% and SBS on 4.1%. Seven leads the week with 31.3% from Nine on 30.9% and Ten on 19.2%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 22.5% from Ten on 20.0%, Nine was on 18.9%, ABC 1, 8.9% and SBS ONE, 3.5%. Nine leads the week with 23.6% from Seven on 22.4% and Ten with 14.2%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 5.0%, from Eleven with 4.2%, 7Mate on 4.1%, GO on 3.9%, Gem on 3.3%, ABC 2 with 3.1%, News 24 on 0.8%, ABC 3, 0.7%, ONE and SBS TWO on 0.6% each. That’s a total FTA share of 25.3%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.9% from Eleven on 4.3%, GO on 4.0% and 7Mate on 3.9%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with 25.6% from Nine (3) on 21.1%, Ten (3) on 20.1%, Pay TV (100 plus channels), 16.2%, the ABC (4), 10.9% and SBS (2), 3.3%. The 15 FTA channels shared 83.8% of the audience, made up of 19.9% for the Ten digital channels and 64.0% for the five main channels. The highest FTA share for the digital channels yet recoded in any market was set in Perth in prime time last night with a total share of 35.1%, or 28.8% with Pay TV included (Foxtel had a total share of 17.8% in that market as well. That means 46.6% of the Perth audience were watching the 10 FTA digitals channels and Foxtel.

Major Markets: Seven won from Nine and Ten in all markets overall and in the main channels. in Sydney Ten was second on both measures. It was also second in Brisbane overall. 7TWO won all but Brisbane in the digitals where 7Mate won. The FTA shares for the digital channels ranged from 23.6% in Sydney to that 35.1% reading in Perth. Foxtel’s shares ranged from 12,.9% in Adelaide to 19.9% in Sydney.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The first of four episodes about Oprah’s visit was cringe worthy. Loud American hosts are not my style, sorry, but great publicity for Australia and great ratings for Ten. A Current Affair ran what it thought was a spoiler with excerpts from Oprah at 6.30pm last night.

TONIGHT: Tennis and Oprah standout on a very, very weak night. Ten returns The Good Wife after Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure Part 2. The Good Wife was an early hit in 2010 then faded, but to summer’s low rating status?

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports