The Winners: Seven’s night, as all Monday nights have been this ratings year so far. Ten was appalling. Glee at 7.30pm with 972,000 was the most watched program for the network last night. Thanks to the fresh episodes of Two and a Half Men, Nine had a better night.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.447 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.413 million
  3. My Kitchen Rules (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.391 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.282 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.205 million
  6. Two and a Half Men (Nine) (8pm) — 1.205 million
  7. Two and a Half Men (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.120 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.104 million
  9. ABC News (7pm) — 1.008 million

The Losers: Million Dollar Drop on Nine at 8.30pm. Despite all the publicity, the expensive set and the free plug on A Current Affair last night, it should have done better than the 933,000 viewers it had. It would have been cheaper to send a dollar to each of the viewers. It is another US game format that doesn’t translate well to Australia.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne, Seven news won the rest. ACA won Sydney, lost the rest to Today Tonight.

And did my eyes deceive me, but did A Current Affair steal a whole segment of Today Tonight last night without attribution?

TT ran an exclusive interview with the so-called “bully” in the story about a young Sydney boy who turned on his tormentor and dumped him on the ground. ACA went to air on Sunday evening with an exclusive interview with that boy. Last night TT had an interview with the other boy with his father present. ACA grabbed that interview and ran it without attribution. On screen attribution is supposed to happen, but doesn’t in most cases, especially where TT and ACA are involved.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.447 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.413 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.282 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.205 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 1.008 million
  6. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 785,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 777,000
  8. Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 772,000
  9. Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 750,000
  10. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 732,000
  11. Media Watch (ABC) (9.15pm) — 700,000
  12. Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 637,000
  13. 6PM With George Negus (Ten) (6pm) — 399,000
  14. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 327,000
  15. Ten Evening News (Ten) (6.30pm) — 318,000
  16. 6PM With George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 244,000
  17. SBS News (6.30pm) — 232,000
  18. SBS News (9.30pm) — 154,000
  19. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 152,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 375,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 363,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels), won with a share of 32.6% from Nine (3) on 27.8%, Ten, (3) was on 17.8%, the ABC (4) was on 16.5% and SBS (2), ended with 5.2%. Seven now leads the week with 30.8% from Nine on 29.0% and Ten on 18.5%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 23.9% from Nine on 21.0%, Ten was on 13.9%, with ABC 1 just behind on 13.6% and SBS ONE ended with 4.4%. Seven now leads the week with 22.9% from Nine on 21.7% and Ten back on 14.6%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with 5.4%, from GO on 4.0%, 7Mate and Eleven on 3.3% each, Gem was on 2.8%, ABC 2, 1.5%, News 24, 1.0%, SBS TWO, 0.8%, ONE on 0.6% and ABC 3, 0.4%. That’s a total FTA prime time share of 23.1%. 7TWO leads the week on 4.5% from GO on 4.4% and 7TWO on 3.4%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 27.0% from Nine (3) on 23.0%, Ten was on 23.0% for its three channels, Pay TV (100 plus channels) finished with 14.5%, the ABC (4 channels), ended with 13.7% and SBS (2) was on 4.3%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share of prime time viewing of 85.5%, with the digital channels accounting for a share of 19.0% and the five main channels, 66.5%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won narrowly with a share of 30.9% from WIN/NBN (3 channels) with a share of 30.8%. SC Ten was on 16.4% (3) just in front of the ABC (4) on 16.1%, with SBS (2) on 5.7%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 22.6% from Prime/7Qld on 21.4%, ABC 1 was on 12.6% and SC Ten, 11.5%. 7TWO won the digitals with 6.3% from GO on 5.4% and Eleven on 4.1%.

Major Markets: A mixed night. Seven won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth overall and in the main channels. Nine won both in Melbourne with. The ABC finished third in Sydney in both, pushing Ten to 4th. The ABC was also third in the main channels in Brisbane and Adelaide. 7TWO won Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. GO won Melbourne. Seven leads everywhere bar Melbourne where Nine is in front.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven won, Nine did a bit better than in recent weeks because the double fresh episodes of Two and a Half Men did well, especially in Melbourne where they just love Charlie Sheen.

Four Corners could have been so much better, but instead what we got was lazy TV. The report on Japan was merely a re-working of all the vision we have already seen, plus some new interviews (only one of which was truly informative) and the lead of the report was stuck right at the end. Why weren’t there contributions from ABC reporters on the ground in Japan? They had the expertise, the knowledge and experience.

This report smacked of the worst kind of current affairs thinking, insular and territory-protecting. Kerry O’Brien then did an interview and I wondered, were we back in 2010 with The 7.30 Report, or forward an hour and a half and he was filling in on Lateline?

And what a difference a crisis makes at the ABC.

Remember how the ABC reporters had to hole up in north Queensland during cyclone Yasi for health and occupational safety reasons? And what of the Japan story? Up went a flood of commercial reporters and stars, and back they came from Tokyo and closer to the tsunami area when the Fukushima problems intensified, and the ABC reporters stayed on and were rotated from Australia (the ABC sending former Tokyo correspondents Shane McLeod and Mark Simkin north). And in Libya, there’s Peter Cave and Tim Palmer reporting from or near war zones. Where are the health and occupational safety concerns now?

TONIGHT: Experiment night for Seven with the debut of Winners and Losers in the 8.30pm slot, replacing Packed to the Rafters. Nine has Top Gear, Ten has NCIS, after The 7pm Project and Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation. Ten should do better than last night with this format. The ABC has Foreign Correspondent, SBS has Insight.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports