The Winners: With My Kitchen Rules wrapping up, it was an easy win for Seven as the sleeper program of the first ratings period struck gold. Seven of course won the demos.

  1. My Kitchen Rules (winner announced) (Seven) (9pm) — 2.020 million
  2. My Kitchen Rules (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.719 million
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.255 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.188 million
  5. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.091 million
  6. The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.058 million
  7. Nine News (6pm) — 1.001 million

The Losers: Nine and Ten. Just weak. Everyone at Ten was at the MasterChef launch in Sydney last night and left the station running with the tape in the machine. Nine has no excuse except that it’s running dead and is out of ideas.

News & CA: Nine News and ACA won Sydney by 1000 viewers in each case. Lost the rest, including another big loss in Melbourne. 6.30 With George Negus had its highest audience so far with 488,000 last night. The 6.30pm audience was more than half ACA‘s 925,000.

In Melbourne, ACA averaged 234,000, 6.30 With George Negus, 227,000. And Negus beat ACA in Melbourne in the quarter hour from 6.45pm to 7pm. 6.30 With George Negus though remains weak in Sydney, just 97,000 viewers.

In the morning, Today slipped under 300,000 for the second time this week; no golf on Ten, so must be the holidays or viewers went to Sunrise which jumped above 400,000, again.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.255 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.188 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.001 million
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 952,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 925,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 782,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 669,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 614,000
  9. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 488,000
  10. Hungry Beast (ABC) (9.30pm) — 356,000
  11. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) (10.45pm) — 222,000
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 203,000
  13. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11.15pm) — 174,000
  14. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 171,000
  15. SBS News (9.30pm) — 131,000
  16. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 76,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 415,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 299,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven won (3 channels) with a share of 37.0% from Nine (3) on 23.9%, Ten (3) was on 19.6%, the ABC (4) was on 145.8% and SBS (2) ended with 4.7%. Seven leads the week with 33.5% from Nine on 24.4% and Ten on 21.1%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 28.9% from Nine on 18.1%, Ten on 14.4%, ABC 1, 10.9% and SBS ONE, 4.1%. Seven leads the week with 25.6% from Nine on 17.7% and Ten on 15.9%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 4.4%, from 7Mate on 3.7%, GO on 3.1%, Eleven was on 3.0%, Gem was on 2.7%, ABC 2 was on 2.5%, ONE was on 2.3%, ABC 3, 0.8%, News 24, 0.6% and SBS TWO, 0.5%. That’s a total FTA share of prime time viewing of 23.8%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.1% from GO on 3.9% and 7Mate on 3.9%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 30.4% from Nine (3) on 19.6%, Ten (3) was on 16.1%, Pay TV (100 plus channels, was on 15.3%, the ABC (4) was on 12.1% and SBS (2) ended with 3.8%. The 15 FTA channels had a total TV viewing share in prime time of 84.7%, with the digital channels on 19.3% and the five main channels, 65.4%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won easily with 37.7%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 25.9%, SC Ten (3) was on 18.4%, the ABC (4) was on 14.1% and SBS (2) ended with 4.2%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 28.3% from WIN/NBN on 20.3% and SC Ten on 12.3%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.5%, from 7mate on 4.0% and Eleven also on 4.0%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA prime time share of 25.3% last night. Prime/7Qld lead the week on 34.3% from WIN/NBN on 26.0%.

Major Markets: Seven won overall and the main channels in every market, with Nine second and Ten way back in third. 7TWO won Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. GO won Melbourne, 7mate won Brisbane. Seven leads the week in every market from Nine and Ten.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven’s night, easily, daylight second, third and 4th. My Kitchen Rules is over and gets the second 2 million audience of the year. With 848,000 people watching the winner announcement in regional areas, the national audience was a not to be sneezed at 2.84 million. The final itself averaged 685,000 in regional areas, making the national audience more than 2.4 million. Not MasterChef levels, but it creamed Nine and Seven.

So that’s Seven’s week and first ratings period. Now we go to sleep with repeats of repeats and more repeats over the two week Easter break, with only news, sport and weather to amuse us, plus some hot cross buns and lots of chocolate, which can’t be a bad thing.

In the next ratings period will Ten’s MasterChef repeat 2010’s success? It starts Sunday night fortnight. And May 11 sees the most awaited program of the year when Chris Lilley’s Angry Boys starts. Something to keep in mind as you yell at the repeats of the next fortnight. (Don’t forget to eat the chocolate first).

TONIGHT: Seven’s female skewing programming tonight. Heston’s Mission Impossible tries to improve the food of a British navy submarine. More rum might help.

Nine has the two Footy Shows and has pulled its now regular Thursday trick of telling the compilers of the week guides that CSI will be on at 8.30pm then flipping that and dropping in The Million Dollar Drop.

Ten has The Biggest Loser: Families after The 7pm Project. The ABC has Whites, SBS two hours of food repeats from 7.30pm. tragic TV.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports