The Winners: For the first time in week/months three programs after 7pm topped the rankings; one each from Seven, Ten and the ABC. Nine was conspicuous by its absence. The 90 minute episode of Glee at 8.30pm on Ten, 805,000. Whacked by Australia’s Got Talent running over time, but whipped by Angry Boys which topped the 16 to 39 demo and did well in the others. Ten said it won 16 to 39s and 18 to 49s. Seven won 25 to 54s. Spicks and Specks was funny.

  1. Australia’s Got Talent (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.514 million
  2. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.443 million
  3. Angry Boys (ABC) (9pm) — 1.368 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.349 million
  5. Seven News (6pm)– 1.336 million
  6. Spicks and Specks (ABC) (8.30pm) — 1.170 million
  7. Nine News (6pm)– 1.155 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.064 million
  9. ABC News (7pm) — 1.034 million
  10. Criminal Minds (Seven) (8.40pm) — 1.018 million

The Losers: Nine. Lie To Me on Ten at 10pm, 347,000. Poor.

News & CA: Seven News won Sydney for the first time this week, but lost Melbourne for the first time this week, and lost Brisbane, again. It won the rest. Today Tonight had a convincing clean sweep over ACA.

6.30 with George Negus was a better program last night insofar as content and reporting went.

The Julia Gillard interview on 7.30 was 3000 viewers more popular than Wayne Swans budget speech on Tuesday night.

Today got very close yesterday morning to Sunrise with big win in Sydney and Melbourne. Buying a gold Logie works?

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.349 million
  2. Seven News (6pm)– 1.336 million
  3. Nine News (6pm)– 1.155 million
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 1.034 million
  5. The 7PM Project (Ten) (7pm) — 888,000
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 877,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 689,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 591,000
  9. Hungry Beast (ABC) (9.30pm) — 584,000
  10. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 471,000
  11. Lateline (ABC) (10.25pm) — 190,000
  12. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (11pm) — 175,000
  13. SBS News (6.30pm) — 163,000
  14. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 126,000
  15. SBS News (9.30pm) — 114,000
  16. Lateline Business (ABC) (11pm) — 80,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 365,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 363,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels ) won with a share of 32.1% from Ten (3) on 23.8%, Nine (3) was third again with 22.3%, the ABC (4) was on 17.9% and SBS (2) ended with 3.9%. Seven leads the week with 32.0% from Ten on 24.9% and Nine on 23.4%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 24.6% from Ten on 17.5%, Nine was on 17.2%, ABC 1 ended with 14.2% and SBS ONE was on 3.1%. Seven leads the week with 24.7% from Ten on 18.7% and Nine on 17.6%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won the digitals from Eleven on 3.2%, 7Mate and ONE were on 3.1%, ABC 2 was on 2.4%, along with Gem. ABC 3 and SBS TWO ended with 0.8% each and News 24 finished with 0.5%. That’s a total FTA share last night of 23.5%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.1%, from GO on 3.4% and ONE on 3.3% and 7mate on 3.2%. ONE’s audience last night was noticeably higher thanks to its more general prime time non sport viewing.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.7% from Ten (3) on 19.8%, with Nine (3) on 18.5%, the ABC (4) ended with 14.9%. Pay TV (100 plus channels) ended on 13.9% and SBS (2) was on 3.2%. The 15 FTA channels had an 86.1% share of prime time viewing last night, made up of 19.4% for the digitals and 66.7% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 32.7%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 26.5%, SC Ten (3) was on 20.3%, the ABC (4) was on 16.3% and SBS (2) ended with 4.1%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels from WIN/NBN and then SC Ten. 7TWO won the digitals on 4.8% from Eleven on 3.4% and GO on 3.0%. ONE was on 1.9%, the change to its line up has yet to make the same impact in regional areas as it has in the metro markets. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share in regional areas last night of 23.4%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 33.0% from WIN/NBN on 26.2%.

Major Markets: A clean sweep for Seven overall and the main channels in each of the five metro markets. Ten was second in Sydney and Perth and Nine third. In Adelaide, Nine was second and Ten was third overall, but the ABC beat Ten into third in the main channels. I

n Melbourne, Nine was second overall and in the main channels shares second with Ten. Nine was second in Brisbane and Ten third. 7TWO won the digitals in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. 7mate won Brisbane. Seven leads the week everywhere with Ten in second except in Brisbane.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: In Sydney, the Seven and Nine News teams concluded the budget was a dead fish and led their 6pm bulletins with the very cold weather that has gripped the city. Neither attempted to link the cold snap to global warming/cooling or the Federal budget.

Angry Boys: Nasty, funny, subversive and I’d love to be in the US and the UK to watch viewers on HBO and the BBC react to this one and the rotten twins and the nasty Gran, let alone what’s to come in future episodes. I reckon Chris Lilley should be our next tourism ambassador.

Australia’s Got Talent was watched by 692,000 viewers in regional areas and it had 2.2 million viewers nationally last night. MasterChef had 467,000 viewers in regional areas, making for a national audience of 1.91 million. The gap was smaller than Tuesday night. All up over 4.1 million people watched both programs across the country last night. More than 2.9 million watched both programs in the five metro markets.

The Nine Network is starting to struggle to keep up with Seven, and now Ten on the main channels and in its digital channels. GO and Gem’s shares have sagged in the past week (GO dipped to just 1.5% in Sydney last night, which is usually its strongest market).

To hold that up and maintain overall share (including main and digitals), Nine yesterday added a further eight episodes of Two and a Half Men to GO’s weekly schedule. Between Nine’s main channel and GO there are now 30 episodes a week of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory in prime time.

GO started weakening as Ten revamped ONE’s prime time viewing away from pure sport (and near sport) to more general programming aimed at young males, which is the target audience for GO and to a lesser extent, 7Mate.

TONIGHT: Nine starts its sports quiz program hosted by Eddie McGuire, Between The Lines, at 8.30pm. Nine then has the AFL Footy Show at 9.30pm in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, and the dud NRL Footy Show in Sydney and Brisbane. How much more of Eddie McGuire can we stand? The Million Dollar Drop was an expensive flop, what about this contribution to Australian TV culture?

Seven had another episode of Airways at 7.30pm. Seven has have subbed another repeat of How I Met Your Mother at 8pm and moved the fresh episode forward to fill Airways’ slot. Seven therefore has another full hour of female attracting viewing.

Ten has MasterChef after The 7pm Project. The ABC has Tony Abbott’s chance to reply to the budget (up against MasterChef…). SBS has several hours of food repeats.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports