The Winners: A crushing win for Seven. It means the network has won the week already. Nine stuck an “encore” (i.e. repeat) of In Their Footsteps‘ second episode in the 6.30pm slot last night. It averaged 987,000 viewers, but it’s a bit rich repeating a program that only aired a couple of week ago. There was no sign of a repeat in the weekly schedules. Is Nine worried that the program is being swamped by Dancing With The Stars?

The Kennedys averaged 585,000 at 8.30 pm for the ABC. Simply not in the same class as Downton Abbey on Seven.

  1. Downton Abbey (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.807 million
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.659 million
  3. Seven News (6pm)– 1.532 million
  4. MasterChef (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.511 million
  5. Dancing With The Stars (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.429 million

The Losers: Nine. Nothing worked last night. Hawaii Five O on Ten at 9pm, 570,000.

News & CA: Nine won nationally because of big audiences and wins in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

The Bolt Report at 10am now has the unfortunate distinction of the repeat in the afternoon being more popular than the original broadcast in the morning. The 178,000 for the repeat actually equalled the opening morning’s audience for the program. It has now lost 77,000 of that first up morning audience, or a fall of 43%. What will Ten do, the morning program isn’t working?

It is helping Ten’s Meet The Press which didn’t suffer the same loss of audience yesterday and seems to have steadied at just under 100,000. That’s more than double Meet The Press‘s 8am average. It is real politics and commentary, whereas The Bolt Report is a pastiche of whatever he is interested in.

  1. Nine News (6pm) — 1.659 million
  2. Seven News (6pm)– 1.532 million
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 987,000
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 753,000
  5. Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 433,000
  6. Ten Evening News (6pm) — 419,000
  7. SBS News (6.30pm) — 187,000
  8. The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 178,000
  9. Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 85,000

In the morning:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 330,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 241,000
  3. Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 206,000
  4. Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 225,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 130,000
  6. Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 121,000
  7. The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 101,000
  8. Meet The Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 95,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with 35.2%, from Nine (3) on 24.9%, Ten (3) was on 23.9%, the ABC (4) was on 12.5% and SBS (2) ended with 3.5%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 29.6% from Nine on 17.7%, ten was on 17.1%, ABC 1 was on 9.8% and SBS ONE ended with 2.9%.
  • Digital: ONE with its motor racing won with a share of 4.3%, from Gem on 2.7%, GO on 3.5%, 7TWO on 2.9%, 7mate on 2.7%, Eleven on 2.4%, ABC 2, 1.7%, SBS TWO, 0.6% and News 24 and ABC 3 on 0.5% each. That’s a total share of FTA viewing last night of 23.8%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 29.2%, from Nine (3) on 20.6%, Ten (3) was on 19.8%, the ABC (4) averaged 10.4% and SBS (2) was on 2.9%. The 15 FTA channels had an 86.0% share of prime time viewing last night. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share of 18.1% with the five main channels on a share of 67.9%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 38.4%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 25.8%, SC Ten (3) was on 20.0%, the ABC (4) was on 11.8% and SBS (2) was on 3.9%. Seven won the main channels with Nine way back in second and Ten third. GO won the digitals with 4.1% from 7TWO on 4.0% and Gem on 3.8%. The 10- digitals channels had an FTA share of 24.9% in prime time viewing last night.

Major Markets: A Seven benefit in every market overall and the main channels. Nine was second and Ten third in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In Adelaide and Perth, Ten was second a Nine a distant third. ONE won all five markets thanks to its broadcast of the F-1 car race with averaged 331,000 viewers nationally.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine won the State of Origin markets: Brisbane and Sydney, Seven won the non-Origin markets: Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine was so weak in Adelaide and Perth that it was beaten by Ten.

Downton Abbey proved to be too solid for viewers to resist (helped by months on clever spot promos across the Seven channels). It helps to be able to promote a new show on the most popular channels, Seven and 7TWO in particular. With Dancing With The Stars showing us that it’s still very popular, the network is now going to win the week, especially with solid programming Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Downton Abbey gets better in coming episodes.

Last night was a rare night on Australian TV: three programs with national audiences of close to or more than 2 million:

  • Downton Abbey was tops: it’s regional audience of 758,000, when added to the 1.8 million from the metro markets, produced a national figure of 2.565 million viewers.
  • Dancing With The Stars was watched by 615,000 people in regional areas. With the 1.429 million viewers in the metro markets, Dancing With The Stars had a national audience of 2.044 million.
  • MasterChef was watched by 479,000 viewers in regional areas. When added to the 1.511 million metro viewers (its highest audience for a Sunday night this season), the program had 1.990 million viewers.

TONIGHT: Monday night is news and current affairs night on the ABC, when the national broadcaster tries to broaden our knowledge. It’s a pity it takes four and a half hours to do so. Ten has MasterChef. Seven has another round of The Amazing Race. Nine has another episode of Come Fly With Me, but unfortunately Rescue Special Ops returns at 8.30pm after a losing season last year. SBS has a Man vs. Wild behind the scenes episode.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports