MasterChef dominates, as the Footy Shows fail to get a touch

The Winners: MasterChef simply dominated because it had no competition.

The Block remained above 1.1 million, which for a Thursday night, was a solid effort. The contestants are still to attach themselves to viewers. But it’s early days. It’s doing well in Melbourne because it’s based there, as is Seven’s Winners & Losers, which sounds like a good reason to make a TV show: the parochial Melbourne support factor.

Go Back To Where You Came From averaged 600,000 for the last episode on SBS, which is planning a studio discussion next Tuesday night. The audience rose for the final episode, and on a normally low viewing Thursday evening, which underlined the interest there was in the program.

MasterChef (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.511 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.183 million
The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.139 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.076 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.047 million

The Losers: The NRL Footy Show for Nine at 9.30pm; 120,000 in Sydney; 88,000 in Brisbane. That’s down 70,000 in Sydney on last week’s post origin high, while Brisbane was up around 10,000 or so. The AFL Footy Show averaged 315,000 in Sydney, under the highs of earlier in the season, but still a lot better than the NRL offering.

News & CA: Seven News and TT lost Melbourne to Nine News and ACA, Seven News and TT won the rest.

Lateline and Lateline Business did well considering their lead in.

Sunrise remained in front of Today which seems unable to go on and move ahead of its Seven rival after winning the previous two weeks.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.183 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.076 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.047 million
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 974,000
ABC News (7pm) — 855,000
The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 736,000
Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 654,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 565,000
6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 520,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 311,000
6.30 with George Negus (10.30pm) (repeat) — 263,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.25pm) — 200,000
Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 186,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 171,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11pm) — 136,000

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 355,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 338,000

The Stats:

FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 28.3%, from Seven (3) on 26.9%, Ten (3) was on 24.6%, the ABC (4) ended with 13.3% and SBS (2) was on 6.9%. Seven leads the week on 31.2% from Nine on 25.8% and Ten on 24.0%.
Main Channel: Nine won with 21.2% from Ten on 19.4%, Seven was on 17.7%, ABC 1, 9.1% and SBS ONE was on 6.0%. Seven leads the week on 23.2% from Nine on 19.6% and Ten with 18.5%.
Digital: 7TWO won with 5.5%, from GO on 4.1%, 7mate was on 3.7%, Eleven was on 3.4%, Gem was on 3.1%, ABC 2 ended with 3.0%, ONE was on 1.8%, SBS TWO ended with 0.9%, ABC 3, 0.7% and News 24, 0.5%. That’s a total FTA viewing share of 26.7% last night. 7TWO leads the week with 4.1%, from 7mate on 4.0% and GO on 3.8%.
Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 23.5%, from Seven (3) on 22.3%, Ten (3) was on 20.4%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 14.0%, the ABC (4), 11.0%, and SBS (2) was on 5.8%. The 15 FTA channels had an 86.0% share of TV viewing in prime time last night. That was made up of 23.1% from the digital channels and 62.9% for the five main channels.
Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 29.3% from Prime/7Qld (3) on 28.7%, with SC Ten (3) on 21.5%, the ABC (4) on 13.3% and SBS (2) was on 7.2%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 21.6% from Prime/7Qld on 17.1% and SC Ten on 16.1%. The digitals were won both 6.3% from 7mate on 5.3% and GO on 4.6%. The 10 digital channels had a very high FTA share last night of 29.9%. Prime/7Qld lead the week with 32.0% from WIN/NBN on 27.8%.

Major Markets: The Block and Inside The Human Body plus Hot Property, all on Nine, made for a more competitive night. The strong performance of Seven’s digital channels in all markets helped offset the main channel weakness.

In Sydney, Seven won overall from Nine and Ten, but in the main channels, it was Ten from Seven and Nine. In Melbourne, it was Nine from Seven and Ten. In Brisbane it was Ten from Nine and Seven overall and in the main channels. In Adelaide, Seven won overall from Ten and Nine, but in the main channels it was Ten from Nine and Seven. And in Perth it was Seven from Nine and Ten overall, but Ten from Seven and Nine in the main channels.

7TWO won Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and tied with 7mate in Perth. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In Adelaide and Perth it’s Seven from Ten and Nine. The AFL will see Seven win Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine could make it tight in Brisbane with the NRL. Seven should win Sydney.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: A much closer night, thanks to The Block holding up and Hot Property and Inside The Human Body doing OK for Nine compared to what the network had in those timeslots before.

Ten’s repeats of Law and Order SVU also helped boost its post MasterChef performance. As a result Seven couldn’t repeat its dominance in the demos with its fleet of female-skewing programs, which did OK, but not as well as last week.

MasterChef underlined its sheer dominance with another 2 million national audience, made up of 541,000 viewers in regional areas and 1.511 million in metro markets for 2.052 million in total.

But 37% of the TV audience were watching the digital channels or Pay TV in prime time last night, which tells us about what a large section of viewers thought of the main channel offerings last night.

TONIGHT: AFL and NRL on Seven and Nine tonight. MasterChef on Ten, The Block on Nine, Taggart and Hustle on the ABC (the former is so formulaic).

Saturday: NRL, AFL on Ten and Foxtel. Movies on Nine and Seven. ABC has Kingdom and a repeat of New Tricks.

Sunday: The morning chats. AFL, NRL on Seven, Nine and Foxtel. Dancing With The Stars and Downton Abbey on Seven, Inspector George Gently on the ABC, In Their Footsteps on Nine. MasterChef on Ten. A solid night.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports