The Winners: Seven was weak, both because of the split scheduling around tonight’s early AFL game from Perth and because of the strength of MasterChef on Ten and The Block on Nine.

Inside The Human Body on Nine at 8.30pm is fading, only 753,000 last night. Still that won All People, but Grey’s Anatomy‘s final episode had better demos for Seven.

The AFL Footy Show averaged 249,000 viewers last night, a big fall from the 300,000 plus for most of the current season. That put it outside the top 10 for only the second time this year. The NRL version saw just 120,000 watch last night, which after the Origin III result, was understandable. 100,000 watched in Brisbane, which is a lot better than the 79,000 or so who tuned in a few weeks ago.

  1. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.634 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.300 million
  3. The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.293 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.174 million
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.147 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.065 million

The Losers: Nothing really, but apart from MasterChef and The Block, no real winners either.

News & CA: Seven News won everywhere bar Brisbane where Nine got up. Seven won Melbourne by 1,0900, the smallest margin there is.

Today Tonight won Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. ACA won Melbourne and Brisbane.

TT and ACA had almost matching stories on anti-ageing cream. Pity the same creams couldn’t be used on the stories which are now very, very old TV current affairs fare and well past their use by dates.

Today edged higher, Sunrise fell sharply from the range 370,000 to 400,000 earlier in the week. The upshot, a clear win to Today on low figures.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.300 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.174 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.147 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.065 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 912,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 815,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 655,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 526,000
  9. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 457,000
  10. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 289,000
  11. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 208,000
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 177,000
  13. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 177,000
  14. SBS News (9.30pm) — 113,000
  15. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) –107,000

In the morning:

  1. Today (Nine) (7am) — 329,000
  2. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 311,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels ) won with a share of 28.1%, from Seven (3) on 25.3%, with Ten (3) on 24.8%, the ABC (4) was on 15.4% and SBS (2) which ended with 6.3%. Nine leads the week with 29.2% from Seven on 28.6% and Ten on 22.8%.
  • Main Channel: Nine won with 21.1% from Ten on 19.4%, Seven on 17.6%, ABC 1 with 11.5% and SBS ONE on 5.6%. Nine leads the week with 23.1%, from Seven on 21.2% and Ten on 17.4%.
  • Digital: GO won with 4.2% from 7TWO on 4.0%, with 7mate on 3.8% and Eleven with 3.6%. Gem was on 2.8%, ABC 2 was on 2.6%, ONE was on 1.8% and ABC 3 ended with 0.8%. SBS TWO was on 0.7% and News 24, 0.5%. That’s a FTA total share of 24.8% of primetime viewing last night. 7TWO leads with 3.8%, from GO on 3.7%, 7mate was on 3.5% as was Eleven.
  • Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with 23.3% from Seven (3) on 21.0%, Ten (3) was on 20.5%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) averaged 14.4%, the ABC (4) was on 12.7% and SBS (2) was on 5.2%. The 15 FTA channels had an 85.6% share of TV viewing last night, with the 10 digitals on 20.5% and the five main channels totalling 65.1%
  • Regional: WIN/NBN (3) won with 30.8%, from Prime/7Qld (3) on 28.0%, SC Ten (3) was on 21.1%, the ABC (4) was on 14.5% and SBS (2) ended with 5.7%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 21.1% from Prime/7Qld with 19.1%. GO won the digitals with 5.7%, with 7mate on 4.7% and 7TWO on 4.1%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 28.4%. WIN/NBN leads the week with 31.9% from Prime/7Qld on 29.7%.

Major Markets: Nine everywhere overall and the main channels, bar Perth when Seven won both. The digitals were shared a bit. 7TWO win Brisbane, 7mate Sydney, GO won Melbourne and Adelaide. Eleven won Perth. Nine leads Seven in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. That will change tonight as Seven moves to the top in Melbourne, but Nine will win Sydney and Brisbane with tonight’s NRL. Seven will extend its lead in Adelaide and especially Perth with the AFL.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine and Ten’s night. Seven was left behind. MasterChef and The Block dominated because viewers were starved of interesting TV last night.

The ABC documentary Leaky Boat and then Q&A last night was the best and worst of Australian TV. Leaky Boat was fine, Q&A was fine, but some of the questions and comments and the panellists were poor. More of what we have heard ad infinitum for the last 10 years. It’s a stale, stale debate.

Curiously the ABC coded the two hours as one item, under the heading Q&A Stopping The Boats, which averaged 594,000.

The documentary screened from 8.30pm to 9.30pm and averaged just over 585,000. Q&A did a bit better, averaging just over 600,000. So some people tuned into Q&A without watching the documentary.

  • MasterChef had a national audience of 2.16 million last night with 526,000 watching in the regions and 1.634 million in the metro markets.
  • The Block had 1.70 million viewers across the country (452,000 in the regions and 1.293 million in the metro markets).

By the close tomorrow night, the 2011 ratings year will be half over. Depending on the way the figures go tonight, Seven will have either won 21 of 22 weeks including Easter, or 19 of the 20 weeks of official ratings (excluding Easter), with Nine getting up this week.

TONIGHT: AFL on Seven. (Geelong vs. West Coast from Perth means a 7.30pm start in Melbourne). Better Homes and Gardens in NRL markets. NRL on Nine (no sign of a post-Origin ennui). Ten has the usually good MasterChef master class (the size of the class is shrinking). The ABC has finals for Taggart and Hustle. The Tour de France is on SBS.

Saturday: The Super 15 Rugby Union final on Foxtel, Qld vs. NZ’s Crusaders. NRL and AFL on Foxtel as well. AFL on Ten. The Tour de France on SBS. A big stage tonight. It will be worth watching. Kingdom and New Tricks repeats on the ABC. Seven and Nine have movies. Ignore.

Sunday: NRL and AFL on Nine, Seven and Foxtel. The Tour de France on SBS. The final for In Their Footsteps on Nine at 6.30pm. A solid series. Ten has 90 minutes of MasterChef. Seven has a three hour final of Dancing With The Stars. Downton Abbey‘s final episode is on next week. The ABC has a repeat of Midsomer Murders. The episode of Grand Designs has been moved back a week because of the carbon tax statement from the Federal Government.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports