The Winners: Looking at the figures below, and a few others, you would be right in saying that Nine or Ten won the night. While they did well in the demos, however All People was won easily by Seven because of the way it programmed its schedule.

Seven’s World’s Most Extreme Airports at 7.30-9pm filled the hole and more than held its own. It was actually very familiar: many of the airports have featured in those amazing plane landing and taking off shots that have been circulating on the net for years.

  1. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.582 million
  2. Seven News (6pm)  — 1.443 million
  3. The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.397 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.362 million
  5. Nine News (6pm)  — 1.202 million
  6. The Amazing Race Australia (Seven) (9pm) — 1.195 million
  7. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.101 million
  8. World’s Most Extreme Airports (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.029 million
  9. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.008 million

The Losers: Again Nine and Ten had nothing to back up The Block and MasterChef. The Renovators followed MasterChef and averaged 906,000. Not good. The Big Bang Theory (911,000) followed The Block at 8pm and Rescue Special Ops slotted in at 8.30pm with 800,000. That explains why Nine had killed off Rescue Special Ops. With Sea Patrol ended, that’s two dramas Nine has to find next year to keep content levels up.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne. Seven won the rest. TT won all five metro markets.

Q&A started badly last night when an obviously partisan question about South Australian state politics was allowed to be the first question: in a program that was supposed to be concentrating on Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Poor production and a poor choice by host Tony Jones. The discussion improved somewhat, but the British blogger, Brendan O’Neill, was very uninformed about the extent of Murdoch’s control of the Australian media. He was also not very amusing.

In some ways, Can of Worms on Ten, from just before 9pm, was far more amusing and at times more interesting than Q&A, which is very earnest.

  1. Seven News (6pm)  — 1.443 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.362 million
  3. Nine News (6pm)  — 1.202 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.008 million
  5. ABC News (7pm)  — 961,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 736,000
  7. Australian Story (ABC) (8pm) — 679,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 608,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 604,000
  10. Media Watch (ABC) (9.15pm) — 584,000
  11. Four Corners (ABC) (8.30pm) — 578,000
  12. Q&A (ABC) (9.35pm) — 526,000
  13. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 468,000
  14. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.55pm) — 348,000
  15. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) –246,000
  16. SBS News (6.30pm) — 172,000
  17. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.08pm, replay) — 113,000
  18. SBS News (9.30pm) — 87,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 401,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 345,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 32.3% from Nine (3) on 25.4%, Ten (3) was on 23.4%, the ABC (4) was on 15.1% and SBS (2) ended with 3.8%. Seven leads the week with 29.5% from Nine on 26.2% and Ten on 25.5%
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 23.7%, from Nine on 20.1%, Ten with 18.1%, ABC 1, 11.7% and SBS ONE was on 3.2%. Seven leads the week with 22.4% from Nine on 20.5% and Ten with 19.4%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 5.4% from Eleven on 3.6%, 7mate was on 3.3%, GO was on 2.8%, Gem was on 2.5%, ABC 2 was on 2.1%, ONE was on 1.6%, News 24 ended with 0.8%, and ABC 3 and SBS TWO ended with 0.6% each. That’s an FTA viewing share last night of 23.3%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.2% from GO and Eleven on 3.1%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.8% from Nine (3) on 21.1%, Ten (3) was on 19.4%, Pay TV ended with 14.5% for its 200 plus channels, the ABC (4) ended with 12.5% and SBS (2) was on 3.1%. The 15 FTA channels had an 85.5% share of prime time viewing last night. the 10 digital channels had a total share of 19.4%, the five main channels, 66.3%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 31.8% from WIN/NBN (3) with 28.1%. SC Ten (3) was on 20.0%, the ABC (4) ended with 15.9% and SBS (2) was on 4.2%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 22.0% from Prime/7Qld on 21.3% and SC Ten back on 14.5%. The digitals were won by 7TWO with 6.5% from 7mate and Eleven with 3.9% each. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 26.8%. WIN/NBN leads the week on 29.3% from Prime/7Qld on 28.5%.

Major Markets: Seven from Nine and Ten everywhere, except in Perth where it was Seven from Ten and a very distant Nine. 7TWO won the digitals in all five markets. Nine leads Seven in Sydney from Ten. Seven leads Nine and Ten in Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven leads Ten and Nine in Adelaide and Perth, despite the successes of MasterChef and The Block so far this week.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: When The Block and MasterChef were ending from 8pm onwards. Seven was running third. From 8.30pm it was first and from 9pm when the finale of The Amazing Race started, it was still first and remained that way, clearly, until 10.30pm and the end of the main prime time ratings zone. Nine and Ten simply didn’t have the programming to win the night in All People, or to bury Seven.

With the final tonight of Australia’s Got Talent, then Winners & Losers, Seven will have set up the week’s win. Ten and especially Nine are being buried in Adelaide and Perth most nights.

  • MasterChef had a national audience of 2.086 million with 504,000 regional viewers and 1.582 million in the metro markets.
  • The Block had a national audience of 1.866 million with 469,000 regional viewers and 1.397 million metro viewers.

TONIGHT: The final (promise Seven?) of Australia’s Got Talent, plus Winners & Losers. Ten has MasterChef and The Renovators. Nine has The Block. SBS has Insight, the ABC has Foreign Correspondent.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports