The Winners: Seven’s night — too easily, in fact. Only the ABC provided decent competition last night. Beauty and The Geek Australia on Seven, 995,000, Four Weddings at 7.30pm, 950,000. The Amazing Race (USA version) at 9.30pm, 629,000. That meant that from 6pm to 10.30pm Seven won the heart of prime time ratings.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.163 million
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.159 million
  3. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.018 million

The Losers: Ten. A big fade from Wednesday night’s solid effort. Rush at 8.30pm, 651,000.

News & CA: Seven News again lost Sydney to Nine, this time by 29,000, 277,000 to 248,000.

But Nine lost the rest to Seven News and Today Tonight had a clean sweep over ACA which fell well under 800,000 viewers nationally last night in a very weak showing, despite Tracy Grimshaw being back in the hosting chair. ACA had just 67,000 viewers in Perth, 127,000 short of TT. TT also had big wins in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane of more than 50,000 viewers in each market. In the morning, Today reversed positions with Sunrise and won the morning.

  1. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.163 million
  2. Seven News  (6pm) — 1.159 million
  3. ABC News (7pm) — 912,000
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 893,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 777,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 702,000 (+ 28,000 on News 24 simulcast)
  7. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 643,000
  8. Ten News (5pm) — 536,000
  9. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 366,000
  10. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 260,000
  11. SBS  News (6.30pm) — 162,000
  12. SBS  News (9.30pm) — 144,000
  13. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 117,000 (+ 27,000 on News 24 at 8.30pm)

In the morning:

  1. Today (Nine) (7am) — 372,000
  2. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 358,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 30.7% from Nine (3 ) on 24.1%, Ten (3) was on 20.5%, the ABC (4) was on 19.4% and SBS (2) was on 5.4% (the best of the week so far). Seven leads the week on 30.6% from Nine on 26.2% and Ten on 21.8%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 22.9% from Nine on 16.1%, ABC 1 was on 15.1%, Ten was on 14.1% and SBS One was on 4.7%. Seven leads the week with 23.1% from Nine on 19.6% and Ten on 16.0%.
  • Digital: GO won with 5.1% from 7TWO on 4.2%, Eleven was on 4.0%, 7mate was on 3.5%, Gem was on 2.8%, ABC 2 was on 2.6%, followed by ONE on 2.4%, News 24 with 0.9%, ABC 3 was on 2.6% and SBS TWO was on 0.6%. That’s an FTA viewing share of 26.9%. 7TWO still leads the week with 4.1% from GO on 4.0% and Eleven on 3.6%.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 25.2%, from Nine (3) on 19.8%, Ten (3) was on 16.8%, the ABC (4) was on 15.9%, pay TV (200 plus channels) was on 15.6% and SBS (2) ended on 4.4%. The 15 FTA channels had an 84.4% share of TV viewing last night, made up of 22.3% for the 10 digital channels (which is high) and 62.1% for the five main channels.

The top five pay TV channels last night were:

  1. Fox 8 (3.7%)
  2. Lifestyle (2.4%)
  3. TV1 (2.38%)
  4. 111 Hits (1.79%)
  5. Fox Classics (1.65%)

The top five pay TV programs were:

  1. America’s Got Talent (Fox 8) — 99,000
  2. Family Guy (Fox 8) — 86,000
  3. Rugby: The Rugby Club (Fox Sports 3) — 78,000
  4. The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 76,000
  5. Grand Designs (Lifestyle) — 72,000

Regional: A much narrower win for Seven through Prime/7Qld (3 channels) with 28.9% from WIN/NBN (3) on 27.9%, with SC Ten (3) on 20.7% and SBS (2) was on 5.2%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels narrowly, 19.7% to 19.3% for WIN/NBN with SC Ten on 14.2% and ABC 1 on 12.5%. GO won with 5.5%, from 7mate on 4.9% and Eleven on 4.6%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share of a very high 29.6% last night. Prime/7Qld lead the week on 32.0% from WIN/NBN on 27.4%.

The top five programs in regional markets were:

  1. Seven News — 504,000
  2. Home and Away — 471,000
  3. A Current Affair — 442,000
  4. Nine News — 435,000
  5. Four Weddings — 393,000

Major Markets: Seven won overall and the main channels in every markets, with Nine, Ten and the ABC competing for the minors. The ABC was third overall and in the main channels in Sydney. ABC 1 was also third in the main channels in Brisbane and Perth. Ten was second in the main channels and Nine third. Elsewhere it was Nine second and Ten third. In the digitals, GO won Sydney and Adelaide and shared Melbourne with 7TWO. 7TWO won Perth and in Brisbane, Eleven won. Seven now leads Nine and Ten everywhere.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: While it was Seven’s night, the ABC did much better in metro markets than the commercial channels would have thought. In fact, from 8pm to 10.30pm the ABC ran second to Seven and that was based on programs made outside the ABC.

The Slap didn’t make the top 10 programs in regional areas, unlike in metro markets. Viewers on these markets are really suspicious of big-city TV programs. That’s why Ten was a clear third in regional markets. Seven’s Four Weddings and, especially, The Beauty and The Geek Australia, weren’t as popular in regional markets either. The Slap had a solid national audience of 1.226 million viewers.

The five top programs nationally last night were:

  1. Seven News — 1.663 million
  2. Home and Away — 1.489 million
  3. Today Tonight — 1.434 million
  4. Beauty and The Geek Australia —  1.350 million
  5. Four Weddings — 1.344 million.

Tonight: Better Homes and Gardens on Seven for those of us who want to be domestic. Nine has move after movie (and Seven has one as well). Ten returns Rules of Engagement and House at 7.30pm and 8.30pm. The ABC has Scott and Bailey at 8.30pm

Saturday: Rugby World Cup: Wales versus France on Nine at 6.30pm and Fox Sports. Taggart on 7TWO at 8.40pm. Doc Martin is back on ABC 1 at 7.30pm and if you miss it, it will be on 7TWO shortly. Rockwiz on SBS for those of us musically awake or at home at that time. Seven ignore — movies and gunk. Likewise Ten, where the 6.30pm offering is Home Alone (made in 1990).

Sunday: Australia versus New Zealand in Rugby League on Nine from 3.30pm; Australia versus New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup from 6.30pm. Be there or be an AFL fan. Otherwise, the morning chats. Sunday Night on Seven has promise at 6.30pm. 60 Minutes has been pre-empted for the Rugby. Underbelly is on afterwards.

Ten returns Merlin at 6.30pm, then Junior MasterChef and then Terra Nova, a reasonable line up. Seven also has Wild Boys from 7.30pm. The ABC has the first of a three-part documentary on Australia and the car called Wide Open Road Should be worth a watch because the producers’ previous form is pretty good (Long Way To The Top and Bombora). All in all, a great day and night to watch TV and not feel guilty.

*Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports