Seven wins as SBS has a cracking Tuesday night

SBS has one of its best Tuesday nights, in fact its best nights (excluding the Tour de France) this year.

The Winners: Seven’s night — enough to overcome a weak Nine and a lacklustre Ten. Apart from Foreign Correspondent, the ABC was also weak.

SBS has one of its best Tuesday nights, in fact its best nights (excluding the Tour de France) this year.

The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.574 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.236 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.216 million
Australia’s Got Amazing Talent (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.090 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.080 million
NCIS (Ten) (8.30pm) — 1.077 million
The Celebrity Apprentice (Nine) (7pm) — 1.044 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.037 million

The Losers: Nine’s turn to be the loser of the night. Two and a Half Men at 8.30pm, 883,000. Mike & Molly at 8pm, 584,000 (which isn’t helping Two and a Half Men).

News & CA: Seven News lost Sydney by a sad 71,000: 292,000 to 363,000. Seven won the rest, including a huge 97,000 win in Brisbane.

Today Tonight beat A Current Affair in all five markets.

In Sydney, ACA lost 95,000 viewers from the 6pm News. TT added 8000 to 299,000 and had a comfortable win. In Adelaide, ACA was only watched by 54,000 people last night. TT won by 80,000 in this market.

In the morning, Sunrise bounced back to reach 410,000 mark, but Today also rebounded strongly and was not far behind, just 18,000 viewers.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.236 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.216 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.080 million
ABC News (7pm)– 883,000
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 827,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 637,000
Ten News (5pm) — 557,000
The Project (Ten) (6.30pm) — 513,000
Insight (SBS) (7.30pm) — 243,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 213,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 164,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.35pm) — 158,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.10pm) — 83,000

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 410,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 392,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 33.3% from Ten (3) on 23.6%, Nine (3) was third with 23.2%, the ABC (4) was on 13.6% and SBS (2) ended on 6.3%. Seven leads the week with 30.9% from Nine on 28.6% and Ten on 19.7%.
Main Channel: Seven won with 26.1% from Ten on 18.0%, Nine was on 17.7%, ABC 1 was on 9.6% and SBS ONE ended on 4.5%. Seven leads the week on 23.1% from Nine on 22.1% and Ten on 14.2%.
Digital: 7TWO won with 3.9% from Eleven on 3.8%, 7mate was on 3.3%, Gem was on 2.9%, GO was on 2.7%, ABC 2 was on 2.4%, ONE was on 1.8%, SBS TWO ended on 1.7%, and News 24 and ABC 3 ended on 0.8%. That’s a total FTA share last night of 24.1%. 7TWO leads the week on 4.1%, from 7mate and Eleven on 3.7% each.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 28.0% from Ten (3) on 19.8%, Nine (3) was third with 19.6%, pay TV (200-plus channels) was 4th with 13.9%, the ABC (4) was on 13.9% and SBS (2) ended on 5.3%. the 15 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of 86.1%, with the 10 digitals on a total of 20.2% and the five main channels’ share of 65.8%.

The five most-watched pay TV channels were:

Fox 8 (3.14%)
Lifestyle (2.39%)
111 Hits (1.89%)
TV 1 (1.72%)
Nickelodeon Junior (1.72%)

The five most-watched pay TV programs were:

Eastenders (UKTV) — 73,000
MASH (Fox Classics) — 61,000
Coronation Street (UKTV) — 60,000
Family Guy (Fox 8) — 57,000
Seinfeld (TV 1) — 56,000

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 34.9% from WIN/NBN (3) on 23.7%, SC Ten (3) was on 22.7%, the ABC (4) was on 13.4% and SBS (2) was on 5.4%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 25.5%, from SC Ten on 18.0% and WIN/NBN on 17.9%. &TWO won the digitals with 6.1%, from GO on 3.3% and 7mate on 3.2%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 25.9%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 33.4% from WIN/NBN on 28.0%.

The five top programs in regional areas last night were:

The X Factor — 715,000
Seven News — 520,000
NCIS — 516,000
Nine News — 506,000
Home and Away — 495,000

Major Markets: Seven won overall and the main channels in every market. Nine and Ten fought out the minors with Ten second in Brisbane and Adelaide and second in the main channels in Perth. Nine was second in Sydney and Melbourne and Ten was third. Eleven won Sydney and Brisbane in the digitals, with Gem winning Perth, 7TWO winning Melbourne and 7mate won Adelaide. Nine and Seven now share the lead in Sydney, with Ten third. Seven leads Nine and Ten in the four other metro markets.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Foreign Correspondent again showed up its bigger stablemates in Four Corners and Lateline in reporting on an absolute scandal in the way Canada (run by a highly conservative government) allows the export of asbestos to India where people are dying.

Besides the very good Foreign Correspondent last night, Insight on SBS made a very brave attempt to cover the crisis in Greece in its final program of the year. It was the best so far with live crosses to Greece and other parts of Europe and a studio audience. It showed up the ABC, Nine, Ten (of course) and Seven, all of which claim to have greater current affairs skills than SBS. SBS has a tiny current affairs budget in comparison and yet it fleshed out and explained the problems better than the other networks have so far been able to do.

The contrast between the effort made by Insight last night and Four Corners and Q&A on Monday night was quite telling. Insight was the only “current affairs” program of the trio in their last episodes for 2011.

The five most-watched programs nationally last night were:

The X Factor — 2.290 million
Seven News — 1.757 million
NCIS — 1.594 million
Nine News — 1.585 million
Australia’s Got Amazing Talent — 1.555 million

Tonight: The ABC with Gruen Planet at 9pm, Poh’s Kitchen on the Road at 8pm and The Hamster Wheel for those with a bit of staying power at 9.30pm. Nine has Frozen Planet at 8.30pm. Seven has the silly The One: Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic at 7.30pm and Ten has nothing, unless you like Hawaii Five O at 8.30pm or the longer and slower The Project from 6.30pm.

Update & spoiler alert: Downton Abbey‘s second series finished on a high in the UK on ITV on Sunday night with 10.5 million viewers on the ITV primary channel, and a total of 10.7 million including the second channel. That topped the 10.1 million for the final episode of the first series in 2010. Spanish flu gets rid of the odd character or two is all I will say.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports