Seven ruins Nine's party

The Winners: Seven won and frustrated Nine’s plans to end the year with a bang.

Junior MasterChef on Ten, 675,000 from 7.30pm. Just swamped by what was on Nine and Seven.

The Celebrity Apprentice (winner announced) (Nine) (~8pm) — 1.617 million
The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.458 million
The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (8.30pm) — 1.369 million
The Celebrity Apprentice (Nine) (~7.30pm) — 1.312 million
The Big Bang Theory (Nine) (9pm) — 1.164 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.163 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.111 million
Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.063 million
The Celebrity Apprentice (Nine) (7pm) — 1.057 million

The Losers: Kyle and Jackie O’s Night with the Stars from 9.30pm to 11pm, 560,000. It should be locked in a vault and only given the light of day to remind programmers everywhere of what bad TV is. Dud of the year, and I don’t care what the figures were after 10.30pm.

The Mentalist averaged 792,000 on Nine at 9.30pm and won the timeslot to 10.30pm. It was a beacon of quality compared to the dross on Seven.

News & CA: Nine’s 6pm News won Sydney, Seven won the rest. A Current Affair won Sydney and Melbourne, lost the rest.

A Current Affair‘s Matthew Newton interview failed to grab viewers outside Sydney and Melbourne. It wasn’t very good and continued the efforts of parents Bert and Patti Newton in an earlier interview on ACA. You were left with the thought last night: why did he really do the interview? Tracy Grimshaw had to do a bit of prompting around the issue on an apology. It should have been first up, instead it appeared grudging.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.163 million
Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.111 million
Nine News (6pm) — 982,000
A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 971,000
ABC News (7pm) — 951,000
7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) — 664,000
Ten News (5pm) — 608,000
The Project (Ten) (6.30pm) — 599,000
Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 252,000
SBS News (6.30pm) — 148,000
Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 121,000
SBS News (9.30pm) — 117,000

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 390,000
Today (Nine) (7am) — 379,000

The Stats:

FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 33.6%, from Nine (3) on 29.8%, Ten (3) was on 17.3%, the ABC (4), was on 15.1% and SBS (2) ended on 4.4%. Seven leads the week with 31.1% from Nine on 29.9% and Ten on 18.9%.
Main Channel: Seven won with 25.6% from Nine on 24.1%, Ten was on 12.2%, ABC 1 was on 11.5% and SBS ONE ended with 3.6%. Seven leads the week with 23.2% from Nine on 22.8% and Ten on 13.2%.
Digital: 7TWO won with 4.8% from Eleven on 3.5%, GO was on 3.2%, 7mate was on 3.1%, ABC 2 and Gem were on 2.4% each, ONE was on 1.5%, SBS TWO was on 0.8%, ABC 3 was on 0.7%, and News 24 ended with 0.6%. That’s an FTA share of 23.0% last night. 7TWO leads the week with 4.5% from GO on 4.0% and 7mate and Eleven on 3.4% each.
Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 27.8%, from Nine (3) on 24.6%, Pay TV (200 plus channels) was on 14.7%, Ten (3) was on 14.2%, the ABC (4), was on 12.5% and SBS (2) ended on 3.7%. The 15 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of 85.3%, with the 10 digitals on 20.2% and the five main channels on 65.1%.

The five most watched Pay TV channels were:

Fox Sports 2 (4.72%)
Fox 8 — (3.8%)
TV1 (2.13%)
Lifestyle (1.88%)
UKTV (1.67%)

The five most watched Pay TV programs were:

Cricket: South Africa versus Australia (Fox Sports 2) (9.30pm) — 181,000
Cricket: South Africa versus Australia (Fox Sports 2) (Midnight) — 107,000
The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 93,000
Family Guy (Fox 8) — 84,000
Cricket: South Africa versus Australia (Fox Sports 2) (7pm) — 83,000

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won easily with a share of 37.1% from WIN/NBN (3) on 28.4%, with the ABC (4) on 15.2%, SC Ten (3) was on 14.5% and SBS (2) was on 4.7%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 27.2%, from WIN/NBN on 21.7%, ABC 1 was on 10.8% and SC Ten ended with 9.2%. The digitals were won by 7TWO on 5.7%, with 7mate on 4.2% and Eleven on 3.6%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 27.1%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 35.2% from WIN/NBN on 29.2%.

The five most watched programs in regional markets were:

The X Factor — 703,000
Seven News — 554,000
Home and Away — 527,000
The Big Bang Theory — 483,000
The Celebrity Apprentice — 479,000

Major Markets: Seven won overall and the main channels in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won both in Melbourne. The ABC was third in Perth instead of Ten in both groups. 7TWO won Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Eleven won Brisbane. Nine leads in Melbourne, Seven leads the other four metro markets.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine sliced and diced The Celebrity Apprentice‘s 90 minutes (actually around 65 minutes of actual content) into three segments (around half an hour each) and although the winner figure was impressive, it could not hold off the two hours of The X Factor on Seven.

The Celebrity Apprentice averaged 1.427 million viewers from 7pm in metro markets. Over its two hours, The X Factor averaged 1.458 million in metro markets. Home and Away, at 7pm, beat the first half hour of The Celebrity Apprentice, 1,063 million viewers to 1.057 million. Not much, but it was enough to set the tone for the rest of the night. In regional areas, The Celebrity Apprentice was well beaten by The X Factor which will dominate regional and metro markets again tonight.

And that’s Nine’s year in official ratings. It was close to a disaster and the network’s parent, Nine Entertainment is struggling because the debt burden is too high and the market float failed to happen.

Nine launches its 2012 year tomorrow in Sydney at the Opera House with The Olympics, Big Brother, The Voice and lots of other noisy stuff. The big question is whether it and its parent (and the magazine business) stay out of the hands of its bankers in 2012.

The five most watched programs nationally last night were:

The X Factor — 2.187 million
The Celebrity Apprentice (winner announced) — 2.095 million
The Big Bang Theory — 1.852 million
The Celebrity Apprentice — 1.773 million
Seven News — 1.718 million

Tonight: Seven finishes The X Factor. The ABC finishes Foreign Correspondent for the year. Big changes next year. The ABC also returns The Grumpy Guide to… at 8.30pm, with food the target. Worth watching.

Ten continues the conclusion of Junior MasterChef. Nine has the rotten new version of Two and a Half Men, which is no reason to watch.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports