Last week's win by Seven the biggest in a decade

Seven's win last week was in fact the biggest margin over Nine and Ten since Oztam ratings system started more than a decade ago.

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Nine ended up third overall and the main channels. 60 Minutes averaged less than a million viewers (964,000), The Mentalist at 8.30pm (680,000) was a flop. Only The Great Barrier Reef at 6.30pm stirred viewers and was watched by just under one million people (980,000).

Shifting The Biggest Loser to 6.30pm Sundays paid off for Ten with 971,9000 people watching, more than 300,000 above the audience for Young Talent Time, which will now sink at 7pm Fridays. This should be a lesson for Ten, always run your “reality” blockbusters on a Sunday evening. Seven got round to doing that two Sundays ago with My Kitchen Rules (1.715 million last night in the five metro markets and 2.4 million nationally).

The ABC’s ambitious The Time Traveller’s Guide started last night. The 750,000 at 7.30pm was too low for my liking. The program was far better than that.

The Malaysian Formula 1 Grand Prix on ONE last night averaged a huge 442,000 (for a digital channel) from 6.30pm to just after 9pm). That is one of the highest digital channel audiences so far recorded.

Last week: Seven’s week, with nine of the top ten programs nationally, led by My Kitchen Rules. Seven won regionally as well and won the digitals. Seven won Adelaide by 17 points and Perth by 15 points, which are ridiculously large margins. They point the weakness of the Nine stations in both markets (which are owned by WIN Corporation).

Seven’s win last week was in fact the biggest margin over Nine and Ten since OzTAM ratings system started more than a decade ago (that’s for regular weeks, not including one off events such as the finals in football and major series such as MasterChef). The previous record margin was two weeks ago, so dominant has been Seven’s start to the year. Seven won with a commercial share of 33.4% from Nine on 24.5% and Ten on 20.3%. Two weeks ago Seven won with a share of 33.6% from Nine on 25.5% and Ten on 19.8%.

But Seven will come back to the field when the regular 1.5 to 1.7 million audience four nights a week for My Kitchen Rules disappears from the schedule after tomorrow night. The official ratings period ends this Saturday night. The next two weeks are unofficial because of Easter.

Tonight: The usual solid news and current affairs line up of the ABC from 7pm. Seven has My Kitchen Rules and Revenge. Nine has The Big Bang Theory and Alcatraz.. Ten has The Biggest Loser and Bondi Vet. Pay TV has Rugby League.

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

My Kitchen Rules (Seven) — 2.421 million
Seven News — 1.874 million
Nine News — 1.815 million
Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.789 million
Castle (Seven) — 1.494 million
The Great Barrier Reef (Nine) — 1.465 million
60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.423 million
Modern Family (Ten) — 1.410 million
The Biggest Loser (Ten) — 1.344 million
Homeland (Ten) — 1.289 million

The Metro Winners:

My Kitchen Rules (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.715 million
Seven News (6pm) — 1.361 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.262 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) –1.236 million
Castle (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.035 million
Modern Family (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.012 million

Metro News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne, Seven won the rest.

Seven News (6pm) — 1.361 million
Nine News (6pm) — 1.262 million
Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) –1.236 million
60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 964,000
ABC News (7pm) — 820,000
Ten News (5pm) — 489,000
The Project (Ten) (6pm) — 370,000
SBS News 6.30pm) — 152,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (4.30pm) — 137,000

In the morning: Insiders topped the 300,000 mark for the first time on its ABC 1/News 24 simulcast, with the Queensland elections the big stimulant. The Bolt Report averaged 146,000 for its original broadcast, and with the repeat, a total of 283,000 for the day.

Weekend Sunrise (Seven) (8am) — 362,000
Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 276,000
Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 228,000 (+83,000)*
Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 198,000
Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 163,000
Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 154,000
The Bolt Report (Ten) (10am) — 146,000
Meet the Press (Ten) (10.30am) — 105,000

*On News 24 simulcast

Metro FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 31.4% from Ten (3) on 28.0%, Nine (3) was on 23.1%, the ABC (4) was on 13.7% and SBS (2) ended on 3.9%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 25.2%, from Ten on 18.2% and Nine on 16.9%.

beat the field to win going away with 7.6%. GO was next with 3.7%, from 7mate on 3.1% and 7TWO on 3.0%. Gem was on 2.5%, Eleven ended on 2.2%, ABC 2 was on 1.7%, News 24 was on 0.7%, SBS TWO ended on 0.6% and ABC 3 was on 0.5%. The 10 digital channels had a moderate FTA share last night of 25.6%.

Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 26.0% from Ten (3) on 23.2%, Nine (3) was on 19.1%, the ABC (4) was on 11.4% and SBS (2) ended on 3.2%. the 15 FTA channels had a TV viewing share last night of 85.5%, with the five main channels on 64.3% and the 10 digital channels on a total share of 21.2%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox Sports 2 (4.1%)
Fox 8 (2.7%)
TV 1 (2.5%)
Fox Sports 3 (2.4%)
Lifestyle (2.0%)

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

NRL: Melbourne v. Easts (Fox Sport 2) — 235,400
NRL: Melbourne v. Easts (pre-game) (Fox Sport 2) — 98,200
A League: Post Game Show (FS 3) — 95,800
Modern Family (Fox 8, 7 – 7.30 pm) — 88,800
Modern Family (Fox 8 6.30 – 7 pm) — 76,900

Regional: Ten’s Super Sunday couldn’t do the job in regional areas and push the network past Nine last night into second behind Seven. (Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 31.3%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 26.3%, SC Ten (3) was on 23.9%, the ABC (4) was on 14.2% and SBS (2) ended on 4.3%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 23.0% from WIN/NBN on 18.7% and SC Ten on 16.2%. ONE won the digitals with 5.5% from 7TWO on 4.3% and 7mate and GO on 3.9% each. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 27.6%.

The top five regional programs were:

My Kitchen Rules — 706,000
Sunday Night — 563,000
Nine News — 552,000
Seven News — 514,000
The Great Barrier Reef — 486,000

Major Metro Markets: A clean sweep for Seven, with Ten also doing well, helped by the solid audience on ONE for the Malaysian GP. Seven won all five metro markets overall and in the main channels. Nine was second in the main channels in Sydney and Adelaide. Ten was second overall in all five markets and second in the main channels in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

ONE had a clean sweep of the main channels.

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

*Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports