The Glenn Dyer breakdown: A weak night, especially for the Seven Network and the 6pm news and Today Tonight. The solid start for Seven’s Bedazzled Brynne Edelstein faded somewhat last night at 8pm with the metro audience down 110,000 to 809,000 from the debut a week ago. That’s still OK, but not as good as 920,000 for first episode Beauty and The Geek Australia saw a 40,000 loss in metro viewing to 854,000, which was a better outcome.

Overall, Nine did better with a small winning margin in the main channels. Ten has a better night and ended up third overall thanks to solid viewing of its digital channels. It was still fourth on its important main channel. But Ten will go on to have its best week since the week after the London Olympics early last month.

Nine News and A Current Affair gave Seven News and Today Tonight another pounding. Nine News and ACA were first and second nationally and scored crushing wins in Melbourne in particular. In fact, Nine News in Melbourne with 379,000 and ACA with 367,000 were the most watched programs in any market last night. The ABC News in Melbourne was the third most watched program in any market with 338,000. Nine News in Sydney was number 4 with 333,000 viewers. Today Tonight was 13th with just over 1.06 million viewers. It is very weak in regional markets.

It has happened before, but last night saw a noticeably move from the main channels to the digital channels, So much so that more viewers watched the 10 digital channels of the ABC (4), Ten (3), Seven (3), Nine (3) and SBS (2) than watched the combined totals for any of the networks. 30.6% of the FTA audience watched to 10 digital channels in total, compared with 27.9% who watched Nine’s three channels and 27.8% who watched Seven’s three channels. Nine’s main channel was watched by 19.4% of the audience, Seven’s was watched by 18.3%.

That told us just how weak the main channel offerings were so far as the watching audience was concerned last night, so they voted with their remotes. But they stayed with the FTA networks and didn’t venture to Pay TV if they had a subscription. Pay TV’s share last night was around what it has been for the week so far. The same happened in the regional markets where the total FTA share for the 10 digital channels was a massive 37.3%, which is close to if not the highest total so far recorded. The most watched FTA network in metro markets was through Prime/7Qld. Their combined share was was 31.3% for the three channels (main, 7TWO and 7mate). TV audiences may be fragmenting, but those viewers are mostly staying with the FTA networks, not straying.

Tonight: Better Homes and Gardens on Seven. New Tricks on ABC1 and movies (repeats) on Nine and Seven later. Ten has The Living Room and not much else.

Saturday: The next part of the prohibition documentary on SBS which sets up double episodes of Boardwalk Empire. Doc Martin is returned to 7.30pm in repeat by the ABC. Movies on Seven, Nine (after the Rugby League test between Australia and NZ). Ten has a trio of wildlife programs from 6.30pm starting a David Attenborough look at how animals emerged from the sea onto land.

Sunday: The morning chats. Landline at Noon on the ABC, which has the final episode of Great Southern Land at 7.30pm followed by what could be the highlight of the night, the first screen adaptation of the Jack Irish books by Peter Temple. The books are fabo, let’s hope the TV is up to their standard. Seven has Sunday Night and Anh Do in Vietnam. Nine has Big Brother, 60 Minutes and House Husbands. Ten starts its Super Sunday idea with new episodes of Homeland and Modern Family and new series in The New Normal and Vegas. Homeland and Modern family returning series are being fast tracked. Homeland faded at the end of series 1, so will the audience want to resume an interest? They will with Modern Family. ABC1 also repeats The Slap from 10pm.

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

  1. Nine News — 1.609 million.
  2. A Current Affair (Nine) –1.543 million.
  3. Seven News — 1.535 million.
  4. ABC News — 1.349 million.
  5. Big Brother (Nine) — 1.281 million.
  6. Home and Away (Seven)– 1.256 million.
  7. Beauty and The Geek Australia (Seven) — 1.209 million.
  8. Big Brother Confidential (Nine) — 1.139 million.
  9. Brynne: My Bedazzled Life (Seven) — 1.139 million.
  10. 7.30 (ABC1) — 1.124 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. Nine News (6pm) –1.114 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.024 million.
  3. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.014 million.

The Losers: AFP, Nine, 8.30 pm, 583,000 metro viewers (581,000 a week ago) and nationally. Seven News and Today Tonight, both fading.

Metro News & CA: Nine News won Sydney by 78,000, Melbourne by 141,000. Crushing! ACA won Sydney by 72,000, Melbourne by 169,000. More crushing. TT‘s Melbourne audience was only 197,000.

  1. Nine News (6pm) –1.114 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.024 million.
  3. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.014 million.
  4. ABC News (7pm) — 977,000.
  5. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 941,000.
  6. 7.30 (ABC1, 7.30pm) — 802,000.
  7. Ten News At Five — 623,000.
  8. The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 517,000.
  9. The Project (Ten, 6pm) — 388,000.
  10. Ten Late News (10.30pm) — 240,000.
  11. Lateline (ABC1, 10.30pm) — 178,000.
  12. World News Australia (SBS, 6.30pm) — 170,000.
  13. The Business (ABC1, 11.05pm, rpt) — 122,000.
  14. World News Late (SBS ONE, 10.30am) — 83,000.
  15. The Drum (News 24, 6pm) — 48,000

In the morning: Ten’s Breakfast is heading for its best week since starting, but it’s still a way behind Seven’s Sunrise and Nine’s Today, and the ABC’s News Breakfast for that matter.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 366,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 351,000.
  3. The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 162,000.
  4. Mornings (Nine,  9am) — 129,000.
  5. News Breakfast (ABC1, 7am) — 47,000 + 27,000 on News 24.
  6. Breakfast (Ten, 7am) — 40,000.

Metro FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 27.9%, from Seven (3) on 27.8%, Ten (3) was third with 20.7%, the ABC (4) was 4th with 18.2% and SBS (2) ended on 5.4%. Seven still leads the week with 31.2% from Nine with 26.1%, Ten on 19.3% and the ABC on 18.7%.

Main Channels: Nine won with 19.4%, from Seven on 18.3%, ABC 1 was third with 13.3%, Ten was still 4th with 13.2% and SBS ONE ended on 4.1%. Seven leads the week with 22.6% from Nine on 19.1%, ABC 1 was on 14.2% and Ten on 13.4%.

Metro Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 5.8%, from GO on 5.3%, Eleven was on 4.3%, 7mate, 3.7%, ONE and Gem were on 3.1% each. ABC 2 ended on 2.8%, ABC 3 and News 24 ended on 1.0% each and SBS TWO was on 0.5%. The 10 digital channels had a very high FTA share last night of 30.6%. 7TWO still leads the week with 4.8% from GO on 4.2% and 7mate on 3.7%.

Metro including Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) and Seven (3) tied with 223.2% each, Ten (3) was third with 17.3%, the ABC (4) was 4th with 15.2% and SBS (2) ended on 4.5%. The 15 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of 85.7. The 10 digital channels had a very high viewing share of 25.7%, the five main channels share was 60%. Pay TV had a share of 14.3%, based on the 200 plus channels on Foxtel.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Fox 8 — 2.8%.
  2. LifeStyle — 2.2%.
  3. TV 1 — 2.0%.
  4. Cartoon Network — 1.7%.
  5. Sky News — 1.6%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. The Simpsons (F8) — 85,000.
  2. Family Guy (F8) — 65,000.
  3. Pawn Stars (A&E) — 62,000.
  4. Coronation Street (UKTV) — 61,000.
  5. Futurama (F8) — 60,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld won with a share of 31.3%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 27.2%, SC Ten (3) was third with 18.4%, the ABC (4) was next with 17.1%, and SBS (2) ended on 5.9%. Prime/7Qld had a narrow win the main channels with 18.3% to WIN/NBN’s 18.0%. ABC 1 was 3rd with 11.7% to SC Ten’s 10.1%. The digitals were won by 7TWO with 7.2%, from 7mate on 5.8% and GO on 5.6%. The 10 digital channels total FTA viewing share was a (probable) record 37.3%.  Prime/7Qld still lead the week with 35.1% with WIN/NBN on 25.2%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. ACA — 529,000.
  2. Seven News — 408,000.
  3. Nine News — 495,000.
  4. Home and Away — 399,000.
  5. ABC News — 372,000.

Major Metro Markets: A mixed night. Nine won Sydney and Melbourne from Seven and Ten overall. In Sydney ABC1 was third in the main channels behind Seven, in Melbourne it was Seven and then Ten with ABC 1 4th. In Brisbane it was second overall from Nine and Ten, but in the main channels it was Nine from Seven and Ten. Seven won Adelaide and Perth overall and the main channels and it was Nine and Ten in that order, except in Perth where ABC1 was third in the main channels and Ten 4th. 7TWO won the digitals in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. GO won Brisbane.

Seven leads the week from Nine and the ABC in Sydney, elsewhere its Seven from Nine and Ten.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data