The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven’s night, but not the strongest of viewing experiences for viewers.  Nine was barely in the hunt, the ABC certainly was, but Ten was left right out by viewers. The 9.4% prime time metro share for Ten’s main channel was one of the lowest for a week night in recent memory. And, how weak was Nine? Well it didn’t have a program last night with a million or more viewers. The 6pm News was the closest with 993,000. Nine’s performance continues to drift as the end of ratings draws near.

Seven was once again very dominant in regional markets through Prime and its 7Qld subsidiary. Bruce Gordon not only is doing hundreds of millions in his Ten Network investment, he’s also leaking viewers, ratings and ad dollars from the weak showing this year in regional markets and in the Perth and Adelaide metro markets.

Seven’s surprise hit, Surveillance Oz (8pm) was the most watched program with just over 1.1 million metro and 1.7 million national viewers. It is cheap show to make, voyeuristic in nature, and was helped by its 7.30pm partner, Highway Patrol, which averaged 1.05 million metro and 1.59 million national viewers. Seven’s Criminal Minds averaged 980,000 metro viewers, but jumped to more than 1.5 million national viewers with a strong showing in regional markets.

The penultimate Gruen Planet had its best figures for ABC1 at 8.30pm, 1.01 million metro and 1.44 million national viewers. The Chaser’s Hamster Wheel was the best so far and averaged 975,000 metro and 1.21 million national viewers. Watch for the mini Chaser’s Unbelievable Truth on Seven tonight at 9.30pm. There’s the makings of a good idea well done, based on last week’s debut. Kitchen Cabinet on ABC2, 172,000 metro and 222,000 national viewers. Bronnie Bishop wasn’t as interesting as Joe Hockey the week before.

Tonight: Rake on ABC1. Beauty and The Geek Australia on Seven (and the Unbelievable Truth) . Nine has Big Brother and AFP: Australian Federal Police. Ten has Law and Order SVU. SBS has another episode of Two Greedy Italians.

US ratings update: For the first time in nine years, NBC has won the first two weeks of the new US ratings season in the key 18 to 49 demographic. It’s seen an 11% rise in viewers in the demo (compared with the same time in the 2011-12 season). Long time king, CBS has seen a 23% slump, News Corp’s Fox’s ratings in the category have plunged 21%, and ABC’s are down 13%. The reason, NBC has started decided to go for broke and run two series of The Voice in the one ratings period. The first two series of The Voice went to air in the US Spring (in the closing months of the ratings season) so as to maximise ratings towards the end of the season. Fox does that with American Idol which starts in January and runs through to the last week of ratings in May. The second series of The Voice will air in the Spring as usual. The current series of The Voice has been airing on Monday and Tuesday nights. It in turn has boosted the sci-fi series Revolution (from J J Abrahams) which debuted late last month.

But it’s not all going NBC’s way. US ratings data reveals that the network’s usually solid Thursday lineup (which includes two sitcoms in their final seasons — The Office and 30 Rock, Up All Night, at 8.30pm Parks and Recreation and the chat show, Rock Center with Brian Willams, has been losing out to CBS with Two and A Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. CBS moved them from Monday nights to Thursdays where they have continued to do well.

The Big Bang Theory is still doing well here for Nine, but Two and a Half Men has been removed from Nine’s schedule. Revolution airs on Foxtel here on Fox 8. Parks and Recreation is airing us airing late on Seven on Wednesday nights. 30 Rock is another late night cult hit in Australia on Seven, while the US version of The Office is on Ten’s digital channel, Eleven and Foxtel. The Voice of course was on Nine this year and will return in 2013.

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

  1. Surveillance Oz (Seven) — 1.706 million.
  2. Highway Patrol (Seven) — 1.594 million.
  3. Seven News — 1.592 million.
  4. Criminal Minds (Seven) — 1.510 million.
  5. Nine News — 1.480 million.
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.459 million.
  7. Gruen Planet (ABC1) — 1.444 million.
  8. ABC News — 1.361 million.
  9. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.236 million.
  10. The Chaser: Hamster Wheel (ABC1) — 1.210 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. Surveillance Oz (Seven, 8pm) — 1.125 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.059 million.
  3. Highway Patrol (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.051 million.
  4. Gruen Planet (ABC1, 8.30pm) — 1.018 million.
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 1.013 million.

The Losers: Ten, The Good Wife, 343,000 metro viewers (535,000 nationally) after Last Man Standing, 362,000 (487,000 national) and 345,000 (467,000 national) metro viewers at 7.30 and 8 pm. The Good Wife would have had a bigger audience but for that turkey and Ten’s insistence of showing it at 7.30 and 8 pm.Metro News & CA: Seven News was stronger, but still lost Melbourne to Nine by 130,000 viewers. TT and ACA both had less than a million viewers. ACA won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. TT averaged 196,000 in Melbourne, under the 197,000 shocker of last Thursday. It lost Melbourne to ACA by 135,000 viewers. Nine News fell under a million metro viewers because of the weakness in Perth and Adelaide.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.059 million.
  2. ABC News (7pm) — 1.013 million.
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 993,000.
  4. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30) — 937,000.
  5. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30) — 930,000.
  6. 7.30 (ABC1) — 772,000.
  7. Ten News At Five — 627,000.
  8. The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 544,000.
  9. The Project (Ten, 6am) — 396,000.
  10. Lateline (ABC1, 10.40pm) — 211,000.
  11. World News Australia (SBS ONE, 6.30pm) — 165,000.
  12. Ten Late News (10.30pm) — 134,000.
  13. The Business (ABC1, 11.15pm, rpt) — 125,000.
  14. World News Late (SBS ONE, 10.30pm) — 84,000
  15. The Drum (News 24, 10pm, rpt) — 49,000.

In the morning: Sunrise jumped because of the concert by Psy.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 462,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 336,000.
  3. The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 172,000.
  4. Mornings (Nine, 9am) — 113,000.
  5. News Breakfast (ABC1, 7am) — 42,000 + 32,000 on News 24.
  6. Breakfast (Ten, 7am) — 43,000.

Metro FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 30.5%, from Nine (3) on 26.8%, the ABC (4) was on 21.2%, Ten (3) was on 16.4% and SBS (2) ended on 5.1%. Seven leads the week with 31.5%, from Nine on 26.7%, the ABC on 19.8% and Ten on 17.0%. Main Channels. Seven won with a share of 22.2%, from Nine on 20.4%, ABC 1 was on 15.9%, Ten was on 9.4% and SBS ONE ended on 4.4%. Seven leads the week with 23.8%, from Nine on 20.0%, ABC 1 was on 15.3% and Ten is on 10.9%.

Metro Digital: 7mate and Eleven tied for the win with 4.3% each, 7TWO was on 4.0%, GO was on 3.4%, ABC 2 was on 3.1%, Gem was on 3.0%, ONE ended on 2.6%, ABC 3, 1.2%, News 24, 1.1% and SBS TWO was on 0.7%. The 10 digital channels had a moderate FTA share last night of 27.7%. 7TWO still leads the week with 4.2%, from GO on 3.6%, 7mate on 3.5% and Eleven on 3.2%.

Metro including Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 25.1%, from Nine (3) on 22.0%, the ABC (4) was on 17.4%, Ten (3) was on 13.4% and SBS (2) ended on 4.2%. The 200 plus channels on Foxtel gave Pay TV the highest share for the week so far of 15.6%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Fox 8 — 3.2%.
  2. LifeStyle — 2.6%.
  3. TV1 — 2.2%.
  4. Discovery, A&E, Cartoon — 1.8%.
  5. UKTV — 1.7%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. The Simpsons (F8) — 85,000.
  2. Location, Location, Location (LifeStyle) — 76,000.
  3. Family Guy (F8) — 67,000.
  4. Friends (111 Hits) — 63,000.
  5. Sons of Anarchy (Showcase) — 60,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (3) won with a share of 36,3%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 25.4%, the ABC (4) was on 18.4%, SC Ten (3) was 4th on 14.6% and SBS (2) was on 5.2%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 24.9%, from WIN/NBN on 17.8%, ABC 1 was 3rd with 13.2% and SC Ten was 4th with a weak 8.0%. The digitals were won by 7TWO with 5.8% from on 7mate on 5.7% and GO with 4.1%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of a high 31.7%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 35.1% from WIN/NBN on 25.9%, the ABC on 18.4% and SC Ten back on 16.0%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

 

  1. Surveillance Oz — 582,000.
  2. Highway Patrol — 534,000.
  3. Seven News — 531,000.
  4. Criminal Minds — 531,000.
  5. ACA — 521,000.

Major Metro Markets: A clean sweep for Seven, Nine and ABC/ABC 1, both overall and in the main channels. Perth was where the order changed, the ABC/ABC 1 up to second in both for another night and Nine relegated to third. Ten was a weak 4th everywhere. 7TWO win the digitals in Sydney and Brisbane. Eleven won Brisbane and Perth. 7mate won Melbourne. Seven leads the week from Nine and the ABC, except in Perth where the ABC is second and Nine third.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data