The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven’s night, but it was a weak night of viewing, which can be seen from the fact that the most-watched programs, the Seven and Nine News, aired at 6pm local in most markets (7pm in most regional markets).

Seven won the regional markets, but that was due to the strength of its digital channels with WIN/NBN (Nine) snatching a narrow All People win in the main channels. Seven won the main demos though in the regions and metro markets.

Pay TV enjoyed another strong rise in viewing and had one its highest shares outside of Saturday nights (when pay TV football dominates) this year with a metro market prime time share of 18.1%. Viewing levels on FTA digital channels also rose, but not by as much as it has done on previous nights when programming is weak on the main channels.

The upshot was though that the viewing share of the five main channels dipped to just over 58% last night, one of the lowest this year (outside of a Saturday night when football is being played and pay TV audiences jump as a result).

Seven scored with a smaller margin than earlier in the week as Beauty and The Geek Australia continued fading towards its end next week. It has lost a couple of hundred thousand viewers in the past three weeks who haven’t returned. And, though it is still doing the biz for Seven in the key demos (16 to 49, 25 to 39 and even 25 to 54s), the loss of audience can’t be comforting to Seven.

BATG averaged 846,000 metro viewers (three weeks ago it was over 1.2 million) and more than 1.2 million nationally. Once Upon A Time returned for its second series this year at 7.30pm on Seven and averaged 853,000 metro viewers and more than 1.3 million nationally. That was enough to clinch the night for Seven.

ABC1’s Redfern Now averaged a solid 620,000 metro viewers and 951,000 nationally. That was better than the tired old offerings on Nine and Ten. CSI: Miami ended last night (it was the last fresh episode, ever), with 612,000 metro viewers at 9.30pm on Nine and 894,000 nationally. Hurrah!

The second session of the first day of the Adelaide cricket test averaged 618,000 lucky souls (921,000 nationally) who saw the batting of David Warner, Michael Clarke and Michael Hussey.

Tonight: A quiet night after day two of the test cricket from Adelaide. Nine has a trio of movies, Seven has Better Homes and Gardens and then the movie Mamma Mia (it’s odd, Abba Meets the Aegean). Ten has The Living Room, ABC1 has New Tricks. Nine has dropped a repeat of The Dark Knight Batman movie (Heath Ledger’s last flick) into the schedule at 8.30pm tonight.

Saturday: Day 3 of the test. Then there’s not much at all, the Doc Martin repeat on ABC1 and then the final Kingdom (yep). Movies on Seven and Nine. Ten has wildlife stuff and then Graham Norton. Ten has the Australia — Italy Rugby Union test at 12.45am Sunday morning.

Sunday: More cricket, day four. That’s after the morning chats. In the evening, Sunday Night on Seven, Wallander on ABC1 for the gloomy at heart who love herrings and obscure, at times nasty, whodunits. Nine has 60 Minutes after the first Women’s Weekly Christmas special (which is always the tip that the end of ratings is very close and summer is on the way). Ten has its super line-up Modern Family is of course the highlight.

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

  1. Seven News — 1.618 million.
  2. Nine News — 1.563 million.
  3. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.439 million.
  4. ABC1 News — 1.366 million.
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.321 million.
  6. Once Upon A Time (Seven) — 1.306 million.
  7. Beauty and The Geek Aust. (Seven) — 1.255 million.
  8. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.169 million.
  9. 7.30 (ABC 1) — 1.121 million.
  10. Getaway (Nine) — 1.031 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.081 million.
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.069 million.

The Losers: Ten and Nine viewers: their offerings were tired old stars (Getaway, a Big Bang repeat and fading CSI on Nine, Law and Order: SVU on Ten, plus Jamie Oliver’s 15-Minute Meals). That collection is hardly inspiring, more trying for viewers.Metro News & CA: Thanks to the cricket running over as Nine waited for a key moment to happen, Nine News won Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Because of the time difference in Brisbane and Perth, the impact of the cricket was muted and Seven News won: it won by 112,000, and 27,000 in Brisbane, which was enough to get it home nationally (and offset Nine’s 22,000 margin in Sydney and 105,000 margin in Melbourne). TT won Sydney, lost Melbourne, won Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.081 million.
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.069 million.
  3. ABC1 News (7pm) — 944,000.
  4. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30 pm) — 925,000.
  5. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 898,000.
  6. 7.30 (ABC1, 7.30pm) — 718,000.
  7. Ten News (Ten, 5pm) — 519,000.
  8. The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 466,000.
  9. The Project (Ten, 6pm) — 343,000.
  10. Ten Late News (Ten, 10.30pm) — 180,000.
  11. Lateline (ABC 1, 10.30pm) — 175,000.
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 141,000.
  13. The Business (ABC1, 11.05pm, repeat) — 115,000.
  14. SBS Late News (10.30pm) — 106,000.
  15. The Drum (News 24, 10pm, repeat) — 55,000.

In the morning: Nine’s Mornings has been cut to an hour by the second test in Adelaide.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 392,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 360,000.
  3. The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 154,000.
  4. Mornings Nine, (9am) — 96,000.
  5. News Breakfast (ABC 1, 7am) — 53,000 + 32,000 on News 24.
  6. Breakfast (Ten, 7am) — 35,000.

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 29.5% from Nine (three) on 26.6%, Ten (three) was on 19.4%, the ABC (four) was on 18.5% and SBS (two) ended on 5.9%. Seven leads the week with 33.7% from Nine on 25.6%, the ABC is on 18.2% and Ten is on 17.5%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 21.5% from Nine on 19.3%, ABC1 was on 13.6%, Ten ended on 12.3% and SBS ONE was on 5.1%. Seven leads the week with 26.4% from Nine on 19.0%, ABC1 on 13.8% and Ten on 11.8%.

Metro Digital: 7mate and Eleven tied the night with 4.4% each, GO was on 3.8%, 7TWO ended on 3.6% (7TWO’s viewing levels have dipped in the last six weeks), Gem was on 3.5%, ONE ended on 2.7%, ABC2 was on 2.5%, News 24 and ABC 3 were on 1.2% each and SBS TWO finished on 0.8%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 27.1%. 7TWO still leads the week with 3.9% from GO and 7mate on on 3.5%.

Metro including pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 23.5% from Nine (three) on 21.1%, Ten (three) was on 15.4%, the ABC (four) was on 14.7% and SBS (two) ended on 4.7%. The 15 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of a low 81.9%, with the 10 digital channels share totalling 22.4% and the five main channels’ share dipping to a low of 58.3%. That was due to a sharp rise in pay TV viewing with the 200 plus channels on Foxtel giving a national pay TV share of 18.1%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. LifeStyle — 2.9%.
  2. Fox8 — 2.7%.
  3. TV 1 — 2.4%.
  4. Fox Classics, Discovery — 1.7%.
  5. A&E — 1.7%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. Grand Designs Aust. (LifeStyle) — 176,000.
  2. AFL Draft (Fox Footy) — 122,000.
  3. Selling Houses Aust. (LifeStyle) — 74,000.
  4. Pawn Stars (A&E) — 70,000.
  5. Cricket: Aust.- Sth Africa Highlights (Fox Sports 3) — 65,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 32.2% from WIN/NBN (three) on 29.0%, the ABC (four) was on 17.4%, SC Ten (three) was on 16.6 and SBS (two) ended on 4.8%. WIN/NBN won narrowly in the main channels with 20.3% from Prime/7Qld with 20.0%,  ABC1 on 12.8% and SC Ten on 9.8%. The digitals were won by 7mate with 7.7% with GO on 5.5% and 7TWO on 4.5%. The 10 digital channels had a high FTA share last night of 32.9%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 36.6%, from WIN/NBN on 27.1%, the ABC on 16.8% and SC Ten on 15.2%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. ACA — 540,000.
  2. Seven News — 538,000.
  3. Nine News — 494,000.
  4. Once Upon A Time — 451,000.
  5. Home and Away — 427,000.

Major Metro Markets: A mixed night with Seven winning (overall and main channels) Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Nine won both in Melbourne and Nine won overall in Adelaide but Seven won the main channels. Ten was third in Melbourne and Brisbane, second overall in Perth and 4th in the main channels behind Nine and ABC1. The ABC /ABC1 were third (overall and the main channels) in Sydney and Adelaide. 7mate won the digitals in Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth, and shared Melbourne with Eleven, which won Sydney. Seven leads the week everywhere, with Nine second and the ABC third in Sydney and Melbourne and Ten third in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data