Nine night in metro markets by a clear margin as Seven’s 6pm News, especially in Melbourne, had a rotten night (a near catastrophe in Melbourne, thanks to technical problems at the start). In regional markets a much closer night, with Seven and Nine sharing the victory on lowish figures.

Seven’s 6pm News in Melbourne saw its audience more than halve last night to just 141,000 (the lowest audience for Seven News in Melbourne since Oztam started more than a decade ago). Those technical problems pushed viewers over to Nine News when it became clear Seven would not be able to broadcast the news as quickly as viewers wanted.  Nine News’ audience soared to a massive 517,000 — the winning margin for Nine was a huge 376,000. (It can happen to anyone, so there was no gloating from the opposition this morning). In Sydney no techie problems and the winning margin blew back out to 101,000 in favour of Nine, while in Brisbane it was 40,000 in favour of Nine. Overall, Seven’s 6pm News failed to crack the million viewer mark in metro markets last night — the first time that has happened for quite a while.

So weak was Seven’s performance that Ten’s MasterChef Australia had more metro and national viewers, which is understandable. The 7pm ABC News also had a weak night and in metro markets had fewer viewers (726,000) than 7.30 (749,000) which is extremely rare. Nationally, the News had 2,000 more  viewers than 7.30 did, which is also an unusually small margin

MasterChef Australia stood out with fresh content last night and reaped the rewards with its best night so far with 1.518 million metro/ 1.086 million metro/ 327,000 regional viewers.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (29.2%)
  2. Seven (25.2%)
  3. Ten (23.2%)
  4. ABC (17.9%)
  5. SBS (4.5%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (21,8%)
  2. Seven (17.1%)
  3. Ten (16.5%)
  4. ABC1  (12.9%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (4.9%)
  2. 7mate (4.1%)
  3. 7TWO (4.0%)
  4. Eleven (3.6%)
  5. ONE (3.1%)

Top national programs:

  1.  Nine News — 1.720 million
  2. MasterChef Australia (Ten) — 1.518 million
  3. Seven News  - 1.376 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.376 million
  5. The Big Bang Theory repeat episode 2 (Nine) — 1.143 million
  6. The Footy Show (Nine) — 1.141 million
  7. The Checkout (ABC1) — 1.117 million
  8. ABC News — 1.089 million
  9. 7.30 (ABC1), Nine News 6.30 — 1.087 million 
  10. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.071 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.272 million
  2. Nine News 6.30 — 1.086 million
  3. MasterChef Australia (Ten) — 1.086 million

Losers: Viewers of the Seven Network. Just forgettable.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.272 million
  2. Nine News 6.30 — 1.088 million
  3. Seven News  – 986,000
  4. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 916,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 905,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC1) — 749,000
  7. ABC News  – 726,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 593,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 583,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 410,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 376,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 264,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 157,000
  4. Mornings (Nine) — 111,000
  5. News Breakfast (ABC1,  69,000 + 33,000 on News 24) — 102,000
  6. Studio 1o (Ten) — 57,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (2.8%)
  2. TV1  (2.2%)
  3. LifeStyle  (2.1%)
  4. UKTV, Fox Sports 3 (1.7%)
  5.  Cartoon Network (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 100,000
  2. Family Guy (Fox 8) – 76,000
  3. Entertainment Now (Fox) – 52,000
  4. Coronation Street (UKTV) – 49,000
  5. Family Guy (Fox 8) – 48,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2013. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) and network reports.