Seven won Total People in metro and regional markets. Nine won the metro main channels, but Seven scored a narrow win in the regions. Nine won the demos thanks to the T20 cricket international. Ten was a distant fourth with the ABC 3rd, thanks to its best night of the week for what was in its schedule.

But it was a weak night — and for yet another night, the collective audience share of the networks’ 11 digital channels at 33.4% had a bigger metro share than the collective totals for either Seven (31.2%) or Nine (30.2%). Many of those are repeats of old programs (A Touch of Frost on 7TWO for example which last night grabbed 550,000 national viewers for a program around 18 years old!). It was the most watched program on the digital channels last night — GO’s The Big Bang Theory repeat was second and a repeat of the gentle Rosemary and Thyme on 7TWO was third, both with more than half a million viewers across the country. All of this is conclusive evidence that the main channel offerings are boring the socks off more and more viewers, and also damaging Foxtel’s viewing and market penetration performance. The figures for these digital repeats tells us that the secondary channels have achieved the networks’ aims in giving viewers a free to air choice of programming that on the whole, used to be seen on Foxtel on TV1/TVHITS, Fox 8, LifeStyle, A&E, Arena and the like. Now these and similar programs cost nothing if you want to catch up or watch again on free to air TV.

Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell was the 10th most watched program nationally  at 8pm on ABC1 and grabbed a million plus national audience for the first time this series. Mad As Hell had a wonderful critique of Fairfax Media’s decision to gut its regional papers of subeditors and others. Very direct and very funny and very true. The Chaser’s Media Circus had 899,000 national viewers, Home Delivery with Julia Zemiro at 9pm had 610,000 national viewers and the first episode of a comedy series, Black Comedy at 9.30pm had a credible 475,000 national viewers. Far more delight than the tip and run cricket on Nine from Adelaide (where the Adelaide Oval crowd was rather sparse), or watching Border Security or Criminal Minds on Seven, or the tedious Wonderland on Ten.

Tonight the ABC has another very solid offering, from 7pm onwards, which will entertain viewers more than what they will get on the other main channels. 

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (31.2%)
  2. Nine (30.2%)
  3. ABC (17.4%)
  4. Ten (16.2%)
  5. SBS (5.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (20.5%)
  2. Seven (19.8%)
  3. ABC (12.4%)
  4. Ten (10.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (2.4%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (7.6%)
  2. GO (6.5%)
  3. 7Mate (3.8%)
  4. ABC2 (3.3%)
  5. Gem, Eleven (3.2%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.462 million
  2. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.420 million
  3. Border Security (Seven) — 1.420 million
  4. Seven News — 1.365 million
  5. T 20 Australia v South Africa (Nine) — 1.160 million
  6. Criminal Minds (Seven) — 1.118 million
  7. ABC News — 1.097 million
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.042 million
  9. Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell (ABC) — 1.006 million
  10. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 986,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.039 million
  2. Nine News — 1.028 million

Losers: The Australian T20 cricket team and Nine, it gave Nine a narrow win in the main channels, but the figures were nothing to boast about.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.039 million
  2. Nine News — 1.028 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 986,000
  4. 7 pm ABC 1 News — 755,000
  5. 7.30 (ABC 1) — 709,000
  6. Nine News 6.30 — 685,000*
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 584,000
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 520,000*
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 527,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 462,000

* Nine News 6.30 pre-empted in Brisbane and Adelaide by the early start of the T20 International, ACA was preempted in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 360,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 299,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 156,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC 1,  61,000 + 46,000 on News 24) — 107,000
  5. Mornings (Nine) — 100,000
  6. Studio 1o (Ten) — 39,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (2.9%)
  2. LifeStyle  (2.5%)
  3. TVHITS (1.9%)
  4. UKTV (1.9%)
  5. Arene (1.7%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Family Guy (Fox8) — 78,000
  2. Family Guy (Fox8) — 69,000
  3. The Simpsons (Fox) — 86,000
  4. Would I lie To You (UKTV) — 60,000
  5. Modern Family (Fox8) — 60,000

*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.