While the Australia-Sri Lanka world cup cricket game yesterday afternoon and last night did it for Nine, we had another illustration of how cricket is really playing second fiddle at Nine. The network went to an NRL game between Penrith and Canterbury in Sydney and NSW markets yesterday from 3.30pm to 6pm. The World Cup game continued on Gem. Nine doesn’t appear to have coded the cricket on Gem for that two and a half hours so we can’t work out the size of the audience. But it seems very odd that Nine viewed a regional football game as being more important than the national cricket team competing in a key World Cup game (For a game against a lesser opponent, such as Scotland, no worries about it moving to Gem all day and night, or for a few hours). Why wasn’t the NRL game pushed to Gem? Was greedy Nine caught out by its high-priced NRL broadcast contract requiring the Sunday game of the first round being broadcast on the network’s main channel?  The World Cup final is from the MCG on Sunday, March 29. Will Nine pre-empt that for an NRL game? Whether Australia makes the final or not?

The NRL averaged 369,000 viewers in metro markets (Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne). The second session of the ODI (Sri Lanka’s batting innings) averaged 1.549 million viewers, with 1.233 million watching the Australian batting in the afternoon’s first session. That’s an average of 1.391 million. There were a further 322,000 who watched the game on Fox Sports. All up more than 1.71 million viewers. Clearly more people wanted to watch the cricket and not the NRL game. What a crazy situation when Nine can pre-empt an important ODI for Australia (which saw the brilliant innings by Glenn Maxwell) for a NRL game of no importance whatsoever, except to fans of Penrith and Canterbury?

Ten’s eviction episode of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here had 979,000 national viewers, while Shark Tank averaged 1,022 million — both of which were solid, especially up against the cricket.

Can someone please kill the use of the word “conversation” and revert back to “discussion”. Joe Hockey started last week and I thought that bastion of sense on the ABC — Insiders — would see a minimal use of “conversation” yesterday. No, there it was, dropped by every panelist, from host Barrie Cassidy onwards. But viewers didn’t mind — Insiders had 576,000 national viewers, of which 399,000 were metro viewers on News 24 and ABC1. Deservedly so. The Bolt Report managed 223,000 national viewers, of which 168,000 were metro viewers for its 10am first up broadcast. No contest, again.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (32.4%)
  2. Seven (30.1%)
  3. Ten (16.4%)
  4. ABC (14.4%)
  5. SBS (6.7%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (34.3%)
  2. Seven (20.3%)
  3. Ten (13.0%)
  4. ABC (10.3%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.6%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (6.1%)
  2. GO (4.4%)
  3. 7TWO, Gem (3.7%)
  4. ABC 2 (2.5%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.762 million
  2. World Cup Cricket: Sri Lanka v Sri Australia 2 — 1.549 million
  3. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.440 million
  4. Seven News  — 1.429 million
  5. World Cup Cricket:  Sri Lanka v Sri Australia  1 — 1.233 million
  6. Downton Abbey (Seven) — 1.153 million
  7. Australia: The Story Of Us (Seven) — 1.142 million
  8. Shark Tank (Ten) — 1.022 million
  9. ABC News — 987,000
  10. I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Eviction (Ten) — 979,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.256 million
  2. World Cup Cricket:  Sri Lanka v Sri Australia  2 — 1.024 million

Losers: The World Cup cricket ODI between Australia and Sri Lanka skewed the night. Back to normal transmission tonight.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.256 million
  2. Sunday Night (Seven) — 965,000
  3. Seven News  — 942,000
  4. ABC News — 631,000
  5. Ten Eyewitness News — 330,000
  6. SBS World News — 143,000

Morning TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC) — 399,000
  2. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 283,000
  3. Landline (ABC) — 263,000
  4. Weekend Today (Nine) — 233,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) — 173,000
  6. The Bolt Report (Ten) — 163,000
  7. The Bolt Report repeat (Ten) — 61,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Sports 3 (10.2%)
  2. Fox 8  (2.4%)
  3. Fox Sports 1 (2.3%)
  4. Foxtel Movies Premiere (1.8%)
  5. TVHITS, LifeStyle  (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Cricket: World Cup, Sri Lanka v Australia  Session (Fox Sports 3) — 324,000
  2. Cricket: World Cup, Sri Lanka v Australia  Session (Fox Sports 3) — 319,000
  3. Cricket: World Cup Innings Break  (Fox Sports 3) — 298,000
  4. NRL: Cronulla v Canberra (Fox Sports 1) — 173,000
  5. Cricket: World Cup, Post Game  (Fox Sports 3) — 128,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2015. 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.