The Voice and it was Nine’s night in metro markets (but not in Perth where they prefer a Tango over Vibrato). Ten though reverted to the past with fourth place and with its main channel share under 10% in both the metros (9.1%) and the regionals (7.6%), which was really poor.

Nine and Seven shared the night overall in the regionals, but Seven was a narrow winner in the main channels (Nine ate all the best demos in both metro and regional markets). While The Voice topped metro markets with 1.467 million viewers, it ran third nationally (a bit of a turn up) with 2.009 million, behind Seven News on 2.050 million and Nine News with 2.033 million. In the morning, Insiders on ABC TV again dominated, winning the metro and national markets (555,000 nationally) easily and again more than doubling the audience for The Bolt Report on Ten (216.000 nationally).

The first of three episodes of The Politician’s Husband on ABC TV last night impressed and did well nationally with 949,000 viewers and a top 10 finish. There were tantalising hints of the first version of House of Cards, and will worth watching next week and the week after. That we in Australia tried a TV program about Julia Gillard and her private living arrangements and ran it as a comedy (At Home With Julia), and the Poms can make a top notch drama out of the same idea, tells us a lot about how much further they are in accepting women politicians as leaders, or qualifying for the leadership (Well, they did have Margaret Thatcher). But last night showed you can turn political rivalry in a marital situation into gripping drama. You can’t imagine anyone using Tony Abbott as a template for this sort of story.  It was also instructive to watch it four hours after Bronwyn Bishop departed the speakership and Tony Abbott showed continuing loyalty to her – because loyalty is the driving storyline in The Politician’s Husband. Good writing, action and direction also helps.

Tonight, it’s Restaurant Revolution on Seven v The Hotplate on Nine (outside of the NSW Supreme Court – MKR clone anyone?) and Lip Synch Battle on Nine, while Ten gives is the debut of its much hyped The Great Australian Spelling Bee over 90 minutes from 7.30pm. I am reminded of children and animals and WC Fields’ quote about appearing with them. It really is a Sunday night program.

We’ll also have the second part of the Bradman family on Australian Story. The founding EP of Australian Story Deb Fleming retired on Friday (she’s been replaced by Deb Masters from Four Corners). Fleming deserves a big vote of thanks from Australian TV viewers and the Australian public for starting and maintaining a TV program which gave the talent their voice and a chance to tell their story in contrast to the manufactured styles of 7.30, 60 Minutes, Sunday Night and A Current Affair, with Today Tonight mouldering away in Adelaide and WA markets. Another strength was that Australian Story was headquartered in Brisbane, away from the interfering hands of the Big Beasts of ABC News and Current Affairs journalism, and there have been quite a few over the years who felt they knew TV story telling better than Fleming and other producers, and proceeded to tell the world, to the point of trying to undermine the program. Keeping Australian Story out of the swamps of ABC News and Current Affairs HQ in Sydney now falls to Deb Masters and that will be one of her major tasks.

Nine won last week by a mile and this week is set up for an Action Replay.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (35.0%)
  2. Nine (27.3%)
  3. ABC (16.8%)
  4. Ten (14.3%)
  5. SBS (6.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (28.3%)
  2. Seven (20.3%)
  3. ABC (11.8%)
  4. Ten (9.1%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.2%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (3.9%)
  2. 7mate (3.7%)
  3. 7TWO (3.3%)
  4. Eleven (3.1%)
  5. ABC 2 (3.0%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 2.050 million
  2. Nine News — 2.033 million
  3. The Voice (Nine) — 2.009 million
  4. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.747 million
  5. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.515 million
  6. Grand Designs (ABC 1) – 1.385 million
  7. ABC News — 1.247 million
  8. Dancing With The Stars (Seven) — 1.107 million
  9. The Politician’s Husband (ABC) — 949,000
  10. Gold Coast Cops (Ten) — 746,000

Top metro programs:

  1. The Voice (Nine) — 1.467 million
  2. Nine News — 1.457 million
  3. Seven News — 1.367 million
  4. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.044 million

Losers: Seven and Dancing With The Stars — sad sag. Ten, with nothing bright and “reality” driven, a nothing night.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.457 million
  2. Seven News — 1.367 million
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.084 million
  4. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.044 million
  5. ABC News — 870,000
  6. Ten Eyewitness News — 457,000
  7. SBS World News — 166,000

Morning TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC, 296,000, 69,000 on News 24)) — 365,000
  2. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 317,000
  3. Weekend Today (Nine) – 273,000
  4. Landline (ABCTV) — 235,000
  5. Offsiders (ABCTV) — 208,000
  6. The Bolt Report (TEN) — 142,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Footy  (4.1%)
  2. Fox Sports 1 , Fox Sports 3  (2.1%)
  3. Foxtel Movies Premiere, TVHITS (2.0%)

 Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: St George v Newcastle  (Fox Sports 1) – 160,000
  2. AFL: Port Adelaide v St Kilda  (Fox Footy) – 153,000
  3. AFL: Fremantle v GWS (Fox Footy) — 150,000
  4. AFL: Essendon v Footscray (Fox Sports 3) – 140,000
  5. Who Do You Think You Are (UKTV) – 84,000

*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.