Only one program on last night, and that was the NRL grand final on Nine, which easily dominated the night. As a result Nine easily won the metros and regional markets. End of night. Normal play resumes tonight. So its back to “normal” transmission with a very long episode of The X Factor on Seven (well over two hours for a live show), The Block on Nine for 90 minutes and an hour of TBL Families on Ten.

Last week, Seven news had its first Monday to Friday win over Seven News for more than a year — 1.046 million viewers to 966,000 for Nine News. And Breakfast Today and Sunrise drew the week with 308,000 viewers each.

NRL:  The NRL all Queensland grand final on Nine last night topped the AFL GF the day before. A total of nearly 3.7 million people watched the final game of the NRL season, won by North Queensland with a golden point field goal. That was 175,000 more than the AFL end of season victory by Hawthorn. It was short of the 3.951 million people who watched Souths win its first grand final in decades in 2014 with a hard-fought win over Canterbury. It was also well short of the 3.816 million people who watched the 2012 grand final. In the metros, 2.468 million people watched, less than 2.597 million in 2014, and also well short of the 2.551 million who watched in 2012. The regional audience was a high 1.261 million last night (because of very high viewing levels in regional Queensland where Nine had a 61.9% audience share last night. That regional audience though was well short of the 2012 figure of 1.316 million and last year’s 1.354 million. That was because viewing levels fell in regional NSW (as they did in Sydney). Sydney’s audience last night was 952,000, well under previous levels of well above 1.2 million (1.285 million in 2014). The audience in Brisbane, was 788,000, well up on recent years and the highest since 2006 when Brisbane last won the premiership. Last night’s peak audience peaked at more than 4.22 million people.

AFL: According to figures from Oztam, 3.523 million people watched the Hawthorn win over the Waegles at the MCG on Saturday, the lowest figure for an AFL grand final since 2008, when Hawthorn beat Geelong. It was also around 900,000 short of the all time high 4.43 million for the 2005 game the Swans won against the Waegles.

The metro audience of 2.635 million was well under previous years. In fact it was the lowest since 2008 when 2.491 million people watched Hawthorn choke the Cats out of a second successive title. The regional audience was 888,000, the lowest as well since 2008. The Melbourne audience of 1.231 million people was the lowest since Geelong thrashed Port Adelaide in 2007.  The Sydney audience of 372,000 was well down on the 551,000 for last year when the Swans were whacked by Hawthorn, and well under the 991,000 all time high in 2005 when the Swans won their first GF for decades. A fairer comparison would be with 2013 when 345,000 people watched.

The surprise was Perth where the support for the Weagles was high, but not as high as in the past. An average of 456,000 watched Saturday’s game in Perth, down on the 503,000 who watched the Dockers be beaten in 2013, and well under the 511,000 for the 2005 loss and 549,000 for the 2006 win (over the Swans, and the game that still has question marks around it).

Rugby union: And the Wallabies win over England at 6am Sunday (our time) was watched by a total of 352,000 on Gem (168,000) and Fox Sports (184,000). On ITV, early figures show that an average of 8 million people watched the game on Saturday night in the UK, well down from the 10.4 million average who watched England beaten by Wales the previous Saturday night. Now that England is out of the Cup, ITV faces the prospect of weaker audiences.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (45.2%)
  2. Seven (23.9%)
  3. ABC (13.8%)
  4. Ten (12.0%)
  5. SBS (5.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (40.5%)
  2. Seven (16.4%)
  3. ABC (10.2%)
  4.  Ten (8.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.2%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.5%)
  2. GO (3.1%)
  3. 7mate (3.0%)
  4. Eleven (1.8%)
  5. ABC 2 (1.9%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. NRL Grand Final (Nine) — 3.698 million
  2. NRL Grand Final Presentation (Nine) — 3.123 million
  3. NRL Grand Final Entertainment (Nine) — 2.14 million
  4. Nine News — 1.868 million
  5. Seven News — 1.426 million
  6. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.244 million
  7. Vera –883,000
  8. NRL First Division Grand Final (Nine)  — 937,000
  9. ABC News (Nine) –883,000
  10. Dr Who (ABC) — 668,000

Top metro programs:

  1. NRL Grand Final (Nine) — 2.468 million
  2. NRL Grand Final Presentation (Nine) — 1.816 million
  3. NRL Grand Final Entertainment (Nine) — 1.430 million
  4. Nine News — 1.221 million
  5. Seven News — 1.038 million

Losers: No one really. How about The Bolt Report in the morning, again?Metro news and current affairs:

  1.  Nine News — 1.221 million
  2.  Seven News — 1.038 million
  3. Sunday Night (Seven) — 869,000
  4. ABC News — 587,000
  5. Ten News — 323,000
  6. SBS News (Ten) — 145,000

Morning TV:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 330,000
  2. Insiders (ABC, 253,000, 58,000 on News 24) — 311,000
  3. Weekend Today (Nine) – 296,000
  4. Landline (ABC) — 227,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) — 197,000
  6. The Bolt Report (Ten) — 147,000

*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.