My Kitchen Rules had its best night of this season so far last night with 2.360 million national viewers (and a season high 1.675 million in the metros), streeting the opposition and providing a solid platform for Seven’s news special on the murder of Anita Cobby 30 years ago (1.580 million nationally). With Home and Away and Seven News also doing well, that was the night in metro and regional markets, in Total People and in the major demos. The ABC’s News and Current Affairs line up pushed Ten into fourth spot, but Ten did better in the demos as I’m A Celebrity picked up from Monday’s very weak effort (1.018 million nationally, just enough). But it was easily topped by the weak Australia’s Got Talent on Nine with 1.112 million (but Ten had good demos, but far behind MKR and Seven).

Nine must have concluded that after one week, Farmer Wants A Wife is a flop because it doubled the episodes last night to get rid of it. The first at 8.45 averaged 688,000 metro viewers and the second had 577,000. In the regions they weren’t split on WIN and the two episodes averaged 299,000 viewers. That’s an average across the two episodes of 932,000, which is OK, not brilliant.

In the regions, MKR was the most watched program with 685,000 viewers, followed by Home and Away with 504,000, the Anita Cobby special was on 471,000, the 5.30 pm bit of The Chase Australia was on 397,000 and Nine News had 376,000 people.

Tonight is the first elimination on MKR, which can change the audience’s view of the program, so the evictee will be very important to the ongoing success of the program (hint, the painful women can’t be tossed out because the audience won’t have anyone to hate). Insight returns to SBS ONE tonight at 8.30pm.

In the morning Nine has rebadged Mornings as Today Extra and picked up 134,000 in the metros. Studio Ten on Ten had a new high 116,000 national viewers with Seven’s The Morning Show pre-empted for the NFL Super Bowl 50 coverage (536,000 national and 403,000 in the metros, while a further 149,000 watched on ESPN on pay TV).

But in breakfast, a big win to Today with 350,000 viewers to 327,000 for Sunrise. That top to bottom revamp of Sunrise isn’t working, nor is the addition of Edwina Batholomew to the line up. Too many heads and too much like the panel on Today. Bartholomew’s addition has prompted more stupid talk about a new ‘golden girl’ on the Sunrise set to have a toe to toe with co-host Sam Armtyage. That change had to be signed off by management, so self-defeating because it was the management triggered speculation about hosting duties between Mel Doyle and Sam Armytage upset viewers and led to Sunrise’s loss of market leadership in the metros in 2014.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (35.4%)
  2. Nine (25.8%)
  3. ABC (17.6%)
  4. Ten (16.4%)
  5. SBS (4.8%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (29.6%)
  2. Nine (19.7%)
  3. ABC (12.8%)
  4. Ten (11.8%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.4%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (3.4%)
  2. ABC 2 (3.3%)
  3. GO (3.0%)
  4. 7mate (2.5%)
  5. ONE (2.4%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. MKR (Seven) — 2.360 million
  2. Seven News Special: Anita Cobby — 1.580 million
  3. Nine News — 1.380 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.343 million
  5. Seven News — 1.303 million
  6. ABC News — 1.195 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.118 million
  8. Australia’s Got Talent (Nine) — 1.112 million
  9. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1.0678 million
  10. Australian Story (ABC) — 1.64 million

Top metro programs:

  1. MKR (Seven) — 1.675 million
  2. Seven News Special: Anita Cobby — 1.109 million
  3. Seven News — 1.033 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.031 million
  5. Nine News — 1.001 million
  6. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1 million

Losers: Good choice, no losers unless they don’t like TV.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News Special: Anita Cobby — 1.109 million
  2. Seven News — 1.033 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 1.031 million
  4. Nine News — 1.001 million
  5. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) – 921,000
  7. 7pm ABC News – 822,000
  8. Australian Story (ABC) — 718,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 653,000
  10. Media Watch (ABC) — 629,000

Morning TV:

  1. Today (Nine) – 350,000
  2. Sunrise (Seven) – 327,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — preempted
  4. News Breakfast (ABC 1,  82,000 + 47,000 on News 24) — 129,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 124,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 116,000

 

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. ODI: NZ v Australia, Game 3 Session 2(Fox Sports 3 – 163,000
  2. Sports Centre Special  (ESPN) — 150,000
  3. Super Bowl 50 (ESPN) — 149,000,000
  4. Cricket Legends (Fox Sports 3) – 137,000
  5. ODI: NZ v. Australia Game 3, Session 1 (Fox Sports 3) – 100,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2016. 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.