What a night — boring, much like the NRL game, which was a war of attrition. The NRL Footy Show on Nine that followed was dispirited. The it had an all time record low audience, as did Eddie Maguire’s AFL counterpart, which was easily beaten in the key market, Melbourne, by Seven’s The Front Bar. 98,000 for Eddie’s effort, 161,000 for The Front Bar. 

Nationally the picture appeared much closer — 307,000 for The Front Bar and 297,000 for the two ‘Footy shows, but the latter includes viewers of the NRL program. 

7.30 saw a sharp jump in its audience (with 1.07 million national viewers, it finished fifth nationally; sixth in the metros and fourth in the regions) thanks to the James Comey interview conducted by Leigh Sales. That’s more than 350,000 above what it normally gets on a Thursday evening and well above audiences for months. And to think Nine, Ten and Seven have all abandoned serious current affairs journalism, and the solid audience that tunes into that type of programming.

In regional areas, Seven News was tops with 519,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 438,000. Home and Away was third with 403,000, 7.30 was fourth with 343,000 and the 5.30pm portion of The Chase Australia was fifth with 335,000

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (31.5%)
  2. Nine (27.40%)
  3. Ten (17.2%)
  4. ABC (16.9%)
  5. SBS (7.1%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (20.1%)
  2. Seven (8.81%)
  3. Ten (12.0%)
  4. ABC (11.3%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.9%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (5.1%)
  2. 7TWO (4.8%)
  3. ABC Kids/Comedy (3.0%)
  4. GO (2.8%)
  5. Eleven (2.7%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.508 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.411 million
  3. Nine/NBN News 6.30pm — 1.125 million
  4. Nine/NBN News — 1.114 million
  5. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.108 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.049 million
  7. 7pm ABC News — 1.015 million
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.008 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 876,000
  10. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 655,000

Top metro programs: None with a million or more viewers

Losers: The Footy Shows; Wentworth on the ABC.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 980,000
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 973,000
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 856,000
  4. Nine News — 839,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 737,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC) — 735,000
  7. 7pm ABC News – 671,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 438,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 424,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 309,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 493,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 368,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 245,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC, 153,000 + 71,000 on News 24) — 224,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 160,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 92,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Canterbury v Easts (Fox League) — 205,000
  2. Selling Houses Australia (LifeStyle) — 79,000
  3. The Late Show With Matty Johns (Fox League) — 76,000
  4. NRL: Thursday Night League  (Fox League) — 67,000
  5. Gold Rush (Discovery)  — 63,000