The Winners: The Australian Idol verdict averaged 1.566 million in top spot, followed by Seven News with 1.543 million. The normal Australian Idol program was next with 1.489 million, 60 Minutes had 1.411 million viewers and Seven’s showing of Kath and Kim, averaged 1.327 million and 5th. The first part of Australian Idol from 7.30pm averaged 1.301 million and CSI Miami on Nine at 8.30pm averaged 1.162 million. Nine News averaged 1.159 million and Nine’s repeat of 20 to 1 at 6.30pm averaged 1.147 million. Over The Hedge averaged 1.102 million at 7pm. 1.102 million at the 7pm ABC News averaged 1.079 in 11th spot.

The Losers: Hard to see any: we are already in a sort of summer mode and Seven won last night by counter programming to Ten and Nine.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market. (Seven News at 6pm in Melbourne with 516,000 had 2,000 more viewers than the Australian Idol winner‘s announcement). Seven News in Melbourne was the most watched program across the country last night (which says a lot about the relative slump of interest in the outcome of Australian Idol among the target viewer groups). Ten News averaged 841,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 176,000. In the morning — Weekend Sunrise from 8am, 449,000, the final Landline for the year on the ABC at Noon, 330,000. Insiders on the ABC at 9am, 231,000, Weekend Sunrise early at 7.30am, 224,000, Inside Business, 171,000 at 10am on the ABC; Offsiders, 118,000 on the ABC at 10.30am. Nine’s Morning News and Laurie Oakes interview from 8am to 9am, 114,000.

The Stats: Seven won All people 6pm to Midnight with 27.5% (23.2%) from Nine with 26.7% (30.6%), Ten with 24.1% (23.7%), the ABC with 16.4% (unchanged) and SBS with 5.2% (6.0%). Seven won Sydney, Melbourne; Nine won Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. In regional areas a win for WIN/NBN with 26.5% from Southern Cross (Ten) with 25.6%; Prime/7Qld with 24.4%, the ABC with 17.2% and SBS with 6.2%. 635,000 watched the Australian Idol final winner announced in regional areas, making for a national audience of 2.2 million, not to be sneezed at.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Ten will be rightly pleased with the way Australian Idol ended the 2008 season: solid figures for the final two Sundays. Something though will have to be done about the Monday verdict episodes — they bombed — a point Ten skated over in its self-congratulatory statements this morning. It did better than last year when the winner averaged 1.415 million (1.566 million) and 1.417 million for the final verdict (1.489 million this year), so that again would have pleased Ten. But strangely it didn’t refer to this improved result on 2007.

The preliminaries from 7.30pm to around 9pm averaged 1.30 million. The program ran over time finishing well after 9.45pm when it was supposed to finish at 9.30pm, which is always an estimate anyway. But there was nothing of the huge 2 million plus audiences and more of three and four years ago. Australian Idol is alive, but diminished in the minds of viewers; unlike Big Brother which died this year from viewer boredom.

Tonight: The Howard Years and then Andrew Denton with Ms A Jolie and Mr C Eastwood on the ABC. Good News Week on Ten finishes over two hours is the other program of interest, and of course, Top Gear on SBS at 7.30pm.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports