While Nine and Seven battle it out for Thursday night supremacy, the ABC has just one thing to say, “thanks Kimmie”.

Yes, it was Thursday and Yes, Nine won narrowly from Ten, and Seven did badly and Nine boasted that Seven did badly.

Ten boasted that all its programs finished in the top ten in the under 40 demographic. And that was Thursday night.

The rugby league Footy Show did well in Sydney and Brisbane, but in what must have puzzled Nine and the league executives discussing the figures today, the hugely expensive live broadcast last night was beaten by 2,000 viewers into second place in the Sydney top ten programs by the first run Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episode, which was also the top program in the five major metro markets.

Despite Seven’s poor performance in Sydney where it rated a share of 17.9%, low by any standards, it can claim a small win. Seven News beat Nine News in Sydney on the night. Sunrise beat the Today show and Seven’s 4.30 News completely whipped Nine’s faltering effort.

Nine’s 4.30News was watched by only 85,732 people. Seven’s by 301,563, but in a reversal of the following night after the narrow (6,500 people) win by Seven News, a massive 77,000 people turned off Seven by the time Today Tonight was underway and it was comprehensively beaten by A Current Affair, which added almost 19,000 viewers on average.

What killed Seven was again that trio of serial underperformers, A Simple Life with Paris Hilton and friend, Playing it Straight and Trading Spouses. Both only have another week to go to bore viewers before they are replaced. There will not be many sorry to see these last two ill-judged programming efforts disappear into the Seven vault with a stake driven their the videotape containers.

All three programs make the rugby league Footy Show look good and the contrived nonsense that is Law and Order: SVU resemble interesting drama. It’s an easy choice.

Nine won across the country with a 30.8% share, from Ten with 28.1%, Seven with 20.4%, the ABC with 16.4% (thanks Kath, thanks, Kimmie!) and SBS with 4.6%.

In Sydney it was a clearer win to Nine on 33.3%, from Ten with 27.9%, Seven with 17.9% and uncomfortably close to the ABC with 16.2% and the SBS on 4.7% (Inspector Rex’s last episode for the time being).

Kath and Kim’s first episode of the new series reached fourth nationally and seventh in Sydney and seems to have sucked viewers from all networks. The top shows nationally were, Law and Order: SVU (new episode) with the repeat episode second. Getaway was third, in front of Kath and Kim, then National Nine News, A Current Affair, then Home and Away, My Wife and Kids (Seven), Seven News and Frasier was tenth.

In Sydney it was the first run episode of Law and Order in front of The Footy Show, with Getaway third, the repeat of Law and Order: SVU was fourth, Home and Away was fifth, Inside Idol on Ten was sixth, Kath and Kim seventh, ACA was eighth, Seven News nineth and Nine News rounded out the ten.

Seven also got beaten up in Melbourne, again a reversal of the performance on Wednesday. Nine won Melbourne with a 31.4% share from Ten with 28.8%, Seven with 19.3%, the ABC on 15.8% and SBS on 4.7%. But it was not all gloom Seven ran second in Perth to Ten, relegating Nine to third!

Besides Kath and Kim,The Chaser Decides episode two attracted 743,910 viewers for the ABC. Strangely that was exactly the same number of people who watched nationally (five major metro markets) the previous Thursday.