The Winners: Today Tonight averaged 1.491 million for top spot, beating Nine News with 1.387 million which was boosted by having the cricket as the lead in. Seven News was next with 1.306 million people. ER was supposedly 4th for Nine with 1.132 million but it wasn’t — the cricket ran well past its 8.30pm finish to after 9pm. ER got much less and is a dying program. The 7pm ABC News averaged 1.026 million and Ten’s abysmal Don’t Forget The Lyrics (those involved have forgotten the entertainment!) averaged 1.012 million. The night session of the tennis averaged 992,000 from 7.30pm. The cricket averaged 905,000 from go to woe but that was weighed down by the smaller daytime audiences. The evening audience was over a million.

The Losers: It’s summer and although it seems we are just seeing a lot of old guff, there are also some new programs being screened. Unfortunately they are being shown at this time of year because, well, they would fail in ratings. What is odd is how barren the ABC is at the moment: it’s as though they are on summer break as well.

News & CA: Nine News won everywhere bar Perth, thanks to the cricket lead in. Today Tonight had a big win without any competition. Ten News averaged 815,000; the Late News/Sports Tonight, 351,000. Nightline, 273,000. The 7.30 Report, 809,000. SBS News, 184,000 at 6.30pm; 257,000 for the late edition.  7am Sunrise, 387,000; 7am Today, 272,000.

The Stats: Nine won with a share of 29.7% from Seven with 29.3%. Ten was next with 18.9%, the ABC was on 14.1% and SBS was on 8.0%. Nine won Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, Seven won Melbourne (the tennis won out) and Perth. Seven still leads the week, 27.7% to 27.0%. In regional areas WIN/NBN won for Nine with 30.0%. Prime/7Qld was next with 26.2%, Southern Cross (ten) was next with 21.4% a the ABC was next with 14.3% and SBS was on 8.1%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The cricket and the tennis were fairly well matched when they went head to head in primetime. But earlier in the day it was an easy win to the willow and leather, which was easily the most popular daytime TV across the country. Its audience was at times double or more than that for the tennis. And with Nine pre-empting A Current Affair for the cricket last night, “current affairs junkies” flocked to Today Tonight for their daily fix. It was not only the most watched program last night, it’s audience approached the best figures it got during last year’s ratings. Despite what some of the luvvies in TV commentary might think, there is a defined audience for TV current affairs in the form practised by ACA and TT.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports