The Winners: Seven News topped the night with a very high 1.747 million people watching nationally. That’s 452,000 more than watched Nine News. Today Tonight was second with 1.636 million and Nine’s Sea Patrol returned to be third with 1.399 million. MasterChef Australia was a again strong at 7pm for Ten with 1.388 million. Nine News was 5th with 1.295 million and the new Two and a Half Men at 7.30pm averaged 1.287 million. A Current Affair was 7th with 1.269 million. Ten’s Recruits at 8pm averaged 1.220 million and the 7pm repeat of Two and a Half Men averaged 1.190 million at 7pm. Home and Away was 10th with 1.178 million and Desperate Housewives averaged 1.127 million at 8.30pm for Seven. Good News Week on Ten at 8.30pm averaged 1.079 million and Missing Pieces slotted in with 1.076 million for Nine at 8pm. Four Corners averaged 1.060 million in 14th, the 7pm ABC News was next with 1.054 million and Ten News, 1.037 million. Australian Story averaged 1.031 million at 8pm. Last in 17th spot was Scrubs with 1.022 million on Seven. Media Watch averaged 901,000 and Seven’s Brothers and Sisters, 898,000 at 9.30pm.

The Losers: How I met Your Mother on Seven at 7.30pm: 789,000. It looks like it has exhausted its charmed run. Scrubs beat it with more than 1 million at 8pm on Seven. The Eleventh Hour on Nine at 9.30pm, 791,000. It’s been five minutes to midnight for this one since it started on Nine. Time to go, I think, but what to replace it with? Spooks on the ABC at 9.30pm, 657,000. A bit better than in recent weeks. As suspected, Supernatural again flopped: 656,000 at 9.40pm on Ten. That was spooky.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market as did Today Tonight. Ten News’ million plus audiences on Monday evenings is starting to become regular. Ten’s Late News/Sports Tonight averaged 305,000. The 7.30 Report on the ABC averaged 979,000, Lateline, 285,000, Lateline Business, 162,000. SBS News at 9.30pm 215,000, the late News at 9.30pm. Nine’s Late News, 273,000. 7am Sunrise, 366,000, 7am Today, 301,000.

The Stats: Nine won with a share a 6pm to midnight All People share of 26.2% (25.7%) from Seven on 25.9% (30.5%), Ten on 23.7% (22.6%), the ABC on 18.0% (17.3%) and SBS on 6.2% (6.0%). Nine won Melbourne, and Adelaide. Ten won Brisbane, Seven won Sydney and Perth. Seven leads the week, 26.7% to 25.9% for Nine and 24.0% for Ten. In regional areas a win for WIN/NBN with 28.2% from Prime/7Qld with 24.0%, Southern Cross (Ten) on 21.8%, the ABC on 18.6% and SBS on 7.5%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Top Gear Australia. Goodnight. 628,000 people. That’s average. The program grates. When the first segment is a test drive in a hot V8 car, who cares what the rest of the program has? And how come VW is a sponsor. I thought BBC World specifies in the contract with the producers and SBS, no car company sponsorship. It was supposed to have been an irritant to BBC Worldwide after first broadcast of the UK version here a couple of years ago. Nine wants Top Gear desperately.

Today Tonight and A Current Affair both started last night with the same story: a woman who is alleged to have pulled an insurance rort on a company called Tower by claiming injury, but was filmed by neighbours showing no signs of distress. ACA did it because the original claim story was on Today Tonight and ACA was seeking to embarrass TT. Unfortunately for ACA, Today Tonight was angry at being made to look foolish by the 2008 story, so it did last night’s story as a “you were not straight with us story” and did it a lot better and in more depth than Ben Fordham’s once over lightly effort on ACA. It didn’t do ACA any good; it still lost to TT by over 360,000 viewers last night.

TONIGHT: Well, not much. Nine’s Home Made faces another test. It has to get 1 million or more viewers at 7.30pm even to be considered a tiny success. Nine also has lots of Two and a Half Men, and Underbelly Uncut.

Ten has MasterChef, NCIS and then Lie To me at 9.30pm, which has just started on Sky in the UK and is a success in the US for Fox. But it’s just average to poor here. Ten’s Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation has so far been the surprise program of 2009: its episode 3 tonight at 7.30pm to 8.30pm.

Seven has Find My Family, The Zoo and All Saints (which is struggling) and 10 Years Younger at 9.30pm (which is also struggling).

SBS has Insight and yet another “documentary” on America’s super secret intelligence organisation, the NSA. The fact that SBS is showing a US doco on the National Security Agency shows how un-super secret it is. I have lost count of the number of docos I have seen in the past 30 years on the NSA. All I can say is “so what”, especially when the program blurb says it exposes the role of the NSA in failing to stop September 11.

The ABC has Foreign Correspondent. Mumbai Calling at 9.30pm is really worth a look. It’s better than it looks.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports