The Winners: MasterChef Australia naturally led the night. The winner’s announcement averaged 3.745 million. The normal MasterChef Australia averaged 3.313 million and Seven News was 3rd with 1.712 million. Ten’s 6.30pm program, Merlin averaged 1.478 million and Nine News averaged 11.470 million. Nine’s Random Acts of Kindness averaged 1.203 million at 6.30pm, the teaser episode of Ten’s Glee averaged 1.185 million after MasterChef (I wouldn’t be boasting about that, it’s not a very good hang around audience, but the program does have promise). Seven’s Dancing With The Stars averaged 1.183 million and got crunched from 7.30pm onwards, which didn’t happen to Random Acts of Kindness which finished at 7.30pm. Bones on Seven at 8.30pm, averaged 8712,000, Castle at 9.30pm, averaged 889,000. 60 Minutes on Nine at 7.30pm, 901,000. Nine’s movie, Mission impossible III, 628,000 from 8.30pm. The first Ashes session last night on SBS was cut to 339,000 by MasterChef and the poor performance by the Australians. 240,000 watched the second session.

The Losers: Nothing really last night. Too much drama on Ten.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and won well for a Sunday. Seven won in Sydney up against an NRL-inspired Nine with a good game involving a well supported Sydney team in the Tigers, who won. Nine News won Melbourne, but Seven News Brisbane averaged 408,000, just 2,000 short of Seven Sydney’s 410,000 and proportionately bigger than Seven News in Sydney as Brisbane is a much smaller market than Sydney.

Ten News averaged 772,000, the 7pm ABC News averaged 839,000. SBS News averaged 205,000 at 6.30pm. Weekend Sunrise averaged 401,000 on Seven, Today on Sunday, 344,000 and keeps creeping up on Sunrise. Insiders rose to 223,000 at 9am, Inside Business averaged 164,000 and Offsiders averaged 156,000. Landline averaged 192,000 at Noon on the ABC, Meet the Press on Ten at 8am, 38,000.

The Stats: Ten won everything with daylight second. Ten had a 6pm to midnight All People share of 41.3% (25.0%) from Seven with 21.7% (23.7), Nine with 17.6% (23.1%), the ABC on 11.6% (15.7%) and SBS with 7.8% (12.4%). Ten won everywhere, with a 46.6% share in Melbourne. In regional Australia a big win to Southern Cross (Ten) as MasterChef grabbed attention in the bush. Southern Cross had a share of 36.7%, not quite the big city, but better than a poke in the people meter. Prime/7Qld was next with 21.6%, WIN/NBN were third for Nine with 19.5% (higher than in the metro markets) and the ABC was on 19.9% and ABS was on 9.3%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: TV Idiocy of the year: 60 Minutes “exclusive” with British backpacker, James Neale on at 7.30pm to 8.30pm while well over 3 million people were watching MasterChef. How to crucify an exclusive on an interesting story and waste whatever fee was paid. It’s from the gang that gave us THISafternoon.

Nine’s News and Current Affairs Department is rapidly getting a reputation for fumbling and bumbling. The smarter move would have been to give it to A Current Affair and Tracy Grimshaw, who has a better reputation with viewers than anyone on the fluffy 60 Minutes. The story should have been packaged up for tonight’s ACA, it would have done very well, with a bit more left over for tomorrow. There would have been clear TV air, no MasterChef sucking up the publicity.

A generation of current affairs TV producers turned in their graves, or cheered widely at Nine putting the Neale interview on 60 Minutes last night. The 901,000 viewers were irrelevant. 60 Minutes was always going to rate badly last night, it was all about cutting your losses and playing to a strength. No wonder Seven and Ten now view each other as the real rivals of Australian TV.

Last night’s promos for Seven’s Today Tonight were telling us about the cookbooks to make us a MasterChef. Purlease. It’s very tiresome the way Seven and Nine are trying to cash in on MasterChef (as they did with Big Brother and Idol). It’s just the latest example of this passing off by TT. It’s lazy TV and lazy thinking, but no doubt they all think they are geniuses.

By the way Ten won last week for only the second time since the Oztam system started in 2001. And Nine finished third, despite having the Rugby League State of Origin game. That recalled 2007 and the dark depths of Eddie McGuire.

TONIGHT: Cricket. Will we make it? A draw or a win would repay the Poms for Cardiff. The Tour de France is over, give Mr Contador the winner’s cheque, garland and a bevy of photogenic models and the keys to Paris. He will only lose if he falls off his bike. It’s a pity became Mount Ventoux this Saturday will no longer have the drama … still we can hope.

Ten has The 7pm Project and nothing else. Lean times ahead after the heady weeks of MasterChef. Good News Week is a best bits effort. Average. Nine has Sea Patrol. Nothing else is worth watching.

The ABC has a good Four Corners tonight on the stupidity of the NSW Government, which will do anything for a quid, including ruining our best growing land in the Liverpool Plains. It’s selling off the farm for coal, and don’t worry about the future.

Spooks has a child stumbling on a Government conspiracy. I repeat, if Governments conspired and were so evil and so efficient, why do episodes like this one of Spooks get made? Seven has How I Met Your Mother at 7.30pm. Will it improve now that the naughty MasterChef has gone? Scrubs is a bit better at 8pm.

Desperate Housewives at 8.30pm The 7pm ABC News, Home and Away and the 7pm repeat of Two And A Half Men will get more viewers from tonight now that MasterChef has gone.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports