The Winners: Ten’s 8.30pm program, NCIS averaged 1.502 million viewers, Seven’s Border Security at 7.30pm averaged 1.397 million at 7.30pm (a repeat!). Seven News was 3rd with 1.391 million and Nine’s 7.30pm program, Top Gear, averaged 1.359 million. 5th was Today Tonight with 1.318 million, 6th was The Force with 1.288 million (a repeat, again) for Seven at 8pm and Nine’s 7pm repeat of Two and a Half Men averaged 1.114 million. 9th was Home And Away with 1.058 million, 10th was A Current Affair with 1.054 million and the 7pm ABC News was 11th with 1.008 million. Grey’s Anatomy on Seven at 8.30pm, 943,000, Bondi Rescue on Ten at 8pm, 955,000.

The Losers: Episode 1 of Nine’s Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains at 8.40pm, 803,000, episode 2 at 9.40pm, 755,000. The Biggest Loser on Ten at 7.30pm, 786,000. Private Practice on Seven at 9.30pm, 788,000.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Brisbane. Today Tonight won everywhere. In Melbourne the 7pm ABC news added thousands of viewers overnight and finished second behind Seven with 357,000. Seven had 369,000, Nine, 345,000. Ten News averaged 861,000. The late News/Sports Tonight, 415,000. The 7.30 Report averaged 668,000. No one much wanted to hear what Kerry thought of the debate, which is a little odd. Foreign Correspondent averaged 553,000 at 8pm. Lateline, 232,000, Lateline Business, 107,000. SBS News  at 6.40pm, 162,000, 214,000 for the late edition. 7am Sunrise, 367,000, 7am Today, 358,000; close again.

The Stats:

FTA: Seven won with a combined overnight All People 6pm to midnight share of 29.1% from Nine with 26.9%, Ten with 23.1%, the ABC on 16.0% and SBS on 4.9%. Seven won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Melbourne. Seven leads the week 31.5% to 27.4% for Nine. Nine however won the demos last night thanks to Top Gear and the Survivor programs.

Main Channel: Seven won this battle with a combined overnight 6pm to midnight share of 26.6% from Nine with 24.9%, Ten with 22.4%, ABC 1 with 14.1% and SBS ONE with 4.3%. Seven won Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven leads the week, 28.7% to 24.2% for Nine.

Digital: 7TWO won with a combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People share of 2.5%, from GO with 2.1%, ABC 2 with 1.2%, ABC 3 and ONE with 0.7% and SBS Two with 0.6%. The six FTA digital channels had a total share of 7.8%. GO still leads, 3.2% to 2.9%.

Pay TV: Seven had a combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People share of 24.3%, Nine had 22.5%, Ten 19.2%, Pay TV, 14.5%, the ABC, 13.3% and SBS, 4.1%. The 11 FTA channels had a total share of 85.5%, the 100 plus channels of Pay TV, 14.5%.

Regional: In regional areas, Top Gear didn’t have anywhere near the impact it had in the metro markets and Nine surprisingly lagged Seven. In fact Seven’s main channel share was bigger than Nine’s combined share, which was odd given how male interest programs usually do well in the regions. Prime/7Qld won with a combined overnight All People 6pm to midnight share of 27.6%, from WIN/NBN with 25.6%, Southern Cross (Ten), with 23.3%, the ABC with 16.9% and SBS with 6.6%. The main channel battle was won by Prime/7Qld with 26.2%, from WIN/NBN with 23.9% and Southern Cross on 22.9%. The Digital battle was won by GO with 1.7%, from Prime/7Qld with 1.4% and ABC 2 with 1.2%. Prime/7Qld leads the week from WIN/NBN.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Forget last night, the action was earlier in the day with the worm/polliegraph dominated health debate from Canberra. Nine and its worm won that comprehensively with 274,000 viewers, the wormless ABC had 183,000, the Seven “worm”, 180,000, Ten, 63,000 and Sky News, 25,000.

Including Sky, 824,000 people watched the debate in the five metro markets. 454,000 people, or over half the audience watched FTA broadcasts with a bit of visual wiggling. Compared to the same time the day before, the audience was up 10% or so.

To put the Sky News on Pay TV audience in some context, more people watched Nine’s Go and 7TWO in Sydney during the debate than watched it on Sky. And to give the Sky audience more context, 25,000 people watched the first and last session of the Test cricket from NZ on Fox Sports.

The broadcast on four of the five FTA channels and SKY news, made the debate more than what the press gallery thought it would have been last week, just for them and broadcast on the ABC. When the debates are broadcast live with worms measuring reaction, they replace the press gallery and the heavies in it as the filters of how the debate went and who won in the minds of people watching the broadcasts, hours before the gallery opinions are published.

The Networks hijacked the debate. Ten’s share was lower than Dr Phil and Oprah usually get for the network. The best part of 3.3 million people would have seen the worms on Seven and Nine News across the country last night and the message they sent into living rooms. It again proves why TV matters most in political debate this days and what happens in parliament might be great for the 150 pollies and the various members of the gallery, but it means little outside in the rest of Australia.

And, last night, a win to Seven fairly easily again.

TONIGHT: Spicks and Specks on the ABC at 8.30pm. Will it continue its recent fade? Criminal Minds on Seven at 8.30pm. So You Think You Can Dance on Ten. In Melbourne Seven’s new AFL show, The Bounce,  airs tonight as does the Nine version. There’s an AFL game on tomorrow night on Ten. Not many highlights at all.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports