The Winners: The 8.30pm repeat of NCIS on Ten was the most watched program with 1.509 million, followed by Today Tonight with 1.360 million people and Top Gear (which was a repeat) with 1.259 million people. Seven News was 4th with 1.324 million and NCIS Los Angeles (which seemed to be dying) had its biggest ever audience at 9.30pm with 1.300 million and pushed Ten home. Bondi Rescue also contributed to Ten’s win at 8pm with a solid episode and 1.142 million. Next was Nine News with 1.141 million, with A Current Affair 8th with 1.1 million. The 7pm ABC News averaged 1.026 million and Home and Away averaged 1.016 million and 10th, just in front of the 7pm repeat of Two and a Half Men for Nine, with 1.010 million. The Biggest Loser averaged 937,000 for Ten at 7.30pm (and works better in half hour episodes, as it did last year at 7pm).

The Losers: Private Practice on Seven at 9.30pm, 679,000. Grey’s Anatomy was under a million at 936,000. 20 to 1 at 9.40pm on Nine, 619,000. Nine is reported to have finished production of this series. No news on any more bright ideas for Bert Newton to host, so will he now be paid to do nothing by Nine to keep him away from Seven or Ten?

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and everywhere bar Melbourne. TT won nationally and every metro market. Ten News averaged 854,000, the late News/Sports Tonight, 531,000. The 7.30 Report, 693,000. Foreign Correspondent, 535,000. Lateline, 158,000, Lateline Business, 80,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 142,000, 164,000 for the late edition, 215,000 for Insight. 7am Sunrise, 340,000, 7am Today, 298,000.

The Stats:

FTA: Ten won with a combined overnight All People 6pm to midnight share of 27.5% from Nine with 27.1%, Seven with 26.0%, the ABC, 15.0% and SBS with 4.4%. it was a big bounce back from the weak Monday night. In a mixed night, Nine won Melbourne, Seven won Sydney and Adelaide. Ten won Perth and drew Brisbane with Nine. Nine leads the week 28.6% to 27.6% for Seven. Ten is on 23.7%.

Main Channel: Ten won that with an All people 6pm to midnight All People share of 26.7% from Nine with 24.8%, Seven with 23.7%, ABC 1, 13.3% and SBS ONE, 3.8%. Nine won Melbourne, Ten won the rest. Nine leads the week with a share of 25.4%, from Seven with 24.5% and Ten with 23.7%.

Digital: GO and 7TWO drew with a combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People share of 2.3%, with ABC 2 on 1.3%, ONE, 0.8%, SBS TWO, 0.6% and ABC 3, 0.4%. That’s a total share for the six FTA channels of 7.7%, which is low compared with recent weeks. GO leads the week from 7TWO, 3.3% to 3.1%.

Pay TV: Ten had a combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People share of 22.6%, Nine, 22.2%, Seven, 21.4%, Pay TV, 15.4%, the ABC, 12.3% and SBS, 3.6%. The 11 FTA channels had a total share of 84.6% of the audience last night against 15.4% for Pay TV.

Regional: No joy in regional areas for Ten. Prime/7Qld won with a combined overnight All People 6pm to midnight share of 27.0%, from WIN/NBN with 26.8%, SC Ten on 24.0%, the ABC, 15.6% and SBS 6.6%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 26.0%, from WIN/NBN with 25.5%, and SC Ten with 23.6%. The digital channel race was won by ABC 2 and GO with 1.3% each. 7TWO finished with 1.1%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: What to say about a night that was worse than Monday night on the commercial channels. So starved were viewers of original material, that the piled into their lounge rooms, beds etc at 8.30pm and watched a repeat of Ten’s NCIS in the sort of numbers reserved for fresh episodes; the 1.5 million people would have made Ten proud on a normal in ratings Tuesday night. That summed up the third night of viewing in the Easter two week non-rating period, 11 more to go.

This is the time of year when you can tell what the networks really think of once high rating programs like Desperate Housewives on Monday nights on Seven and Grey’s Anatomy on Seven last night: they keep showing fresh episodes out of ratings, when they screen repeats of current winners, such as RSPCA Animal Rescue tonight on Seven at 7.30pm, or NCIS last night on Ten. Nine is getting rid of RPA because Hey Hey It’s Saturday will be running through the time slot after Easter.

Ten is showing fresh episodes of the successful Bondi Rescue because MasterChef Australia will be returning after Easter and occupying the 8pm Tuesday slot. Bondi Rescue had one of its biggest audiences of the year last night.

Just remember, at non-ratings times, the successful programs either get rested or repeats are shown. The fresh episodes being broadcast are of dying, unsuccessful or departing (temporally or forever) programs.

TONITE: Spicks and Specks on the ABC at 8.30pm, Beautiful People at 9.30 pm. Hungry Beast on between. Ten, So You Think You Can Dance Australia, if that’s your bag, Nine, RPA finishes for this outing tonight. On Seven, Lost at 10.30pm which is apparently a fresh episode. The rest of the night from 7.30pm to 10.30pm are repeats.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports