The Winners: Ten’s Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation slipped under the million mark, to 999,000, as did the repeat of Two and a Half Men on Nine with 958,000. Is Seven’s stalwart Home and Away strengthening?

  1. Packed to the Rafters (Seven) (8.30pm) — 1.685 million
  2. Top Gear: The Ashes Special (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.538 million
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.438 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.383 million
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.212 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.090 million
  7. Four Weddings (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.023 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.011 million

The Losers: Survivor Nicaragua at 9pm on Nine averaged 798,000, the 10pm second episode averaged 629,000. I can understand why Americans still like the idea. How about Survivor Subprime? Or Survivor Housing Crisis?

News & CA: Sunrise‘s lead over Today was a huge 157,000 yesterday, the biggest for well over two years. Sunrise has picked up many of the viewers who had deserted it in Melbourne for Nine’s Today. Today now seems to be a bit on the nose with viewers in both Sydney and Melbourne, which is odd, but that’s TV. Nine News again won Sydney, but lost the rest to Seven News. ACA lost everywhere.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.438 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.383 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.212 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.090 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 989,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 927,000
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 860,000
  8. The 7.30 Report (ABC) (7.30pm) — 745,000
  9. Foreign Correspondent (ABC) (8pm) — 513,000
  10. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (10.30pm) — 340,000
  11. Lateline (ABC) (10.35pm) — 244,000
  12. Insight (SBS) (7.30pm) — 190,000
  13. SBS News (6.30pm) — 174,000
  14. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.10pm) — 124,000
  15. SBS News (9.30pm) — 109,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 454,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 297,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven won with a share of 30.9% from Nine on 30.0%, Ten with 19.1%, the ABC with 15.6% and SBS with 4.5%. Seven leads the week with 29.1% from Nine on 27.2% and Ten with 20.3%. Packed To The Rafters did well with female viewers, Top Gear with male viewers, Seven News with over 55s. Nine dominated the demos.
  • Main Channel: Seven won narrowly with 26.1%, to Nine’s 26.0%, Ten on 18.5%, ABC 1 with 13.2% and SBS TWO on 3.9%. Seven leads the week with 24.9% from Nine on 22.2% and Ten on 18.1%.
  • Digital: 7TWO and GO tied the night with 2.5% each, with 7Mate next with 2.3%, Gem on 1.5%, ABC 2, 1.3%, ABC 3 and SBS TWO on 0.6% each and ONE and News 24 with 0.5% each. That’s a total share of 12.3% for the nine digital channels. Adelaide was the best market with 15.5%, followed by Melbourne on 13.9%. GO leads the week with a share of 3.5%, from 7TWO on 2.4% and 7Mate on 1.8%.
  • Pay TV: Seven won with 25.6% from Nine on 24.8%, Ten with 15.8%, Pay TV’s 100 plus channels, 14.2%, the ABC with 12.9% and SBS, 3.7%. The FTA channels shared 85.8%, with the nine digital channels totalling 10.2% and the five main channels 75.6%.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN won with a share of 31.3% from Prime/7Qld with 28.9%, SC Ten on 18.9%, the ABC with 13.8% and SBS, 4.8%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with 27.6% from Prime/7Qld on 25.5%. GO won the digitals from 7TWO on 2.0% and ABC 2 on 1.8%. WIN/NBN leads the week with 28.5%, from Prime/7Qld with 27.0%.

Major Markets: It’s now clear that Seven’s third channel, 7Mate, has picked up a solid audience very quickly. Gem, Nine’s new channel is doing well, viewers found it in Adelaide last night, but lost it in Sydney, where it was well under the shares elsewhere. Seven won overall and the main channels in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Brisbane overall and in the main channels because Top Gear was very popular up there. Seven and Nine were in the minor placings. 7TWO won Sydney and Adelaide. 7Mate won Brisbane and Perth, where it tied with GO. 7Mate also won Melbourne. In the week so far, Seven leads from Nine and the ABC in Sydney, in Adelaide and Perth it’s Seven from Nine and Ten. In Melbourne and Brisbane it’s Nine from Seven and Ten.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The Ashes theme for the first episode of the local version of Top Gear worked (it helped cut the audience for Seven’s Packed to the Rafters), and worked in terms of entertainment. But that’s not the test, the next few weeks are the test with the presence of the better known UK mob gone. Certainly it gave a whack to Ten’s Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation which was a bit more than expected.

TONIGHT: The last The Gruen Transfer for the year on the ABC at 9pm. There’s a Spicks and Specks in the schedule at 8.30pm (must be a best of bits and pieces). Nine has The Block, with the very disappointing The Boss is Coming To Dinner still there at 8.30pm

Ten has the standout Glee and then the moderate House. It has The 7pm Project which was out of its depth last night interviewing Joe Hockey and then doing something on banning the Hell’s Angels. But at least the program tried on current news and issues, unlike TT and ACA. Seven has City Homicide and Border Security.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports