The Winners: Ten’s late Games coverage from 9pm to 11pm averaged 904,000, which is OK. 831,000 for the 6pm to 9pm coverage (all on Ten and ONE), which is sort of OK. The best audience for ONE yesterday wasn’t the Games coverage but the 315,000 who watched the F1 GP from Japan from around 4.50pm. Viewers had little to chose from after 7.30pm. The X Factor dominated for an hour to 8.30pm — it had its best audience so far apart from the first episode.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.621 million
  2. Bathurst — podium (Seven) (around 5.30pm) — 1.316 million
  3. Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.291 million
  4. The X Factor (Seven) (7.30pm) — 1.224 million
  5. ABC News update (ABC) (around 8.30pm) — 1.068 million
  6. 60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.048 million
  7. Bathurst — the race (Seven) (from around 10am) — 1.038 million
  8. Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (ABC) (8.35pm) — 1.032 million
  9. Nine News (6pm) — 1.028 million

The Losers: Viewers of the Nine Network — a no watch zone, apart from an average episode of 60 Minutes.

News & CA: Meet the Press is resting because of Ten’s Games coverage. Weekend Sunrise took a day off yesterday because of the car race from Bathurst. Seven News was boosted by the car race as a lead-in. End of story.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.621 million
  2. Sunday Night (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.291 million
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.048 million
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.028 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 952,000
  6. Ten News (5pm) — 739,000
  7. Dateline (SBS) (8.30pm) — 214,000
  8. SBS News (6.30pm) — 166,000

In the morning:

  1. Weekend Today (Nine) (8am) — 314,000
  2. Insiders (ABC) (9am) — 192,000
  3. Landline (ABC) (Noon) — 184,000
  4. Offsiders (ABC) (10.30am) — 135,000
  5. Inside Business (ABC) (10am) — 134,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven won with a share of 28.7% from Nine with 25.1%, Ten on 21.3%, the ABC with 18.8% and SBS with 6.0%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 24.3%, from ABC 1 with 17.1%, Nine on 17.0%, Ten with 16.4% and SBS ONE with 4.4%.
  • Digital: The action was here. GO had a big night because of its repeats of Top Gear and Big Bang Theory (453,000 for the first episode at 7.30 pm, 410,000 for the second at 8pm). In that respect it’s a real mini-me of Nine’s main channel. GO accounted for ONE’s Games coverage. GO’s advantage was more pronounced in rural areas. GO won with a share of 5.8%, from ONE on 5.0%, 7Mate was next with 2.8%, Gem was on 2.3%, SBS ONE was on 1.6%, ABC TWO, 0.8%, ABC 3, 0.5% and News 24, 0.4%. That’s a total share of 20.8% (or one in five watching FTA digital TV last night in prime time). Perth was the best market with a total share of 26.7%, down to the bottom, Sydney, where the share was 16.9%.
  • Pay TV: Seven won with 23.0% for its three channels, from Nine on 20.1% for its trio, Pay TV with its 100 plus was on 17.4%, Ten’s duo totalled 17.1%, the ABC’s quartet, 15.1%, SBS’s two channels, 4.8%. That left the FTA channels to share an 82.6% audience share, made up of 16.7% for the nine digital channels and 65.9% for the five main channels.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld won with a share of 30.%, from WIN/NBN with 27.0%, SC Ten with 21.8%, the ABC with 16.0% and SBS on 5.2%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 25.5%, from SC Ten with 18.4% and WIN/NBN on 17.6%. GO won the digitals with 7.2%, from ONE on 3.5% and &TWO on 2.8%. The nine FTA digital channels had an FTA share of 19.5% in prime time last night.

Major Markets: Digital was again popular, but with Nine running dead, it was Seven’s night. Seven won from Nine and Ten overall and in the main channels everywhere bar Perth, where it was Seven from Ten and Nine. GO won the digitals everywhere bar Perth where ONE won. ONE finished second in the four other markets. 7Mate and Gem were the other place getters.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven won from Nine and Ten overall and in the main channels. ONE won the digitals from GO and 7TWO. Nine managed to hang on in Sydney after the NRL Grand Final last Sunday. Seven won elsewhere. Among the FTA channels, the nine digitals ends the week with their highest share ever, 20.4% because of the boost to ONE from the Games. Foxtel’s audience was boosted by the games. It finished with a weekly share of 17.6%; the nine FTA digitals channels were just behind on a weekly share of 17.2%. Foxtel won Saturday night.

Last night: If you didn’t like sport, you were in trouble.

Well, according to noisy bloggers the Seven Network did a terrible thing for delaying the telecast of the Bathurst car race to fit the ads in. This is not new and has happened before with Bathurst when there are not enough safety car incidents to allow ads to be shown. And yet by the reaction in the media, it was somehow rotten, terrible etc.

How do the critics expect the telecast to be brought to them? Other broadcasters would have the same problem as Seven did. Would the experts at News Ltd who have led the attack on Seven (and on ABC local radio, such as Adam Spencer in Sydney) like to suggest another way? The ABC can’t cover it because it is beyond its technical abilities, and besides ABC Local Radio only gave updates, not lap by lap commentary.

And would the Daily Telegraph in Sydney care to drop all the ads in tomorrow’s edition to fit in all the stories written for the paper tomorrow? No, didn’t think so. Ad free coverage, great idea, but who is going to pay for the coverage? Oh, the car racing people.

More than 1 million people watched the program on Seven yesterday from around 10am to around podium awards around 5.30pm, which tells us the bloggers and moaners are in the minority. And the poor dears moaning about how the longer broadcast on Seven meant they missed the start of the F-1 GP from Japan. Why not do what real people do and PVR the F 1 race and then start watching after Bathurst had finished?

And don’t expect Foxtel to do any better on Fox Sports. How do you think they will pay for the coverage? By putting it on for free?

Ten got publicity for the predictable signing of George Negus to front its new Monday to Friday 6pm semi-news and current affairs program.

Chris Masters has also been appointed to a part-time position to Ten as an editorial consultant providing expertise and guidance to Ten News on investigative stories and mentoring reporters and producers. That’s a clever appointment. At TT, a new Sydney chief of staff with Lucy McGeogh replacing Sarah Stinson who has been made Executive Producer of The Morning Show which runs after today from 9am to 11am Monday to Friday. Stinson replaces Michael Pell who has officially been made Executive Producer of Sunrise.

TONIGHT: The usual back to back news and current affairs on the ABC. The games on Ten and One. The Event continues on Seven, nothing at all on Nine (repeats of Two and a Half Men).

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports