The Winners

  1. MasterChef Australia (Ten, 7.30pm) — 1.671 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.377 million.
  3. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30 pm) — 1.239 million.
  4. The Block (Nine, 7pm) — 1.232 million.
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.073 million.
  6. The Gruen Transfer (ABC1, 9pm, series return) — 1.072 million.
  7. Highway Patrol (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.059 million.
  8. Home and Away (Seven, 7pm) — 1.008 million.

Again you would have thought that Ten with MasterChef and Nine with The Block would have put Seven away, but it didn’t and couldn’t because the other programming was weak to flopperoo. Ten did well in the demos. But from next Monday it is going to be a big struggle.

The Gruen Transfer returned in solid fashion: a bit self-indulgent at times, not enough disinterest in assessing things.

The Losers

Top Design on Nine at 7.30pm, 590,000. The Renovators on Ten 784,000. RPA on Nine at 8.30pm, 582,000. The Defenders on Ten at 10pm, 297,000. Painful!

News and Current Affairs

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.377 million.
  2. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.239 million.
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.073 million.
  4. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 985,000.
  5. ABC News (7pm, ABC1) — 839,000.
  6. The 7PM project (Ten) — 722,000.
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 550,000.
  8. 7.30 (ABC1) — 463,000 + 27,000 on News 24.
  9. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) — 410,000.
  10. Lateline (ABC1, 10.30pm) — 254,000.
  11. Ten late News/Sports Tonight (11pm) — 192,000.
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 155,000.
  13. SBS late News (9.30pm) — 105,000.
  14. Lateline Business (ABC, 11.05pm) — 104,000.

In the morning

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 397,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 291,000.

Seven News and Today Tonight lost Sydney on low numbers, but won the rest.

Today slipped sharply in the morning battle with Sunrise to lose by a surprisingly large 106,000. Sunrise‘s audience hardly budged from levels earlier in the week.

The Stats:

  • FTA: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 29.8% from Ten (3) on 26.6%, Nine (3) was on 24.0%, the ABC (4) was on 16.1% and SBS (2) ended with 3.6%. Seven leads the week with 32.3% from Ten on 25.1% and Nine on 24.1%.
  • Main Channel: Seven won with 21.3% from Ten on 20.5%, Nine was on 17.0%, ABC 1 was on 12.5% and SBS ONE ended on 2.9%. Seven leads the week with 25.1% from Ten on 19.3% and Seven on 18.5%.
  • Digital: 7TWO won with 4.7% from GO on 4.0%. 7mate and Eleven were on 3.8% each, Gem was on 3.0%, ONE ended with 2.3%, ABC 2 was on 1.9%, ABC 3 and News 24 were on 0.8% each and SBS TWO finished with 0.7%. The 10 digital channels had a high FTA viewing share of 26.8%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.1% from GO and Eleven on 3.2%.
  • Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 24.7% from Ten (3) on 22.1%, Nine (3) was on 19.9%, Pay TV (200 plus channels) ended with 14.5%, the ABC (4) was on 13.3% and SBS (2) ended with 3.0%. The 15 FTA channels had an 85.5% share of TV viewing last night. The 10 digital channels were on 21.4% and the five main channels were on 64.1%.
  • Regional: Prime/7Qld (3 channels) won with a share of 32.2% from WIN/NBN (3) on 25.4%, with SC Ten (3) on 22.0%, the ABC (4) ended with 15.3% and SBS (2) finished on 5.1%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 23.0%, WIN/NBN was on 18.5% and SC Ten ended with 16.7%. 7TWO won the digitals with 4.8% from 7mate on 4.5% and GO on 4.0%. The 10 digital channels had a, FTA viewing share last night of 27.3%. Prime/7Qld leads the week on 32.2% from WIN/NBN on 27.1%.
  • Major Markets: Another good night for Seven. It won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth overall and the main channels with Ten second and Nine third, except in Perth where Nine was second overall. In Melbourne it was Ten from Seven and Nine overall and in the main channels. Seven leads Ten and Nine in all five metro markets.

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

Glenn Dyer’s comments: OK, time for the big call. Top Design on Nine at 7.30 pm, 590,000. The Renovators on Ten after MasterChef (about 9pm): 784,000 (after more than 1.6 million watched MasterChef). Both D-E-A-D so far as the audience was concerned last night and from now on. Millions of dollars wasted in production costs and advertising make-goods to sponsors. How can you fill a program full of free products and then not have people watch that product placement? Both are boring, non-original programs designed to try and extend the home-renovation idea. But as I wrote last week, there is only room for one such program on TV.

For Ten, the news about The Renovators is terrible. It is supposed to anchor Sunday-to-Thursday ratings after MasterChef finishes on Sunday night. With these figures so far, Ten will be buried. The weak ratings for The Renovators must be giving Ten palpitations. I wonder what interim CEO Lachie Murdoch will do with this flop? If it’s not fixed, the rest of 2011 will not look good.

The poor figures for Top Design again underline that Nine goes overboard in exploiting success and usually ruins the whole idea. No wonder there’s increasing doubt about its earnings and debts. Top Design is a ratings disaster (and the original US format was only moderately successful and died out).

MasterChef topped the regional figures with 560,000 viewers. With the 1.671 million metro viewers, that gave us a national audience of 2.231 million. The Block had 403,000 regional viewers and 1.232 million metro viewers for a national figure of 1.635 million

Tonight: The Block and the second episode of Hamish and Andy’s Gap Year, both on Nine (if you manage to catch back episodes of Spicks and Specks on ABC2 at 7pm featuring Hamish Blake, you will realise what a dud program this Nine effort is by way of comparison. But young viewers, especially those in Melbourne, love them).

The ABC has another episode of Crownies (Why are they so young when many of the crown prospectors in NSW seem to be older barristers?). Ten, of course, has MasterChef. Seven has WWII Lost Films: The Air War at 7.30pm (Is Seven trying to usurp SBS as the home of WW2 media memorabilia?). SBS has French Food Safari for those interested in life with butter and cream and fatty blood vessels.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports