The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven’s night. Nine was stronger in Melbourne, the ABC was stronger in Perth (where Nine was laughably weaker). Ten floated in third, or fourth in some markets. Its core audiences were up around 20% on the previous week. The night was a bit closer than expected, but The X Factor was again the key difference and got Seven home. It had more than 1.4 million metro and over 2.1 million national viewers.

Nine’s The Mentalist with 891,000 metro and 1.2 million national viewers won the 8.30pm slot and won it well. Four Corners slipped from last week’s strong figures to 711,000. But its national audience was still solid, at 1.051 million. A story about a giant foreign-owned fishing trawler and its whingeing owners didn’t rate with viewers compared to the excellent Lance Armstrong report of a week earlier. Viewers liked Media Watch straight after and its interesting report on female bloggers. It had 751,000 metro and 1.043 million national viewers.

Tonight: The X Factor on Seven, plus Winners & Losers. Nine has Big Brother and a fresh Big Bang Theory. ABC1 sees Foreign Correspondent return at 8pm (about time) and the second episode of About Seven. Ten has the final episode of I Will Survive (and so it has, but in very diminished form). Ten also has a fresh NCIS at 8.30pm. SBS ONE has Insight and Dateline.

Ratings Update: For all those tech heads, journalists in papers like the Fairfax and News Ltd blurbs and those in the advertising industry who reckon the downloading of TV programs is killing FTA TV, here is an update. Last Sunday night, October 14 saw Ten’s Homeland return for a second season and average a poor 633,000 metro viewers. That was greeted with cries of “downloading, downloading hurting TV” because it happened to be 370,000 or so below the first season average (which saw the size of the audience fall from more than 1.3 million on debut to just on 1 million in the 8th and final episode, but the downloaders gloom and doomers all ignore that important fact).

But that 633,000 wasn’t the final audience. OzTAM released figures yesterday showed that a further 166,000 people watched the program in the seven days from October 14, which in turn boosted the audience to 799,000. But the downloaders won’t talk about that because they love to ignore facts. Homeland was on at 8.30pm on October 14 and the OzTAM data shows very high record and watch figures for that timeslot with Nine’s House Husbands seeing its audience jump 16%, or 160,000, to 1.169 million, Bones on Seven was up 25.6% (yes a quarter) or 108,000, to 962,000 viewers and the first Jack Irish telemovie on ABC1 saw its metro audience rise 193,000 0r more than 20% to 1.146 million.

What happened was that plenty of viewers, more than 650,000 in fact, recorded one or two other programs at 8.30pm on October 14, and watched a third. So can the downloaders and the media gloomers tell us how many people actually downloaded and watched Homeland and Bones ahead of the airing on Ten and Seven on October 14? I don’t think so. Based on those seven day record and watch figures, the number of people doing that in Australia would exceed the number of people downloading foreign programs (overwhelmingly from the US and then the UK) each week. The number of people recording and watching over the next seven days is well over 1 million a week, based on the OzTAM data (trying to strip out double counting). That’s a considerable TV audience in itself. By the way, they might not be watching the ads on commercial TV, but in the case of local productions, can they spot the product placement and other tricks the networks are up to?

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

  1. The X Factor (Seven) — 2.148 million.
  2. Seven News — 1.593 million.
  3. ABC1 News (7pm) — 1.558 million.
  4. Nine News — 1.526 million.
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.426 million.
  6. Big Brother (Nine) — 1.339 million.
  7. Australian Story (ABC1) — 1.298 million.
  8. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.259 million.
  9. 7.30 (ABC1) — 1.233 million.
  10. The Mentalist (Nine) — 1.215 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. The X Factor (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.462 million.
  2. ABC1 News (7pm) — 1.108 million.
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.080 million.
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 1.042 million.
  5. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.030 million.
  6. Big Brother Live Nominations (Nine, 7pm) — 1.019 million.

The Losers: Scandal on Seven after The X Factor (around 9pm), 543,000 metro viewers (and 801,000 nationally). Just not good enough. It’s a Mills and Boon version of Homeland. Can of Worms on Ten at 8.30pm 550,000 metro and 763,000 national viewers. In a class of its own. Both were well behind Nine and ABC1.Metro News & CA: The 7pm ABC1 News was a clear number one, with the mid-year economic statement and its swag of changes — and daylight saving — helping lift audiences . Seven News lost to Nine in Sydney and Melbourne. A Current Affair won Melbourne (by 120,000) and Brisbane, but lost Adelaide and Perth (by 133,000) and Sydney (by 1,000).

  1. ABC1 News (7pm) — 1.108 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.080 million.
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.042 million.
  4. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.030 million.
  5. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 984,000.
  6. Australian Story (ABC1, 8pm) — 906,000.
  7. 7.30 (ABC1, 7.30pm) — 836,000.
  8. Media Watch (ABC1, 9.20pm) — 751,000.
  9. Four Corners (ABC, 8.30pm) — 711,000.
  10. Q&A (ABC1, 9.35pm) — 653,000 + 84,000 on News 24.
  11. Ten News (5pm) — 651,000.
  12. The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 533,000.
  13. The Project (Ten, 6pm) — 406,000.
  14. Lateline (ABC1, 10.35pm) — 243,000.
  15. Ten late News (Ten, 10.30pm) — 175,000.
  16. SBS News (6.30pm) — 156,000.
  17. The Business (ABC1, 11.10pm, repeat) — 130,000.
  18. SBS late News (10.30pm) — 70,000.
  19. The Drum (News 24) — 36,000.

In the morning: A quiet start to the week.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 343,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 325,000.
  3. The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 156,000.
  4. Mornings (Nine, 9am) — 133,000.
  5. News Breakfast (ABC1, 7am) — 43,000 + 26,000 on News 24.
  6. Breakfast (Ten, 7am) — 41,000.

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 29.7%, from Nine (3) on 28.2%, the ABC (4) was on 20.8%, Ten (3) was on 17.0% and SBS (2) was on 4.3%. Seven leads the week with 29.6% from Nine on 28.4%, the ABC is on 20.0% and Ten is on 17.7%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 22.2% from Nine on 20.9%, ABC1 was on 16.0%, Ten was on 11.6% and SBS ONE is on 3.6%. Seven leads the week with 22.3% from Nine on 21.3%, ABC 1 is on 15.5% and Ten on 12.1%.

Metro Digital: 7TWO won with 4.4%, from GO on 3.8%, Gem is on 3.5%, 7mate was on 3.0%, Eleven, 2.8%, as was ABC 2. ONE was on 2.5%, News 24 was on 1.1%, ABC 3 was on 1.0% and SBS TWO finished with 0.8%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 25.7%.

Metro including Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 24.5%, from Nine (3) on 23.3%, the ABC (4) was on 17.2%, Ten (3) was on 14.0% and SBS (2) was on 3.6%. The 15 FTA channels share last night was 84.9%, with the 10 digital channels on a total share of 21.0% and the five main channels share on 63.9%. the 200 plus channels on the Foxtel platform gave Pay TV a share of 15.1% last night.

Top five Pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8 — 3.0%.
  2. TV1 — 2.3%.
  3. Cartoon Network — 2.0%.
  4. UKTV — 1.9%.
  5. Sky News — 1.6%.

Top five Pay TV programs:

  1. New Tricks (UKTV) — 80,000.
  2. Pawn Stars (A&E) — 72,000.
  3. Eastenders (UKTV) — 66,000.
  4. The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 63,000.
  5. Family Guy (Fox 8) — 62,000.

Regional: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 34.0%, from Nine (3) on 27.1%, the ABC (4) was on 20.3%, SC Ten (3) was on 15.1% and SBS (2) was on 3.6%. The main channels were won by Prime/7Qld with 22.6%, WIN/NBN were on 18.3%, ABC 1 was on 14.7% and SC Ten were on 9.4%. 7TWO won the digitals with 7.4% from GO on 5.0% and 7mate on 4.0%. The 10 digital channels had a total FTA share last night of a very high 32.2%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 33.6% from WIN/NBN on 26.5%, the ABC was on 19.9% and SC Ten on 16.2%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. The X Factor — 686,000.
  2. Seven News — 513,000.
  3. Nine News — 484,000.
  4. ABC1 News (7pm) — 449,000.
  5. Home and Away — 442,000.

Major Metro Markets: Nine won Melbourne (overall and the main channels). Seven won both in the other four metro markets. The ABC/ABC1 were third everywhere bar Perth where they moved up to second and pushed Nine to third. Seven leads the week in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, Nine leads Sydney and Melbourne.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data