The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven won what was a pretty average night of viewing, except for A Moody Christmas and The Hamster Wheel on ABC1. The Force with more than 1.7 million national viewers (and over 1.1 million metro) and Highway Patrol (with more than 1.6 million national and 1.1 million metro viewers) dominated the night for Seven. That left Seven wining All People and all the major demos. Seven was again very solid in regional markets.

A Moody Christmas (616,000 metro and 868,000 nationally) and then the final turn of The Hamster Wheel (606,000 metro and 861,000 nationally) for this year from The Chaser were the highlights last night (at least for me). A Moody Christmas had all the strands of a modern Australian family get together: drink, heart trouble, inter-family rivalry and tension (s-xual and emotional), and the visit to the hospital after a heart problem late on Christmas Day. Been there, done that in one way or another.

Hamster Wheel gave A Current Affair a justifiable bashing for the offensive Asian shopping centre invention of last week —  a confected piece of nonsense that should never have seen the light of day. Talk about finding the shortest way to undermine your reputation. What was especially nice about The Hamster Wheel‘s critique of ACA‘s two stories is the way it highlighted the way ACA made special promos for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, about a story based in Sydney’s Castle Hill. Those promos were simply misleading. Tracy Grimshaw didn’t mention that in her self-justifying back announce after the second report late last week.

Tonight: More Beauty and The Geek on Seven (two episodes from 7.30pm). Redfern Now on ABC1 at 8.30pm (after Catalyst). Tired old CSI on Nine, also at 8pm. More Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals and another new episode in the fading ratings beauty known as Law and Order: SVU on Ten. SBS ONE has a couple of foodie programs with Luke Nguyen’s Greater Mekong 2 the highlight.

UK Update: Australian actress, Melissa George is no longer Hunted. She had a hissy fit this week when Seven’s Sunrise asked her about her time on Home and Away. She also hung up on other media who were following up her performance on the Seven morning chat show. But overnight there was really bad news for George. Hunted, the struggling BBC1 spy drama starring George, has been terminated with prejudice. The program, which screens on SBS ONE here, has been “decommissioned” after six episodes. The reason, as usual for these decisions: falling audience numbers. Hunted‘s first episode attracted around 4.5 million viewers in early October, but that had slumped to just 2.6 million last Thursday for the sixth episode. There are two more episodes to screen in the series which some at the BBC had seen as a successor to Spooks, a natural belief seeing it was from the same production group as Spooks, a company called Kudos, which is part of Shine, the production company now owned by News Corporation.

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

  1. The Force (Seven) — 1.784 million.
  2. Highway Patrol (Seven) — 1.682 million.
  3. Seven News — 1.638 million.
  4. Nine News — 1.459 million.
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.431 million.
  6. ABC1 News (7pm) — 1.408 million.
  7. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.396 million.
  8. Dynamo: Magician Impossible (Seven) — 1.299 million.
  9. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.186 million.
  10. 7.30 (ABC1) — 1.098 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. The Force (Seven, 8pm) — 1.166 million.
  2. Highway Patrol (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.125 million.
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.109 million.

The Losers: The audience generally last night, except for ABC1 from 7.30 to 9.30pm, and perhaps Seven from 7.30 to 8.30pm and Ten at 7.30 pm.Metro News & CA: Nine News won Sydney and Melbourne (again). Seven News won the rest. TT won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. ACA won Melbourne (again). But the 7pm ABC1 News won Sydney and Melbourne, topping the more promoted commercial news programs at Nine and Seven. Daylight saving helped again, of course and the long commutes for many viewers.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.109 million.
  2. ABC1 News (7pm) — 992,000.
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 986,000.
  4. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 965,000.
  5. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 919,000.
  6. 7.30 (ABC1, 7.30pm) — 745,000.
  7. Ten News (5pm) — 586,000.
  8. The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 560,000.
  9. The Project (Ten, 6pm) — 422,000.
  10. Lateline (ABC1, 10.30pm) — 208,000.
  11. Ten Late News (10.30pm) — 180,000.
  12. SBS News (6.30pm) — 174,000.
  13. The Business (ABC1, 11.05pm, repeat) — 131,000.
  14. SBS Late News (10.30pm) — 64,000.
  15. The Drum (News 24, 6pm) — 35,000.

In the morning: Another good audience (relatively speaking) for Ten’s Breakfast. Bad luck.

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 432,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7am) — 381,000.
  3. The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 152,000.
  4. Mornings (Nine, 9am) — 119,000.
  5. News Breakfast (ABC1, 7am) — 57,000 + 31,000 on News 24.
  6. Breakfast (Ten, 7am) — 53,000.

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 31.0% from Nine (three) on 25.5%, Ten (three) was on 19.5%, the ABC (four) was on 18.5% and SBS (two) ended on 5.6%. Seven leads the week with 31.5% from Nine on 27.1%, Ten on 18.4% and the ABC on 17.9%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 22.9% from Nine on 17.8%, Ten on 13.7%, ABC1 was on 13.6% and SBS ONE ended on 4.1%. Seven leads the week with 24.3% from Nine on 19.2%, ABC 1 on 13.9% and Ten on 13.4%.

Metro Digital: A close night, that 7mate won with a share of 4.1% from 7TWO on 4.0%. Gem was on 3.9%, GO was on 3.8%, Eleven was on 3.4%, ABC2, 2.8%, ONE was on 2.3%, SBS TWO was on 1.5%, ABC3, 1.3% and News 24 ended on 0.8%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 27.9%. GO leads the week with 4.5%, from 7mate on 3.9%, Gem on 3.4% and 7mate on 3.3%.

Metro including Pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 25.3% from Nine (three) on 20.8%, Ten (three) was on 15.9%, the ABC (four) was on 15.0% and SBS (two) ended on 4.5%. The 15 FTA channels had a total share last night of 83.7%. The 10 digital channels had a share of 22.6%, the five main channels share dipped to 61.1%. The 200 plus channels on Foxtel saw more viewing last night and the share for Pay TV jumped to 16.3%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. TV1 –0 2.9%
  2. Fox8 — 2.7%.
  3. LifeStyle — 2.1%.
  4. Discovery — 1.9%.
  5. A&E, Fox Sports 1 — 1.7%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. Football: South Korea v Australia (Fox Sports 1) — 99,000.
  2. Sons of Anarchy (showtime) — 64,000.
  3. Pawn Stars (A&E) — 63,000.
  4. Abalone Wars (Discovery) — 63,000.
  5. The Simpsons (Fox 8) — 58,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 34.5% from WIN/NBN on (three) on 27.2%, SC Ten (three) was on 16.8%, the ABC (four) was on 16.6% and SBS (two) ended on 5.0%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels from WIN/NBN on 18.3%, ABC1 on 11.2% and SC Ten was on 10.2%. Gem won the digitals with 5.2%, from 7mate on 5.0% and 7TWO on 4.8%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of %. Prime/7Qld lead the week with 34.6%, from WIN/NBN on 28.1%, the ABC is on 16.9% and SC Ten is on 16.1%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. The Force — 618,000.
  2. Highway Patrol — 557,000.
  3. Seven News — 530,000.
  4. A Current Affair — 513,000.
  5. Dynamo — 511,000.

Major Metro Markets: A clean sweep for Seven, both overall and main channels, in all five metro markets. Ten was third in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide behind Nine. In Sydney the ABC/ABC1 were again third as viewers in that market continue to avoid Ten. In Perth, Nine was second and the ABC was third overall, but in the main channels it was ABC1 second and Nine third. Meanwhile, 7TWO won the digitals in Sydney and Adelaide and 7mate won Melbourne and Perth. GO won Brisbane. Seven leads the week everywhere bar Melbourne where Nine is still in front.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data