There’s the Ten Network, basking in the reflected glory of grabbing a share of the summer madness in the T20 Big Bash cricket competition for a cool $20 million a year for five years (including free ads!), and last night its prime time schedule took a couple of big body blows. In fact, you could mount an early case that the network’s new strategy of appealing to the “young at heart” 25 to 54 demographic suffered a major setback and will need millions of dollars to fix.

MasterChef Australia’s second episode (raw offal and octopus do not appeal to most viewers!) last night averaged 990,000 nationally/ 739,000 metro/ 251,000 regional from 7 .30pm. Hamish Macdonald’s The Truth? is averaged 645,000 nationally/ 466,000 metro/ 179,000 regional. The Americans on its second time out and second (different) broadcast night bombed badly at 9.30pm (worse than last Wednesday night’s debut) with 391,000 nationally/299,000 metro/ 92,000 regionally. Reruns of The Simpsons (sorry, wrong demo) would do almost as better, at a cheaper cost! Shaun The Sheep on ABC2 did last night! No doubt Ten apologists will argue that MasterChef was up against The Block and the reviving House Rules. But three years ago that would have been the argument Seven and Nine would have advanced when its programs were being crushed by MasterChef the Monster.

On its own the Masterchef figure is not a complete disaster — but it is 366,000 (metro) and 474,000 nationally lower than Monday night or a more than 25% of the first night audience. That is a big fat raspberry to Ten from the core audience.

Nine won in metro markets. Seven won the regionals. But in Perth Seven won with a share of 47.7%, including 16.9% for 7mate where the AFL game, Perth v Richmond was broadcast (and averaged 145,000 viewers). House Rules topped the night with 232,000 in Perth. That big share of 7mate pushed Seven much closer to Nine last night than it would have been normally. The game has 329,000 viewers on Fox Footy on Foxtel.

But with a reveal on House Rules, it had its best figures since debut last night (1.967 million nationally/1.306 million metro/ 661,000 regional). It beat not only The Block in regional markets (2.007 million/ 1.549 million metro/ 456,000 regional), but also The Voice (2.131 million national/ 1.532 million metro/ 599,000 regional). Seven’s boring reno program is getting traction (much to my uninformed surprise). If it keeps this pace of improvement up, it will finish this season with a bang and return in 2014 (as My Kitchen Rules did after a slow first season) and ready to worry The Block into second place. Tonight the House Rules audience figures will recede, but how far will they fall?  Last week they held up well after Monday night.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (33.1%)
  2. Seven (31.8%)
  3. ABC (16.1%)
  4. Ten (15.0%)
  5. SBS(4.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (27.2%)
  2. Seven (23.0%)
  3. ABC1 (12.6%)
  4. Ten (10.9%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.4%)

Top five digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.7%)
  2. 7TWO (4.0%)
  3. GO (3.5%)
  4. Gem, Eleven (2.3%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. The Voice (Nine) –2.131 million
  2. Nine News — 2.125 million
  3. The Block (Nine) — 2.007 million
  4. House Rules (Seven) – 1.967 million
  5. Seven News — 1.900 million
  6. Home & Away (Seven) — 1.546 million
  7. Revenge (Seven) — 1.465 million
  8. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.452 million
  9. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.394 million
  10. ABC1 News — 1.365 million

Top metro programs:

  1. The Voice (Nine) — 1.532 million
  2. The Block (Nine) — 1.549 million
  3. Nine News –– 1.306 million
  4. House Rules (Seven) — 1.306 million
  5. Seven News — 1.269 million
  6. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.174 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.167 million

Losers:  Ten — MasterChef Australia, The Americans. 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News –– 1.306 million
  2. Seven News — 1.269 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.174 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) – 1.167 million
  5. ABC1 News — 903,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC 1) — 719,000
  7. Q&A (ABC1, News 24) — 613,000 (536,000 +77,000 on News 24)
  8. Four Corners (ABC1)  – 606,000
  9. Media Watch (ABC1) — 574,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 354,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 338,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC1, News 24 ) – 90,000 (62,000 + 28,000 on News 24)

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8 – 3.0%
  2. TV1 – 2.3%
  3. LifeStyle – 2.0%
  4. UKTV – 1.8%.
  5. Fox Classics – 1.7%

Pay TV channel share

  1. Fox Footy — 5.0%
  2. Fox Sports 1 — 3.0%
  3. Fox 8 — 2.5%
  4. TV 1 — 2.1%
  5. LifeStyle — 2.0%

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: Perth v Richmond (Fox Footy) – 329,000
  2. NRL: Brisbane v Auckland (Fox Sports 1) – 230,000
  3. Monday Night With Matty Johns  (Fox Sports 1) – 113,000
  4. Family Guy (Fox 8) – 100,000
  5. AFL: Monday Pre-Game Futurama (Fox Footy ) – 99,000

Tonight: More of the same with MasterChef Australia v House Rules v The Block. MasterChef will finish third, again.

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2013. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) Plus network reports.