As was to be expected from the winning position achieved by the Australian cricket team, TV audiences on Saturday and Sunday were very solid for Nine. Saturday saw a national average from 11am to just after 6.30pm of 1.650 million (with 1.160 million in the five metro markets and more than two million tuning in for the post-tea session). Yesterday saw an average 1.208 million metro viewers all day and an average of 1.832 million nationally. The third session from tea to the news averaged 2.234 million viewers yesterday, which is a pretty tasty number.

Seven and Nine would have given anything to get 2.313 million for their news broadcasts on any night (as Nine did last night) and the 2.234 million viewers for the cricket over two hours or in the late afternoon and early evening would have been grabbed by any network (imagine what Ten would do to have figures like that).

More than 1.7 million people watched Nine over more than 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday combined. Those figures will go a long way to soothing the bruises of the below par listing of Nine Entertainment Co. on Friday on the stock exchange. The shares ended at $1.975, down 3% from its $2.05 listing price. Seven West Media shares rose 3% to $2.16 on Friday. By the way, Nine won the night in metro, regionally and nationally.

Even though a lot of people aren’t into cricket, at least it was living, moving live TV on a couple of days when we were given repeats, weak kids movies, weak adult movies and weak other programming.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (31.0%)
  2. Seven (27.4%)
  3. ABC (17.6%)
  4. Ten (16.3%)
  5. SBS (7.7%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (25.0%)
  2. Seven (19.0%)
  3. ABC1 (12.9%)
  4. Ten (10.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.2%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.3%)
  2. 7TWO (4.1%)
  3. ONE (3.6%)
  4. GO (3.2%)
  5. ABC2 (3.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Nine News — 2.313 million
  2. Second Ashes Test: Day 4, Session 3 (Nine) — 2.234 million
  3. Christmas with the Australian Women’s Weekly (Nine) — 1.871 million
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.719 million
  5. Second Ashes Test: Day 4, Session 2 (Nine) — 1.672 million
  6. Seven News — 1.595 million
  7. Second Ashes Test: Day 4, Session 1 (Nine) — 1.591 million
  8. The Cricket Show (Nine) — 1.340 million
  9. Border Security repeat (Seven) — 1.309 million
  10. ABC News — 1.234 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.612 million
  2. Second Ashes Test: Day 4, Session 3 (Nine) — 1.519 million
  3. Christmas with the Australian Women’s Weekly (Nine) — 1.234 million
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.205 million
  5. Second Ashes Test:  Day 4, Session 2 (Nine) — 1.104 million
  6. Seven News — 1.024 million
  7. Second Ashes Test: Day 4, Session 1 (Nine) — 1.060 million

Losers: Anyone who didn’t like the cricket. Anyone who watched TV after around 6.30-7 pm. The fresh Miss Marple on ABC1 was ponderous. Bones rattled and missed the mark.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.612 million
  2. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.205 million
  3. Seven News — 1.024 million
  4. ABC  News — 845,000
  5. Ten Eyewitness News — 320,000
  6. SBS World News (SBS ONE) — 169,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 341,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) – 293,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8 – (2.3%)
  2. LifeStyle – (2.2%)
  3. TV1 – (1.8%)
  4. Foxtel Movies, UKTV – (1.7%)
  5. Fox Sports 1 – (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Donna Hay Christmas (LifeStyle) – 97,000
  2. Modern Family (Fox 8) – 93,000
  3. TheCrazy Ones (Fox 8) – 79,000
  4. Storage Wars (A&E) – 59,000
  5. Gangster Squad (Foxtel Movies) – 57,000

Tonight: If you are not a fan of Stephen Fry, please look away now. Tomorrow night there’s a new series on ABC1 (where else?) in which Fry is given the keys to City of London, then on Wednesday night he’s in his usual QI repeat of the week (it’s a Christmas special) , and then on Thursday there’s a best-of episode of his Gadget Man show (also on ABC 1). So is this a Stephen Fry Christmas recovery for Australian TV viewers?

*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.) and network reports.