Nine won the night thanks to the NRL and the footy shows. The game itself attracted 729,000 viewers on Nine’s main channel and Gem, and a further 217,000 on Fox Sports. The footy shows gathered 609,000 nationally — 449,000 in the metros and 159,000 in the regions.

Despite that, the two versions of The Footy Show continue their slow on air death. While they are winning their time slots — 8.30pm in Melbourne for the AFL version and 10pm onward on Nine in Sydney and Brisbane for the NRL program — the audience sizes are a shadow of their former selves, and reflect just how much viewers have tuned off free to air TV, especially on Thursday nights. 

Over on the ABC Seven Types of Ambiguity ended last night on just 355,000 metro viewers and 517,000 nationally. The Checkout at 8pm is doing fractionally better — 481,000 in the metros, and 710,000 nationally — but still far from impressive. Masterchef was the most watched non-news program with 935,000 in the metros and 1.26 million nationally. At least Ten kept faith with the programs fans, unlike Seven, which ran dead as a doornail, and Nine, which rested on the NRL and the AFL Footy Show. The breakfast wars maintained the usual usual dynamic — another solid metro win for Today,  another easy national win for Sunrise (543,000 to 460,000).

In regional areas, Seven was again solid with their news averaging 690,000 people, Seven News/Today Tonight was second with 542,000, then Home and Away on 504,000, followed by the 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia with 504,000 and Masterchef fifth with 333,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (27.4%)
  2. Seven (26.2%)
  3. Ten (23.3%)
  4. ABC (15.8%)
  5. SBS (7.2%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (20.4%)
  2. Ten (17.7%)
  3. Seven (15.5%)
  4. ABC (10.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.6%)
  2. 7mate (3.5%)
  3. ONE (2.9%)
  4. ABC 2, Eleven (2.7%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.69 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.50 million
  3. Nine/NBN News (6.30pm) — 1.28 million
  4. Nine/NBN News — 1.28 million
  5. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.26 million
  6. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.14 million
  7. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.14 million
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.12 million
  9. 7pm ABC News — 1.03 million
  10. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 950,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.01 million

Losers: Viewers of Seven. 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.01 million
  2. Nine News — 997,000
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 990,000
  4. Seven News/Today Tonight — 960,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 803,000
  6. 7pm ABC News —707,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 669000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 576,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 501,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 431,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 543,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 460,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  180,000 + 93,000 on News 24) — 273,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 228,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 186,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 134,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Cronulla v North Queensland (Fox League) — 217,000
  2. The Late Show With Matty Johns (Fox League) —96,000
  3. Thursday Night League (Fox League) — 82,000
  4. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 79,000
  5. Grand Designs Australia (LifeStyle) — 65,000