Seven’s night easily, despite a weak night for the 6pm to 7pm news hour with Nine winning the metros and easily accounting for Seven News in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven did better in the regionals and ended up well ahead, as usual.

Masterchef Australia  had a free kick last night, as usual on Thursday’s and while it did well — 1.07 million viewers nationally — for whatever reason, viewers do not flock to it when it has no competition from Seven’s House Rules or Nine’s The Voice. 7.30 was again weak even with an open field (except for MCA). It could only manage 704,000 viewers nationally —  including 457,000 in the metros. It is not being helped by the ABC News’ loss of audience — it could only manage 1.072 million nationally — still in the top 10, but down 200,000 or more on 2015 levels.

In AFL last night, there seemed to be only one team playing — Port Adelaide. Hawthorn were supposed to be on the ground, did anyone see them? I did notice a flash of brown and gold towards the end. Was their plane delayed? The game averaged 665,000 nationally on Seven’s main channel and 7mate. And there was a further 210,000 viewers on Foxtel. So more AFL, some NRL, a bit of cricket, and some tennis over the weekend. And the final ep of Grandchester on Sunday Night. Will the Anglicans win, or will lurve win out?

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (32.9%)
  2. Nine (23.8%)
  3. Ten (20.7%)
  4. ABC (15.4%)
  5. SBS (7.2%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (21.8%)
  2. Nine (16.6%)
  3. Ten (14.4%)
  4. ABC (10.8%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.8%)
  2. 7mate (3.8%)
  3. ONE (3.3%)
  4. Gem, Eleven (2.8%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.661 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.510 million
  3. Nine/NBN News — 1.346 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.321 million
  5. Nine/NBN News (6.30pm) — 1.289 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.128 million
  7. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.079 million
  8. 7pm ABC News — 1.072 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.068 million
  10. RBT (Nine) — 864,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.013 million
  2. Seven News — 1.004 million

Losers: Just a weak night for everyone bar Port Adelaide fans and David Koch especially.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.013 million
  2. Nine News (6.30) — 1.004 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 971,000
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 959,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 779,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 698,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 606,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 518,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 457,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 395,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 537,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 465,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  160,000 + 89,000 on News 24) — 249,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 239,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 201,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 133,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Footy (3.8%)
  2. TVHITS  (2.4%)
  3. Nick Jr, LifeStyle  (2.1%)
  4. Fox8, Fox Classics (1.8%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: Port Adelaide v Hawthorn (Fox Footy) — 210,000
  2. AFL:Thursday Night Footy (Fox Footy) — 88,000
  3. AFL:Thursday Night Footy (Fox Footy) — 71,000
  4. NRL: 360 (Fox League) — 67,000
  5. Grand Designs Australia (LifeStyle) — 58,000