Yes, Behave Yourself on Seven was a howler — a real average piece of TV — as suggested yesterday. It could only manage 824,000 national viewers which is barely tolerable, with a weak 510,000 in the metros. It is a laboured rip of Have You Been Paying Attention? on Ten, which has had time to settle down and become an attractive option for casual viewers. Masterchef did well for Ten with 1.16 million people nationally and helped push Ten past Nine in the metro main channels. Nine’s 20 to 1 was a wreck — just 724,000 national viewers at 7.30pm. It was squashed by Masterchef and Seven’s House Rules, which was the third most watched program last night with 1.62 million. Nine’s Love Child at 8.30pm struggled as well and was watched by 807,000 nationally. It needs a cuddle from viewers.

Seven won the regionals with another sweep of the top five: Seven News, 701,000, House Rules, 651,000, Seven News/Today Tonight with 563,000, Home and Away with 507,000 and the Chase Australia (5.30pm) on 476,000.

Tonight — Shaun Micallef and Mad As Hell welcomes back the Bill Shorten zinger, and Nina is faffy-minded (again) on Offspring. And the Tour de France enters some hills with categories on Stage 5 tonight on SBS. We have had three nights of spills so far and the major ejection of the favoured sprinter and world champeen in Peter Sagan after a fall on Stage 4 overnight Tuesday.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (30.3%)
  2. Nine (24.6%)
  3. Ten (23.1%)
  4. ABC (13.9%)
  5. SBS (8.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (21.5%)
  2. Ten (17.0%)
  3. Nine (16.5%)
  4. ABC (9.7%)
  5. SBS ONE (6.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (3.9%)
  2. ONE (3.7%)
  3. Gem (3.4%))
  4. GO (3.0%)
  5. 7TWO (2.9%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.774 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.657 million
  3. House Rules (Seven) — 1.627 million
  4. Nine/NBN News — 1.298 million
  5. Nine/NBN News (6.30pm) — 1.291 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.239 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.206 million
  8. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.165 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.120 million
  10. 7pm ABC News — 1.033 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.094 million
  2. Seven News — 1.073 million
  3. Nine News — 1.016 million

Losers: 7.30 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.094 million
  2. Seven News — 1.073 million
  3. Nine News — 1.016 million
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 933,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 878,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 746,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 609,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 524,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 512,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 412,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 485,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 415,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  183,000 + 77,000 on News 24) — 260,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 232,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 221,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 120,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. TVHITS  (2.6%)
  2. Fox 8  (2.2%)
  3. Sky News (1.9%)
  4. LifeStyle, Nick Jr  (1.5%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 96,000
  2. Back Page (Fox Sports) — 72,000
  3. Jones and Co (Sky News); AFL: Open Mike (Fox Footy) — 54,000
  4. The Big Bang Theory (Comedy Channel); Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 52,000