Nine’s night, thanks to a special from The Block  —  it will be all programming filler from here to the climax next weekend.  This  is called “milking it for all the ratings you can get”. And it did the job, with 1.70 million national viewers. The Four Corners special report on the flailing NBN grabbed 1.05 million national viewers. Ten’s attracted 1.04 million viewers nationally. Ten’s main channel share doubled to 13.6% last night from Sunday’s 6.8%.

Seen News in Sydney beat Nine News from 6pm to 6.30pm for the third time in a week. Not a trend but an intriguing weakening at Nine. Media Watch grabbed 917,000 national viewers (thanks 4 Cs) and included anther good kick at Alan Jones for his bizarre and repeated claim that Macau is a Muslim or Muslim-dominated country. Q&A had 833,000 national viewers with yet another discussion of marriage.

While Nine won the night and won it easily, Seven finished third behind Nine and the ABC in the main channels — where all the real TV programming action happens. That is a measure of how Seven is running dead until Nine completes The Block. In regional areas the top five programs were — Seven News back on top with 588,000, The Block fell to second with 538,000, third was Seven News/TT with 500,000, then Home and Away with 453,000 and the 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia with 379,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (28.5%)
  2. Seven (25.0%)
  3. ABC (21.1%)
  4. Ten (18.4%)
  5. SBS (7.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (21.8%)
  2. ABC (16.4%)
  3. Seven (14.9%)
  4. Ten (13.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.5%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.5%)
  2. 7TWO (4.3%)
  3. ABC 2 (3.1%)
  4. ONE (2.9%)
  5. GO (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. The Block Special (Nine) — 1.707 million
  2. Seven News  — 1.597 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.495 million
  4. Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.260 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.253 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.215 million
  7. Nine/NBN News — 1.212 million
  8. Four Corners (ABC) — 1.059 million
  9. 7pm ABC News — 1.056 million
  10. Have You been Paying Attention (Ten) — 1.044 million

Top metro programs:

  1. The Block Special (Nine) — 1.168 million
  2. Seven News — 1.004 million

Losers: Seven

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.004 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 995,000
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 946,000
  4. Nine News — 916,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 870,000
  6. Four Corners (ABC) — 774,000
  7. 7pm ABC News — 704,000
  8. Media Watch (ABC) — 667,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 634,000
  10. Australian Story (ABC) — 616,000

Morning (national) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 427,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 423,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC, 156,000 + 83,000 on News 24) — 239,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 237,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 167, 000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 125,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Outlander (showcase) — 83,000
  2. The Walking Dead (Fx) — 74,000
  3. The Walking Dead (Fx) — 61,000
  4. F1: US GP  (Fox Sports) — 59,000
  5. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 56,000