Ratings the front bar
The Front Bar (Image: Channel 7)

Seven’s The Front Bar won the first round of the winter sports TV battle last night. It had 614,000 national viewers (302,000 in Melbourne alone), beating the NRL game on Nine (564,000) and the first session of the Cricket World Cup on Nine Gem (208,000). 

MasterChef had a national audience of 873,000 and was the most watched program after 7.30pm. Home and Away at 7pm had 999,000, while Seven News again stunned Nine with 1.63 million nationally — easily beating Nine News’ 1.16 million. That was a winning margin of 472,000! While Nine News beat Seven News in Sydney, Seven reversed the result in Melbourne and won the night by a margin of 50,000 at one stage, which is of the largest wins by Seven News in the slot for a while.

In regional markets Seven’s 6pm News led with 622,000, from Seven News/Today Tonight with 539,000, The Chase Australia 5.30pm with 426,000, then Home and Away with 381,000 and the 7pm ABC News with 344,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (32.8%)
  2. Nine (26.6%)
  3. Ten (18.7%)
  4. ABC (15.5%)
  5. SBS (6.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (21.3%)
  2. Nine (18.5%)
  3. Ten (12.8%)
  4. ABC (10.4%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.6%)
  2. Gem (4.5%)
  3. 10 Bold (3.5%)
  4. 7mate (3.2%)
  5. ABC Kids/Comedy (3.0%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.634 million
  2. Seven News/TT —  1.528 million
  3. Nine/NBN News — 1.162 million
  4. Nine/NBN News 6.30 — 1.151 million
  5. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.015 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.012 million
  7. Home and Away (Seven) — 999,000
  8. 7pm ABC News (ABC)  — 990,000
  9. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 873,000
  10. 7.30 (ABC) — 796,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News– 1.012 million

Losers: Nine and Ten.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.120 million
  2. Seven News/TT — 988,000
  3. Nine News — 871,000
  4. Nine News 6.30pm — 852,000
  5. ACA (Nine) — 733,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 646,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 506,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 436,000
  9. 10 News First  — 378,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 275,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 493,000 (Metros: 298,000)
  2. Today (Nine) —294,000 (Metros: 192,000)
  3. ABC News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) —237,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 220,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 132,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 85,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Penrith v Manly (Fox League) — 223,000
  2. NRL: The Late ShowWith Matty Johns (Fox League) — 110,000
  3. Cricket: World Cup, England v South Africa (Fox Cricket) — 101,000 
  4. Cricket: World Cup, England v South Africa Innings Break (Fox Cricket) — 89,000 
  5. Aussie Gold Hunters (Discovery) — 72,000