Lego Masters blocks the competition

Nine’s night as Lego Masters again dominated, though viewers turned right off 60 Minutes. LM averaged a very solid 1.548 million nationally, while 60 Minutes hit 871,000. The same happened last week. We can tell from that fall that LM attracts a very large group of young viewers and young families, not the codger group that tends to watch current affairs programs (like me) these days, a dying minority.

Nine won the night easily against a trailling Seven and Ten. Seven’s House Rules averaged 1.023 million, which should be encouraging, but Ten’s MasterChef Australia held its own with an average 1.270 million.

The ABC’s Insiders had another strong morning with 749,000 national viewers. And panellist Virginia Trioli (radio host of mornings on ABC Melbourne) did a Greg Sheridan and used her observation at the end of the program (where Sheridan chided the ABC for being biased in its coverage of George Pell the previous Sunday) to point out that Sheridan had hung up on her on her radio program last week when she disputed one of the points he made in his comments — that the ABC was somehow responsible for the Tim Minchin song which disparaged Pell.

Trioli came up with the classic riposte to Sheridan – that “People with glass jaws shouldn’t throw stones”. Over now to our guest TV critic and expert Gerrard Henderson to take both Trioli and Sheridan to task, as he did me in his weekly rave in the Weekend Australian at the weekend.

In the regions: Seven News, 603,000; Nine News, 403,000; House Rules, 383,000; 7pm ABC News, 382,000; Lego Masters, 377,000.

Network channel shares

1. Nine (32.3%)
2. Seven (24.1%)
3. Ten (20.4%)
4. ABC (15.3%)
5. SBS (7.9%)

Network main channels:

1. Nine (24.4%)
2. Seven (17.4%)
3. Ten (15.1%)
4. ABC (11.2%)
5. SBS ONE (6.0%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. 10 BOLD (3.3%)
2. 7mate (3.0%)
3. GO (2.9%)
4. Gem (2.7%)
5. 7TWO (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. Seven News — 1.874 million
2. Lego Masters (Nine) — 1.548 million
3. Nine/NBN News  — 1.540 million
4. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.270 million
5. 7pm ABC News — 1.207 million
6. House Rules (Seven) — 1.023 million
7. The Virus (ABC)  — 906,000
8. Mystery Road (ABC) — 878,000
9. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 871,000
10. The Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 842,000

Top metro programs:

1. Seven News — 1.270 million
2. Lego Masters  (Nine) — 1.171 million
3. Nine News  — 1.138 million

Losers: Seven — just weak.

Metro news and current affairs:

1. Seven News — 1.270 million
2. Nine News  — 1.138 million
3. 7pm ABC News — 826,000
4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 629,000
5. The Virus (ABC) — 608,000
6. The Sunday Project 7pm (Ten) — 588,000
7. Ten News First — 374,000
8. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 354,000
9. SBS World News — 280,000

Morning (National) TV:

1. Insiders (ABC, ABC News) — 749,000
2. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) — 557,000
3. Landline (ABC)  (Nine) — 491,000
4. Weekend Today (Nine) — 318,000
5. Offsiders (ABC) — 268,000
6. Sports Sunday (Nine) — 204,000

Top five pay TV programs:

1. Outsiders (Sky News) — 94,000
2. Outsiders (Sky News) — 82,000
3. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 72,000
4. Ride Like A Girl (Movies Premiere) — 55,000
5. Midsomer Murders (UKTV) — 52,000