Gladys Berejiklian NSW COVID-19
(Image: AAP/Dean Lewins)

An ordinary Monday night with the usual cast of wasteful “reality” programs clogging up the airways: MasterChef on Ten, 852,000; Australian Ninja Warrior on Nine, 871,000; the second last ep of this year’s Big Brother, 953,000; Have You Been Paying Attention? on Ten, 895,000.

So it was Nine’s night from Seven and Ten in a close finish in total people and the main channels, while the demos were shared.

But the interesting development was the upsurge in viewing in breakfast, mornings and early evening news because of the COVID lockdowns around the country. School holidays helped lift post-9am viewing. An extra 100,000 viewers tuned in to breakfast from 7am, most choosing Seven’s Sunrise (compared with a week ago), followed by the ABC’s News Breakfast and then Nine’s Today. Seven’s The Morning Show and Today Extra had more than 100,000 extra viewers yesterday.

In the early evening news, more than 400,000 extra viewers tuned in to the 6 to 7.30pm news and current affairs programs. The higher viewing was across metro and regions. In Sydney, viewers preferred Nine by about 40,000 extra viewers from 6 to 6.30pm — 371,000 to 331,000. The 371,000 was the largest single program figure nationally. The audience for the ABC’s morning news (post-9am) doubled to more than 430,000 on ABC and ABC News — especially with the expected late morning briefings from the NSW and Victorian governments. ABC news’ share of free-to-air viewing rise as well as in prime time.

Breakfast: Seven’s Sunrise, 495,000 nationally and 284,000 metro; Nine’s Today, 329,000 and 228,000; News Breakfast, 302,000 and 205,000.

Regional top five: Seven News 675,000; Seven News 6.30, 621,000; The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 417,000; 7pm ABC News, 389,000; Home and Away, 385,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (27.3%)
  2. Seven (26.8%)
  3. Ten (20.9%)
  4. ABC (17.6%)
  5. SBS (7.4%)


Network main channels:

  1. Nine (20.2%)
  2. Seven (19.0%)
  3. Ten (13.9%)
  4. ABC (12.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.8%)


Top 5 digital channels:

  1. 10 Bold (4.1%)
  2. 7TWO (3.5%)
  3. ABC News (3.0%)
  4. 7mate (2.8%)
  5. Gem (2.5%)


Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.897 million
  2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.748 million
  3. Nine News — 1.491 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.414 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 1.215 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.164 million
  7. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.064 million
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 1.061 million
  9. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.027 million
  10. Big Brother (Seven) — 953,000


Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.122 million
  2. Nine News — 1.177 million
  3. Seven News 6.30 — 1.128 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.095 million


Losers: Australian Ninja Warrior

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.122 million
  2. Nine News — 1.177 million
  3. Seven News 6.30 — 1.128 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.095 million
  5. ACA (Nine) — 831,000
  6. 7pm ABC News —826,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 711,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 501,000
  9. Media Watch (ABC) — 490,000
  10. Four Corners (ABC) — 471,000


Morning (national) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 495,000/284,000
  2. Today (Nine) — 329,000/228,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 332,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC) — 302,000/204,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 228,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 54,000


Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) — 76,000
  2. Credlin (Sky News) — 69,000
  3. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 68,000
  4. The Kenny Report (Sky News) — 65,000
  5. NRL: 360 (Fox League) — 64,000