(Image: Seven)

Tour de France withdrawal — an annual complaint. Hard to treat, especially with borders closed and travel curtailed. French produce and its derivatives needed to ease the pains. Ideal lockdown treatments: Farmer Wants A Wife for Seven — 1.16 million national viewers, the most watched non-news program. After the Katie Hopkins Big Brother debacle, Seven needs a nice story winner and this series of Farmer is just the tonic.

Ten’s Have You Been Paying Attention with 961,000 just topped its lead in — the second ep of Australian Survivor with 954,000. Nine’s Beauty and The Geek had 790,000 viewers.

But these programs were ephemera. The real story was the spread of the Delta strain, which saw Seven’s 6pm news jump to 1.97 million viewers and Nine’s 6pm news jump to nearly 1.56 million — with 410,000 in Melbourne and 382,000 in Sydney, the top two audiences for any program anywhere. In the regions, Seven News averaged 740,000. All around their highs for quite a while.

Seven’s night from Nine and Ten close by in third.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (26.3%)
  2. Nine (24.6%)
  3. Ten (25.4%)
  4. ABC (16.8%)
  5. SBS (6.9%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (19.3%)
  2. Nine (17.7%)
  3. Ten (17.4%)
  4. ABC (12.0%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.5%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 10 Bold (4.5%)
  2. 7TWO (3.0%)
  3. 10 Peach (2.9%)
  4. 7mate (2.7%)
  5. GO (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.974 million
  2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.843 million
  3. Nine News — 1.593 million
  4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.458 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 1.193 million
  6. Farmer Wants A Wife (Seven) — 1.165 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.141 million
  8. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.084 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) —1.043 million
  10. 7.30 (ABC) — 990,000

Top metro programs: 

  1. Seven News — 1.234 million
  2. Nine News — 1.222 million
  3. Seven News 6.30 — 1.159 million
  4. Seven News 6.30 — 1.124 million

Losers:  Beauty And The Geek

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.234 million
  2. Nine News — 1.222 million
  3. Seven News 6.30 — 1.159 million
  4. Seven News 6.30 — 1.124 million
  5. ACA (Nine) — 827,000
  6. 7pm ABC News — 809,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 690,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 571,000
  9. Ten News First — 485,000
  10. Media Watch (ABC) — 450,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 490,000/275,000
  2. Today (Nine) — 332,000/225,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 341,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC) — 305,000/201,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 207,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) —60,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Credlin (Sky News) — 88,000
  2. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 87,000
  3. Wild West Tales From Tiger Town (Fox League) — 74,000
  4. NRL: 360 (Fox League) — 72,000
  5. Alan Jones (Sky News) — 70,000