An unfortunate ad placement. From today’s Sydney Morning Herald website: 

 

The Winners: Seven’s City Homicide had its best figures since launching and topped the most watched list with 1.722 million. Border Security was next with 1.678 million, followed by Seven News (1.429 million), Home And Away  (1.406 million), Surf Patrol  (1.334 million) and Today Tonight  (1.328 million). Nine News was next with 1.326 million and then came A Current Affair with 1.261 million. Seven’s 9.30pm program, Criminal Minds averaged 1.245 million and won the timeslot (strange how it doesn’t work at 8.30pm Wednesdays). Idol ‘s verdict ep averaged 1.231 million, with the 7pm ABC News next with 1.179 million. Enough Rope had 1.130 million and the final Australian Story of the year averaged a strong 1.070 million. Millionaire averaged 1 million and Ten’s 8.30pm program Supernatural wasn’t far behind with 990,000. Nine’s movie, The Longest Yard , 895,000.  Mythbusters in repeat on SBS, 456,000.

The Losers: Ten. Apart from Idol , nothing really worked. Millionaire made the 1 million viewer mark, but Nine shouldn’t crow. It spent most of the night running third or fourth behind Seven, Ten and the ABC. Millionaire is held up by the big audience in Melbourne where they remain loyal to Eddie McGuire and ignore the damage he did to the Nine Network. Californication on Ten, 785,000.

News & CA: Seven News and Today Tonight needed their usual big margins in Perth to win for the first time in a week or so. Seven News won by 103,000 nationally and 139,000 in Perth. TT won by 77,000 nationally and 120,000 in Perth. The 7pm ABC News was second behind Nine in the Melbourne news rankings. Ten News averaged 897,000; the Late News/ Sports Tonight , 325,000.  Nightline , 229,000. The 7.30 Report , 829,000; Lateline , 430,000; Lateline Business , 151,000. SBS News, 169,000 at 6.30pm; 133,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise , 418,000; 7am Today , 285,000.

The Stats: Seven won with 32.2% (33.5% a week ago) from Nine with 23.5% (22.1%), Ten with 19.9% (20.7%), the ABC on 18.5% (16.9%) and SBS with 5.9% (7.1%). Seven won all five metro markets and leads the week 29.1% to 25.6%. In regional areas a win to Prime/7Qld with 31.0% from WIN/NBN with 23.7%, Southern Cross with 19.3% (18.8%) for Ten, the ABC with 18.8% and SBS with 7.1%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments:  Andrew Denton went quite a few rounds with John Laws last night and the viewer was left with the strong idea that the soon to retire microphone jockey still has no idea of what was wrong with the cash for comment scandal back in the late 1990s. The example with The Australian Bankers Association remains amazing to this day and his complete lack of understanding of what Denton was asking him was incredible. Tonight on TV, it’s Seven and then daylight with Dancing With The Stars and All Saints heading the bill. Will NRL star Willie Mason be on Dancing With The Stars next year? Word is he will, unless Nine can find more money and a matching gig.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports