The Winners: 16 programs with a million or more viewers. Two And A Half Men (a fresh ep) with 1.646 million viewers, Seven News with 1.617 million and the teaser ep of Hole In The Wall on Nine at 8pm averaged 1.555 million. It wasn’t funny at all (check out the holey footage here). Today Tonight was 4th with 1.389 million and Spicks and Specks was 5th at 8.30pm with 1.358 million.

The 7pm repeat of Two And A Half Men averaged 1.352 million for Nine. Seven’s repeat of Criminal Minds at 8.30pm averaged 1.300 million and Home And Away averaged 1.239 million at 7pm for Seven. The 7pm ABC News was 9th with 1.239 million and Nine News averaged 1.170 million viewers. The New Inventors at 8pm averaged a high 1.144 million for the ABC and Cold Case averaged 1.133 million at 9.30pm for Nine. Make Me A Supermodel (please, says Jennifer Hawkins) averaged 1.065 million on Seven from 7.30pm to 8.30pm. Ten’s ep of the US version of So You Think You Can Dance averaged 1.045 million, the ABC evening news update averaged 1.039 million and A Current Affair was 16th with 1.034 million because it didn’t air in Adelaide.

The Losers: The Hollowmen at 9.30pm on the ABC, 816,000. House repeats on Ten, 774,000 at 9.30pm; Heroes on Seven at 9.30pm, 690,000. The Hollowmen beat it, which says everything about the way Heroes has lost cred. The absence of the well-liked Seven program, RSPCA Animal Rescue at 7.30pm freed a lot of viewers for other networks: around 400,000 or so because Make Me A Supermodel, its hour replacement, only averaged just under 1.1 million viewers.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market as did Today Tonight because A Current Affair didn’t air at 6.30pm in Adelaide, so it was a big loser as a result. It got beaten in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (and Perth, which happens every night anyway.) The 7pm ABC News ran second in Sydney and Melbourne in front of Nine for a second night this week. The 7.30 Report averaged 999,000. Lateline averaged 280,000 and Lateline Business, 144,000. The Ten News At Five averaged 853,000 and the Late News/Sports Tonight, 439,000. World News Australia at 6.30pm on SBS, 208,000, the Late News at 9.30pm, 239,000. Dateline with George Negus speaking loudly 220,000. 7am Sunrise 344,000, 7am Today, 293,000.

The Stats: Nine won 6pm to midnight All People with a share of 28.4% (23.3% last week), Seven with 27.0% (31.7%), Ten with 20.1% (19.9%), the ABC with 19.7% (20.6%) and SBS with 4.8% (4.5%). Nine won Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Seven won Sydney and Perth. Nine still leads the week 28.2% to 27.4%. In regional areas a win for Nine through WIN/NBN with 32.1% from prime/7Qld with 24.6%, the ABC with 19.3%; Southern Cross (Ten) with 17.3 and SBS with 6.6%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: A solid night with Nine counter-punching well, as Seven settles down to start its Games coverage tonight with the Australian Soccer team playing Serbia. Hopefully that will neuter the Footy Shows on Nine. The NRL has an “exclusive” with Sonny Bill Williams, the runaway NRL player now in France trying to learn Rugby Union. From reports in the Sydney media today Williams and his camp (Anthony Mundine and Mundine’s manager) are attempting to play the race and religion card. If it’s true, Australia is well rid of Williams who remains an object of interest for the News Ltd papers because of the threat he represents to News Ltd’s 50% ownership of the game.

The AFL Footy Show will be interesting for the following reasons: Can Sam Newman survive last week and his stupidity; will the Footy Show get stuck into Collingwood and Eddie McGuire for the drink driving lying story from two leading players? The Williams and Collingwood stories are fascinating, but the lessons will be lost on both Footy programs, who are part of the problem, not the solution.

The problems at Collingwood can be found in the behaviour at Nine over the years by one Eddie McGuire and the way he grabbed large amounts of money with both hands, especially since his failure as CEO. The problems in the NRL can be found in the way News Ltd controls the game and extracts an $8 million a year rake-off for no apparent return. News Ltd football and gossip writers in Sydney build up these players and exploit them for circulation and other commercial reasons, then tear them down.

It was the Daily Telegraph website that hosted the phone photo “joining” of Sonny Bill Williams and athlete Candice Falzon in a toilet stall in a Sydney hotel (which was replayed this week in a story on Williams). That photo could be construed as a breach of privacy and yet News Ltd journalists (who also refused to front the Nine NRL Footy Show last week to discuss the story and their coverage) help create the problems, then cry crisis and scandal.

If you don’t want the Games tonight or sport of any kind, there’s Inspector Rex on SBS (exhumed, again), Law And Orders on Ten and the appalling CSI Miami on Nine. Seven tries to rev up Make Me A Supermodel at 8pm before the Soccer game starts at 9pm. After last night’s 1.065 million for Supermodel, it needs every little bit of help.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports.