Nine won the metros and regions last night, as it always does when State of Origin is about. But the network will find it hard to fight off Seven for the week with three AFL games in a row till Saturday, which out rate the NRL games. Nine leads the week 31.4% to 28.3% in total people and 24.4% to 20.6% in the main channels, but by the end of prime time on Saturday night, it will be a close run thing. The first game of the 2017 Origin series was top rate, and as far as viewers were concerned, it deserved more. 

Nine will be happy with the 3.52 million national audience, but that was sharply lower than the 3.8 million who watched game one of last year’s series. In fact the audience for last night was the lowest for Game one since 2011 and the lowest for any game since Game 3 of the 2015 series. 2.34 million watched in the metros according to the preliminary figures from Oztam, down 10% from Game one last year. The regional audience dipped slightly to 1.17 million from 1.20 million. With Game two in Sydney in three weeks and NSW ahead the audience should rise, especially in Sydney. Will Queenslanders return in the same numbers? It was a weak performance last night.

Elsewhere, nothing else mattered. Masterchef soldiered on manfully for Ten with 963,000 (down from 1.1 million for the same night in 2016) and House Rules was split with Sydney and Brisbane and the NSW and Queensland regionals getting the episode tonight that aired in AFL markets on Seven’s main channel last night.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (45.2%)
  2. Seven (21.8%)
  3. Ten (15.2%)
  4. ABC (12.9%)
  5. SBS (4.8%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (38.3%)
  2. Seven (15.5%)
  3. Ten (11.0%)
  4. ABC (8.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. ABC 2, Gem (2.6%)
  2. GO (2.5%)
  3. 7TWO (2.4%)
  4. ONE (2.2%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. State of Origin 1 Match (Nine) — 3.527 million
  2. State of Origin 1 Pre-Game (Nine) —2.276 million
  3. State of Origin 1 Post-Game (Nine) — 1.905 million
  4. Seven News  — 1.835 million
  5. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.598 million
  6. Nine/NBN News (6.30pm)— 1.364 million
  7. Nine/NBN News  — 1.349 million
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.336million
  9. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.2398 million
  10. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.130 million

Top metro programs:

  1. State of Origin 1 Match (Nine) — 2.348 million
  2. State of Origin 1 Pre-Game (Nine) — 1.509 million
  3. State of Origin 1 Post-Game (Nine) — 1.201 million
  4. Seven News — 1.126 million
  5. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.038 million
  6. Nine News — 1.009million
  7. Nine News 6.30 — 1.003 million

Losers: No one — well, apart from the Queensland Origin team. Teehee.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.126 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.038 million
  3. Nine News — 1.009 million
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.003 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 912,000
  6. 7pm ABC News —681,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 603,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 519,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 498,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 409,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 533,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 464000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  177,000 + 80,000 on News 24) — 257,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 226,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 191,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 143,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. TVHITS  (2.3%)
  2. LifeStyle  (1.7%)
  3. Fox 8  (1.6%)
  4. Fox Classics (1.5%)
  5. Sky News (1.4%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL Tonight (Fox League) — 90,000
  2. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 64,000
  3. The Big Bang Theory (Comedy Channel) — 54,000
  4. Curious George (Nick Jr) — 52,000
  5. Mickey and the Roadster Racers (Disney Jr) — 45,000